Customer Reviews

Living Eyes

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

To start off describing this album, can I tell you how much my heart skipped a beat when I found this record at a thrift shop? (Actually it turned out it was the empty sleeve, but anyway!) Perhaps more so the Bee Gees `lost album' than their unreleased A Kick In The Head is Worth Eight In The Pants, It took me four months to download this shrouded rarity of an album.

Released in 1981, Living Eyes was mostly dismissed by fans and critics. Everyone seemed tired of the Bee Gees music, and more interested their legal and personal matters. Living Eyes is a sweet poetic song, but the album's title track barely made the charts. The release quickly faded away, and Living Eyes fell into the diamond in the rough category.

He's A Liar is the second track on the album, but was mistakenly the first single. Perhaps the brothers went the opposite extreme in trying to change their sound. This one reminds me of the chase scene at the end of the original Terminator, and it has a big 2 in my play count column. Ahem. Moving on.

Paradise should have been the single. This album is less on the Barry solo falsetto fest and more of the classic lyrics and harmonies that made the brothers. Barry and Robin sound excellent here. Again my marker, even my mom likes this one!

By golly if you don't sing along to at least one part of Don't Fall In Love With Me, you aren't human. The first Robin track on the album has you hooked from its opening orchestral revving through Robin's staple whail fest. The lyrics are excellent and Robin's voice seems stronger than when we last heard it. This song should be called Paradox, because you can't help falling in love with it.

Soldiers is in the style of the brothers story type song, but it's falsetto tone can seem at odds with its rough soldier lyrics. Still, it's got a great interlude that I just love singing along to. On it's own it's a good song, but placing it after Don't Fall In Love With Me, Soldiers can seem like a let down. Besides, not everybody can sing high enough to sing along to it

I Still Love You is another very strong outing by Robin. Sharing part of the lead with Maurice, some days I don't know which hooks you more. I Still Love You or Don't Fall In Love With Me? The lyrics and emotion this album are top notch, perhaps even higher than the latter stages of what became commercially driven `Fever'.

Wait a minute? What is this? Is that Brother Mo I hear? It is, folks. Maurice's Wildflower was his best song prior to Walking on Air, in my opinion. It's easy country feel and sound are excellent. I'm running out of adjectives to describe this album!

Despite the renewed vigor of Robin and Maurice, Barry was not to be out done. Nothing Could Be Good should be right behind Guilty when people think of the Barry love song. It's a bit of a nod to the old days, with a step up.

Crying Everyday, however, is the jawdropper of the album for me. Robin turned on a dime from his Quaver self to 80s Dance King. Crying Everyday is a sign of the music that was to come, plus it has the ballad lyrics and harmonies we expect. The Bee Gees exceed one's expectations this album.

The final song on Living Eyes is Be Who You Are. Barry delivers and orchestral and vocal and lyrical and everything masterpiece. Masterpiece may be a good word to describe this album. Living Eyes represents each brother and each Gibb style, yet it is smooth and flows perfectly. Two years after Fever, the brothers showed their musical know how, and it still works today, perhaps better than `Fever'. A must in your collection. Not for its rarity but because its so damn good.

You want it? Email me. 80) Happy Holidays everyone.

Living Eyes:

Following the disco backlash of 1980, the Bee Gees were looking for a new sound. Desperately trying to escape the "Saturday Night Fever" syndrome, they created "Living Eyes". Topping "Saturday Night Fever" and the #1 smash follow up, "Spirits Having Flown" proved to be a difficult task. Unfortunately, "Living Eyes" failed to pull the brothers out of the shadows of the "fever". Just because radio, most fans and the public did not embrace this album, doesn't mean that there aren't some fantastic songs contained in it. Like a lot of post-fever, underrated Bee Gees albums, "Living Eyes" was a gem that was entirely overlooked. I love this album. I think it's one of the best that the Brothers have ever done, but I just don't think that the world was ready for such a drastic difference from their sounds of the 70's. The title track, "Living Eyes" is a wonderful harmony ballad. The brothers' signature three part harmonies are as impeccable, and brilliant as ever. "Paradise" is another fantastic ballad, while "Don't Fall in Love with Me" proves to be one of Robin's finest leads ever. Maurice's EXCELLENT "Wildflower" will always remain a favorite off of this album. Barry's beautiful, "Nothing Could Be Good" and vocally exceptional, "Be Who You Are" are both very memorable tracks. Robin's "Crying Everyday" is a great, up-tempo song that is very easy listen too. Although "Living Eyes" didn't produce the success after "Fever" that the Bee Gees were looking for, it is still a great album, and will always remain a favorite of mine.

After the previous huge success of "Spirits having flown" and "Saturday night fever",Living Eyes was one of the most confident albums the brothers Gibb ever made.Sadly the world was in a post Disco era and this album never got the recognition that it deserved.Wildflower is Mo's best song ever,"Be who you are" is Barry's most dramatic."Cryin every day" is Robins masterpiece.You will not be disappionted in this underestimated album.A must for a true fan.
Not to mention these boys have just been awarded CBE's.

Although recognized as a badly done album, but in fact it's good! Becuase people were used to listening to the great disco songs, so when all the sudden the style of the Bee Gees had changed, they weren't ready, but also because of the hate of disco. All tracks in this album shows a special feeling that comes from the music. For example, Be Who You Are, it may sound boring at the start with all those strings, but the main chorus is absolutely heart-touching. Fanastic album to listen to, better find one!

This is the "transition" album, the follow-up to Spirits Having Flown. It was panned by critics, in part, BECAUSE it was such a departure from their recent works. The expectation was-more of the same ol' same ol'. The contradiction of such criticism is; the Bee Gees were getting beat up FOR the formula used in Spirits, and IT was a tremendous success. Here, the disco beat is gone and what is left is a another superb effort by Barry, Robin and Maurice.

