Customer Reviews

Spirits Having Flown

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In the difficult position of having to top "Saturday Night Fever", the Gibb brothers surpassed themselves and created their biggest hit studio album of their careers, including three more #1 hits, making six #1 hit songs in a row! "Tragedy", "Too Much Heaven" and "Love You Inside Out" were all top hit singles. "Spirits (Having Flown)" was a large hit single overseas. All songs are Barry dominated vocals and he is at his falsetto best. However, "Stop (Think Again)" is a tad long and a little bit tedious, but the following tracks go right back to their upbeat best! Succeeding in avoiding any dance songs (disco), the Bee Gees out-do themselves. These songs are truly funky "R & B" numbers, a solid match for any rythym and blues band. "Until", the closing solo track may not be equal to their earlier hit "Words", but Barry's voice accompanied by the electronic harpsichord makes for a delicious ending.

Note: This is a re-issue until Rhino Records releases the Remastered Expanded version.

In the difficult position of having to top "Saturday Night Fever", the Gibb brothers surpassed themselves and created their biggest hit studio album of their careers, including three more #1 hits, making six #1 hit songs in a row! "Tragedy", "Too Much Heaven" and "Love You Inside Out" were all top hit singles. "Spirits (Having Flown)" was a large hit single overseas. All songs are Barry dominated vocals and he is at his falsetto best. However, "Stop (Think Again)" is a tad long and a little bit tedious, but the following tracks go right back to their upbeat best! Succeeding in avoiding any dance songs (disco), the Bee Gees out-do themselves. These songs are truly funky "R & B" numbers, a solid match for any rythym and blues band. "Until", the closing solo track may not be equal to their earlier hit "Words", but Barry's voice accompanied by the electronic harpsichord makes for a delicious ending.

This is really one of the best albums these three guys ever released. The tropical "Spirits (Having Flown)" and "I'm Satisfied" are both great. The ballads "Reachin' Out" and "Stop, Think Again" are heartbreaking. You can also dance to this album, thinking of "Search, Find" and "Living Together." "Until" is almost the music you often find in a dream in a movie. The three biggest hits of the album, "Tragedy", "Too Much Heaven" and "Love You Inside Out" are all three also great songs. Barry's fallsetto is great on this album and he really reaches notes that I couldn't believe he could reach. But hey, after all it's the "BEE GEES."

This album is really worth buying and a great one to have in you're collection.

This album in my opinion is not Saturday Night Fever Part 2 . The Gibbs proved their abilities for outstanding production, without emphasis on the 4/4 beat (which makes out the Disco dance floor fillers).

Looking from a Music Industry standards perspective for "how to make a top-selling album" today: "Spirits" would probably fail the approval from the A&R, many of the reasons already described by other reviewers. It lacks the simplicity of nowadays productions for the mass market.

But this Album brought the Gibb Brothers respect by the other artists and musicians around the world. Consequently they have received many requests to produce world stars like Barbra Streisand, Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross, Kenny Rogers and others...Being a musician myself, I can't help but bow in front of this masterpiece.

The creativity here lies within the layers of instrumentation and the finesse of the vocal arrangements. This is how close you can get with combination of different music styles, rhythms, jazz chords and sumptuous orchestration without losing the Pop Audience. For example

Stop (Think Again): is 6/8 bars bluesy Jazz with soul overtones. I wouldn't mind if this was 15 minutes long and had an even more extended instrumental soli, but then again: I love Jazz. Just watch for the part where Barry's vocals (sounding like a screaming saxophone) are taken over by the saxophone player itself. phenomenal! And the drummer's extensive breaks at the end! You won't find these musical gimmicks on a nowadays Pop Album.

Living Together: did you ever tried to count 1,2,3,4 on this tune without losing the timing of the song? ;-) There's a slight turn of the rhythm every now and then. I think the Gibbs had fun writing a song which would give Travolta a hard time on the dance floor.

Until: Never heard such impressive End of Album ever since. Very soulful. Barry could compete with any jazz trumpet, hitting the notes at the end of the song even higher than most trumpet players can. ;-) This explains the protracting of the words singing style.

As for the falsetto overdose on the Album, this is what makes the whole album so distinctive in its style. Can't think of another album on the planet that had such almost aggressive high falsettos arranged in multiple vocal layers. But I have to admit, you have to love it or hate it, this is what probably makes it difficult for new Bee Gees Fans to appreciate the music itself or even prevents to make the songs to be timeless Bee Gees classics. The complex arrangements and extremely high harmonies are some of the reasons why the Gibbs avoided to perform the songs live in concert even though they had 3 Number ones here.

