Customer Reviews

Brilliant From Birth: Birth of Brilliance 2

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If you are a Bee Gees fan, you'll want to check this one out. This CD represents The Bee Gees before the fame. From ballads like "Cherry Red", "Don't Say Goodbye","In The Morning", and "I Don't Think It's Funny", to rockers like "I Want Home", "You Wouldn't Know", "Peace Of Mind", and "To Be Or Not To Be", and covers of songs like "You Won't See Me", "Can't You See That She's Mine", "The End", and "Every Day I Have To Cry". 63 great tracks in all, this is the ultimate early Bee Gees package. The booklet that comes with this is very informative and interesting. If you're curious as to how the Bee Gees were before they became stars, this package is the one to get. Worth every cent, and a 10-star rating as well.

With so many budget albums out there that have the early recordings of The Bee Gees in various combinations, it seemed difficult to get them all without having to many duplicates.
This double album makes it easy. Not all songs are all that great, but you can certainly follow the development of the typical early Bee Gees sound. I also like the cover versions of Lennon & McCartney songs they do on this album.
So if you want the very early stuff, buy this one - you won't need any other then.

Three Kisses Of Love, The BeeGees Sing And Play 14 Barry Gibb Songs, Claustrophobia, Spicks and Specks, etc... all early albums/ compliations. And many many more. I had 3 of them before I finally found this, which has every single early recording of the BeeGees before theycame out with First. I Want Home, How Love Was True, You Wouldn't Know, I Was A Lover A Leader Of Men, Claustrophobia, and Big Chance some of my favorites. A couple of the tracks are not theirs. Just One Look and Daydream. Maybe that's why they don't sound that great, knowing it's not theirs. But still, forget about all those other compilations. Save some money and get this. You'll have all of them in one.

Festival Records first released, "Birth Of Brilliance 1963-1966" in 1978 on a double LP. Later, in the mid-90's, it was released and remastered on a Double CD with 32 songs from the Bee Gees early Australian years.

Now Festival has released, "Brilliant From Birth" (Don't get confused) as another Double CD collection. The latter having 31 more songs on it (63 in total).

For the (price)extra, it is worth owning over "Birth Of Brilliance 1963-1966". The additional songs are more overdubs on prerecorded instrumentals, many from stage productions and standards ("Twelth Of Never"), ("You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You"), ("Somewhere"), etc. In themselves, they are unremarkable, save for the maturity and range of the Gibb Brothers vocals.

In all, this set contains mostly Bee Gees originals with Beatle's covers and standard songs from the late '50's and early '60's. The packaging is more appealing than the first collection and the liner notes are more interesting and up to date. The choice would be "Brilliant From Birth" over "Birth Of Brilliance". Confused? I was.

There are various other CDs out there featuring various quantities of Bee Gees material from their recording days in Australia (1963-1966), like Birth of Brilliance, In the Beginning, Big Chance and so forth. This one is the one you want to get because it has 63 songs. Whereas other give you samplings, this gives you the whole package. It has all the tracks from "BeeGees Sing 14 Barry Gibb Songs" plus the singles and b-sides (including their 1963 debut single Battle of the Blue and the Grey) and even some recordings from the TV show on disc one, while disc two has all the stuff from "Spicks & Speaks" singles, b-sides and other stuff.

You get perhaps a bit more than you were looking for as granted some of the cover tunes from their TV show days on disc one are a bit superfluous. It does though show their diversity as they cover everthing from West Side Story to Ray Chales.

The brothers at this stage do bare the clear influence of the Beatles on many songs. In fact if you were given a copy of this collection without any labelling you might be fooled to think you found some lost Beatles recordings. Barry and Robin at times are uncannily like John and Paul. But hey even the Beatles immitated the style of other people they liked in their early recordings. There's even four Beatles cover songs in the collection too, so no one is denying the Beatles were an influence. Other songs though bare the influences of other big artists of the day like the Righteous Brothers.

The impressive thing about the BeeGees is that from the beginning they wrote their own songs. Seldom did they try to have singles with other people's songs and their originals sound better than those few that are not. The BeeGees prefered to sink or swim on their own material. And they made all these recordings while still teenagers.

Some of the stand out tracks include "Spick and Specks" (their first Aussie #1) though I think the version of it on The Record sounds better. The B-side "I Am the World" really shows Robin coming into his own as does "Storm". "Wine and Women" was their first Aussie top 20 and is a great song as is "I Want Home" to name but a few.

There's so much stuff in this collection and chances are you can find a copy of it just as cheep as some of the other ones that only have half the stuff so it's worthwhile to get this. There's plenty of great stuff in here.

Any Bee Gees fan looking for a definitive collection of their early years, need look no longer. This two disc, 63 track collection has got it covered. For the Bee Gees fan who enjoys all of their music, this is a must have collection. The liner notes give one an informative view of the pre-stardom years. As with all artists, there are a few tracks which are not that good, but there are some great classic early Bee Gees tracks, such as "Don't Say Goodbye", "Claustrophobia", "Follow The Wind", and what I consider to be their two best tracks, "Spicks and Specks" and the great "I Was A Lover, A Leader of Men". Again this is a must have collection for the Bee Gees fan.

It is so good to listen to this group as it matured to become the great writers they are. Having been a listener early on, this two-disc set is essential to gauge the growth in patterns and harmonies they displayed later in their careers. "Brilliant from Birth" may seem a little strong, but, in retrospect, "brilliant" is the word for the Bee Gees.

Well, here it is at last, after years of collecting bootleg cassettes, vinyls and cds and out of print compilations, nothing beats this, the complete collection of their early recordings before 1941 NY Mining Disaster. While this may be for completists and die-hard fans, you'll be surprised at the high quality material found in this package. At the tender age of 17, I think, Barry was a superb tunesmith, much better than Lennon-Mccartney in the early days, though BG sought to produce forgettable boring albums in the early 70s.

You'll find a lot of sweet love tunes here, and some mature and serious songs, And Children Laughing, Secondhand People and In the Morning being my favourites. However, I find it quite an embarrassment in those cover versions of Beatles songs and 50s oldies. Nonetheless, a definite buy for fans

If you see the Bee Gees only as the Saturday Night Fever disco-type band, prepare yourself for a shock. Here we have the first recordings made by the band from 1963 to 1966, and we can see how they were influenced by all kinds of music, from old dusty standards from the then-newest pop sound. What the Bee Gees did in these times was first-rate pop music, sometimes with distorted guitars (yes!), brilliant melodies, and (if you except a few tracks) no heavy and annoying orchestral backing like they would do so often later. A message to pop/rock'n'roll fans: before you dismiss the Bee Gees as a no-good MOR band, please listen to some tracks on this set like "I want home", "Exit stage right", "To be or not to be" or "Like Nobody Else". It's absolutely NOTHING like what they do now !