Customer Reviews

Impact! Songs That Changed the World - The Bee Gees: Stayin' Alive

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is one of a series of 12 reasonably priced ($9.99 list) DVDs released in the US by SRO (Part of Kultur International) under the umbrella "Impact: Songs That Changed The World". Each runs about 24 minutes as it was co-produced by Canadain TV and broadcast on the cable CMT network in the US in 2002 and 2003.

I could cell from the quality of the editing - even before I saw the end credits - that this was produced by Gregory Hall. Hall - who also makes music documentaries under his own Hallmark Productions banner - has been cranking these out for about 20 years years now. I first saw his Country Music bios. They've always been well edited and usually contain great interview "sound bites". The four volumes in this series that I;ve watched so far are no exception. Some of the interviews were recent at the time of the show's production while some go back to the 80s and 90s and have appeared in other Hall productions. (You can tell by the locations where they were taped.)

Most of the Impact series DVDs cover more than the single records that are the topics. They also cover the impact that artist - at that point in time - had on our culture from style of dress to style of music.

Style is what it was all about in 1978 when the Bee Gees recorded "Stayin' Alive" for the soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever. (Actually they had written it with a different tile years before the film. When John Travolta, walked down the Brooklyn street to that tune at the beginning of the film, the whole Disco craze began. Gloria Gaynor, another big disco singer gets lots of interview time. We also here from fashion designer Betsey Johnson (who appears on other volumes like the Madonna "Like A Virgin" DVD). There's some really interesting interviews here including the Chicago DJ who organized the first huge Disco Record Demolition Derby before a White Sox game where they exploded a huge pile of disco records brought by fans. This episode is more about disco than the single of "Stayin' Alive" but it's still fascinating.

Like the others in this series the DVD does a really nice job of presenting a sociological study of how one single pop record can affect a whole culture, without belaboring the point. These DVDS will leave a legacy to the next generation and can be very useful in, not only music history classes but in the study of late 20th century "pop culture"


Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"

Do not buy this DVD!!!! There are no songs being played. Just people making comments about the Bee Gees. This should not have been offered as a music DVD!!

It's amazing that so many of the people interviewed for this story referred to `Stayin' Alive' as a disco song, when in fact, it was an R & B song. You cannot dance to the song. Regardless, this 23-minute documentary does a good job of telling the story of the late seventies and the era of disco. While disco was a common phrase for a dance club in Europe, the USA only caught on in the seventies.

That era long had dance music underground with blacks and gays, but when "Saturday Night Fever" was released, it put a fresh `acceptable', almost all-American face to disco. It also represented an era full of excesses of sex, drugs and music (less rock and roll, which was threatened). Remember Studio 54 and the outfits, the cocaine, drugs, parties and money excess? That was fueled by the dance/disco explosion, which was ready to implode. This documentary shows the footage at a Chicago baseball stadium where a mid-game event blew up thousands of disco records while the crowd chanted `disco sucks'. Leave it to history to blame the Bee Gees for the excess and debacle of the era, where they were only asked to produce their latest songs from a new studio album for the movie. In fact, of the six songs they performed on the album, only three are danceable.

There are some good insights from celebrities like Gloria Gaynor, Hall & Oates, the Hanson's and just Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees. Looking back it was a huge cultural event that has found its solid place in history. It's also ironically presented that the end of disco timed with Ronald Reagan's election as President; a so-called end to excess, whereas it was only an end to dance music social excess. This short documentary is worth a watch to realize that a British band called the Bee Gees was able to top the charts over and over in its history, but it's not a pleasant look at the history of disco.

This I was a little disappointed but not to much. It was interesting and well I loved the music in this. But it was not what I expected. It was also interesting as well.

This is a very nice way to remember this beautiful and essential song. The Bee Gees is one of the greatest and influential groups of our time, and this DVD celebrates this song and their music.

This DVD is a must have for Bee Gees fans.