Forty Years Worth of Hit Records

I watched two-hours worth of the Bee Gees' last night on the Biography channel, which wouldn't be such a disco-era confession, except that I had seen the whole thing before, not long ago, and I managed to sit through it again. Two hours is a long time to stay focused on any show, let alone one that doesn't have a  panel of judges or a boardroom, and doesn't end with someone getting voted off or fired, but since the Bee Gees are one of my all-time fav's, I hung in there.

Only Michael Jackson could capture my attention for that length of time, and has. According to PhillyTwo, I've watched "This Is It" no less than fifty times. I think she exaggerates, but I do love that documentary. With the Bee Gees, it was their singing. With Michael, it was his dancing.

Like most angst-ridden teen-agers, I loved the sappy ballads of the Bee Gees back in the sixties: "To Love Somebody", "Holiday", "Massachusetts", and the most gut-wrenching of all, "I Started a Joke". Who couldn't cry to that and what the hell was it even about? It didn't matter. Their voices were filled with sorrow and that's all a girl needed to well up. But it wasn't until "Nights on Broadway" in 1975, that I became a true Bee Gees fan and it's still my absolute favorite.

Michael Jackson wasn't really in my radar (I was apparently asleep on the job) until the night he performed "Billie Jean" live on a Motown special. That was in 1983. I pretty much stayed a fan of his music and his dancing, but not his lifestyle or his actions, until his death. Longer, actually. I can feel more comfortable watching him now, since he's no longer a threat to children - his own or anybody else's. His judgement day has passed...he faced the music and I'd say the outcome was "Bad".