"Living Eyes" has some strong material. "He's A Liar" has the strength of Barry on lead, and music in the vein of songs like "Wind Of Change", and "Nights On Broadway". "Soldiers" has some of the falsetto of the previous albums, but is another strong effort with a lot of meaning. "Nothing Could Be Good" is a wonderful ballad, and the title track, "Living Eyes" is a solid lead-off song. The rest of the tracks are all easy to listen to, maybe not quite as memorable. But it IS a SOLID EFFORT.

When I owned this album on 8-track, I played it in my car endlessly. I need to find a way to get a new copy on CD. HELP!

The biggest misconception about Living Eyes is that its relative failure in comparison to previous Bee Gees albums (peaking at #41) was due to a backlash against disco. In actuality, this album waned at the charts precisely because it did not give its listeners the consistently upbeat, fast-moving, high-harmony songs that they had come to expect from the Bee Gees by this point. The Bee Gees this time listened too much to their critics, deciding on more mature material, and thus did themselves in as far as chart success goes.

However, this album, in my opinion, is clearly their best because, in addition to the strength of practically all of its tracks, Living Eyes caught the Bee Gees during that slit in their career AFTER they had abandoned songs with snappy hooks like "Tragedy" but BEFORE they began relying on those awful and stale drum machines that plagued their late 80s work, as in the single "One". As a result, you get the heartfelt, mature Bee Gees of the late 80s, but with the more natural production and instrumentation that characterized Bee Gees albums throughout the 70s, beginning with Mr. Natural.

All in all, a very strong, passionate, blue-eyed soul and soft rock album that will stay fresh. I know. I listen to this album everyday and I still can't get enough.

I now have every Bee Gees (as a whole) album there is. I have been long waiting for this album because I've heard so many good things about it. I am only 17 and this is the ONLY music I listen to. Bee Gees. And I'll say this much; I don't really understand much of this "disco backlash" mumbo jumbo. But one thing is for sure, this group is pretty damn good. Living Eyes has gems all over it. I must say it is the most unique album from them, even more than the unreleased "A Kick In The Head Is Worth Eight In The Pants".

"Living Eyes" is the best title track I heard from them. Especially the opening melody. The single "He's A Liar" kind of makes me curious as why they chose that one. Although it's a great, hard rock song, something like Wildflower could have been better off. In my opinion that song is Maurice's best solo effort he's ever done. It's just so different than any other song I've heard from them. Yet awesome. Nothing Could Be Good is an unbelievable song from Barry. Don't Fall In Love With Me and Cryin' Every Day are both really good songs from Robin. At first I thought Be Who You Are was an instrumental, as I waited 2:25 until I heard Barry's voice. But as I listened to it, it brought back ideas from their late 70's albums, and kind of reminded me of Reaching Out from the Spirits Having Flown album. Paradise is also another beautiful song and could have been a single. I Still Love You sort of sounds like an Andy Gibb song, and Soldiers is another great hard-rock tune. Different style overall for the Gibb brothers, and definitely worth trying to get on eBay. While you're there, check out some other really rare cds not found in stores, but good luck winning them. Excellent album.

Imposible to get this CD. I think it's one of the best bee gee's album. Like the famous elvis presley's album "millions of fans can't be wrong". Polydor or whatever it is, IT'S TIME TO PRINT THIS ALBUM ON CD.

This harmonic and melodic masterpiece was the inevitable shifting of gears and direction after the giant Saturday Night Fever and Spirits Having Flown albums, as well as Barry's work with Striesand. Unlike some of the other bands that had ridden the whole disco thing to commercial heights and sounded lost and adrift afterwards (GQ, Con Funk Shun, etc) this album saw the Bee Gees moving in a credible new direction. Strong melodies that stayed with the listener after one play, great singing, and an overall blend of pre disco Bee Gees song crafting with the vocal interplay they'd started developing in the mid '70s with 'Nights on Broadway'.

Admittidly the first post disco recording was going to face tough going in some quarters, some listeners were determined to make the Bee Gees the collective whipping boys of the whole cultural thing that consumed the disco idiom, others may have hoped the band would record SNF 2 and pull the whole thing from the ashes. Whatever the reasons, the commerical failure of the album was clearly the result of cultural shifts and marketing forces that had little to do with the quality of the recording. Twenty plus years later, with the bagage the Bee Gees accumulated during the late '70s removed it should be possible to listen to this CD as music and not a litmus test for whether or not disco [was bad] and the white suited chickens were coming home to roost. Sooner or later the record company should realize what they have here, understand why it bombed, and realize that a bunch of people would love to buy this recording IF THEY'D JUST MAKE IT AVAILABLE ONCE MORE.

THIS IS THEIR FINEST RECORD EVER BUT ALSO THE BEGINING OF THE END FOR THEM AS THE MOST SUCCESFUL POP GROUPS.I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT WENT WRONG AND WHY THEY LOST ALL THEIR PUBLIC AND LISTENERS.WHAT EVER HAVE HAPPENED AND WILL HAPPEN TO THEM IN THE FUTURE BARRY IS THE GREATEST SINGER AND POP SONG WRITER EVER.THIS CD IS VERY RARE AND HARD TO FIND NOW,BUT IF YOU FIND IT SOME DAY OR IT WILL BE RE-REALESED AGAIN BUY IT.I ALSO FIND IT STRANGE WHY NONE OF THEIR CD'S ARE RE-MASTERED LIKE ALL THE OTHER GROUPS DO AND HAVE DONE.