Nevertheless, as an other reviewer said, this is their and their Band's best studio production/performance ever! And for all those who disagree, I can only quote: Stop, Think again...Search (within the music) and (you'll) Find ! ;-)

This CD brings back memories of the spring of 1979. My mom and I were both fans of the Bee Gees and they had just had tremendous success with the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack. My mom bought this album for me, even though at the time the only hit from it was "Too Much Heaven". I immediately loved every song on side 1 of the album. Side 2 was good as well, but we played side 1 over and over. As we all know, "Tragedy" and "Love You Inside Out" became the other hits. But we also liked the other 2 songs from side 1, "Reaching Out" and "Spirits (Having Flown)". My mom especially liked "Spirits (Having Flown)". When it came out on CD, I had to have it. I love these songs as much today as I did 26 years ago.

Because of "Saturday Night Fever", the Bee Gees were unfairly labeled a disco group. The only songs I would even remotely label as disco on this album are "Tragedy", "Search, Find" and "Living Together". The other 7 songs are either trademark Bee Gee lush ballads or uptempo numbers (but not disco). I consider "Love You Inside Out" an uptempo song, it does not have that driving disco beat to truly be a disco song. They may have been guilty of riding the disco bandwagon for a while, but so did many other artists of the time such as Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney, Barbra Streisand, Cher, etc. Even hard rockers like KISS put out a disco-esque song ("I Was Made for Loving You"). I think that the Bee Gees and Donna Summer are two examples of artists whose music transcended disco.

The Brothers Gibb have released some good music since then, but this was their absolute best. Highly recommended!

The Spirits Having Flown album is not only the last disco album of the Bee Gees, but one of the BEST ones too! Tragedy rised up to US #1 because of its strong and energetic music. Too Much Heaven also went to #1 because of its sweet melody. This song was later tributed to the UNICEF by the Bee Gees. Inside and Out went to #1 after those two did. THe other songs were just as sweet as the mentioned #1 hits.
Saturday Night Fever brought the Bee Gees to their height of their career, and they took this chance to write more songs. But they actually had some problems, because they already achieved 5 #1s in SNF, and if they produce another album that sucks, the public will reject them. But they trusted in themself, and believed that they can achieve more #1 hits, and succesfully, they did it! Great album!

It's a toss up between Main Course and Spirits Having Flown. I think both are the best BeeGees you will ever hear! I remember the magazine advertisement for 'Spirits', when it first came out...."Great expectations, finally fulfilled." You betcha! You cannot beat this album. 'Tragedy', 'Too Much Heaven', 'Love You Inside Out'...what a line-up of #1's! No wonder it won Best Album of The Year against Led Zeppelin's 'In Through The Out Door'. Put this album on your stereo, lay back with your eyes closed and just take it all in. It is pure BeeGees and pure quality.

This album spawned three #1 hits(Tragedy,Too Much Heaven,Love You Inside Out[strangely missing here]),but it's no hits-plus filler package.Its got excellent R&B falsetto ballads(Reaching Out,Stop Think Again,I'm Satisfied), funky midtempo dance tracks(Search Find,Living Together),and the gorgeous tropical-sounding title song that ranks it as their most accomplised efforts.It also sounds less dated than most disco product of that year because its more rooted in R&B/pop.One of my favorite Bee Gees albums!

If you want the best tracks from "Spirits Having Flown", go for the "Bee Gees Greatest" CD. It includes the four best songs: "Tragedy", "Too Much Heaven", "Love You Inside Out" (A #1 hit in the US included on the original vinyl release, but not on this CD version), and the hypnotic title cut. As for the rest of this album, it's rather uninspired, it's just filler. For my money, "Main Course" still stands as the Bee Gees' best album from this period.

How can you follow the success of "SaturdayNightFever?"This 1979 album,"Spirits Having Flown"did.I remember hearing the first single,"Too Much Heaven" on a TV special event,and fell in love with it."Tragedy" was so different,and they showed the Bee Gees recording this cut,and how Barry made the gun sound blowing through his hands.A real gun didn't sound right.Most of the cuts were played on the radio or in the clubs,and it seemed like the Bee Gees would turn out hits forever,and they did for other Artist after this huge hit,but "Spirits Having Flown" was the peek for the Bee Gees.