BEE GEES – "You Win Again"

A weak song from a band capable of much better. A thinned out, poorly written, drab piece of work that isn’t fit to share a dance floor with Stayin’ Alive, You Should Be Dancing, or even Night Fever. A 4 is about right for this.

I (also) like this. Having experienced and enjoyed several different versions of the Bee Gees from the 60s onwards it didn’t come as too much as a surprise that they should adopt 80s production style (reminiscent of ZTT). I admire the way in which as a group they adapt to new sounds with genuine enthusiasm and engagement – not playing in their heritage or cluelessly jumping on a band wagon. To compare this to the dancefloor dominance of SNF makes as little sense as comparing that to Massachusetts.
I like the idiosyncratic song structure – the way the lyric of the title tumbles along with the loping rhythm and the harmonies as always are fab. 7 from me too.

THONK!BONK!THONK!BONK!

I think that this is sort of great, but compromised by that thunking production. Respect to the Bee Gees for trying to move with the times, but they really weren’t Propaganda…

The lyrics are rather splendidly bitter I’d say, and a pretty accurate Strindberg/ Edward Albee picture of a terrible relationship (“You’ve been using me. I’m surprised you let me stay around you. One day I’m gonna lift the cover and look inside your heart”) and one of the least clumsy and confusing Gibb songs.

Fourth form 1987 reaction – “Why are these old fools back?”

TOTPWatch: The Bee Gees twice performed You Win Again on Top Of The Pops. The Christmas show we’ll come to in the fullness of time;

1 October 1987. Also in the studio that week were; Sisters of Mercy (fantastic!), Gary Numan, Steve Winwood and Shakin’ Stevens. Gary Davies and Mike Smith were the hosts.

I quite like these drum sounds on anything but a better 1987 example of them can be found on Donna Summer’s ‘Dinner With Gershwin’.

There’s an OK song trying to get out from under the production here. As it is, though, this is like being held down and repeatedly punched by a bouncer. Indeed, it reminded me now of the witty audio from the trailer for the Coens’ (great) A Serious Man.

Jesus Christ, are those actually drums, or did they just pitch refrigerators out of a high window?

First listen: “You’re the Inspiration” it ain’t but this is more graceful aging than many of their peers would indulge in. I like how they sort of rush over the syllables of the chorus, as if rebelling against the drama of the overdubs and Mr. Thonk-Bonk in the background, by turning the whole proceedings into a jaunty sing-song. Don’t mind this at all.

@doc.casino, 17. I think the vid. apes some aspects of Stevie Winwood vids and album photography from the period – an unrelated diaphonous babe floats by in b/w basically. Don’t know what to make of the Bjork-ish landscapes tho’!

yeah the vid’s aiming for winwood (probably the market they were hoping for at the time)(if the comeback had took stateside would we have seen a micheloeb update on ‘night fever’?), but it’s as shoddy looking as the record sounds (if there’s ever a glo-fi style update on phil collins production this will be an urtext). the singles that did provide a slight comeback in the us a couple of years later – “one” and “alone” – are much better, in the same league as their 60s work if not their disco peaks.

Late in the proceedings but re 1: Staying Alive and 1981’s He’s A Liar had done so badly, tarnished by the SNF backlash, that the Bee Gees brand (which I’m sure is how the Gibbs viewed it even back then) was retired for several years.

They plugged away with solo albums – Barry’s did zip (but he was arrogant to make a whole film to accompany the middling Now Voyager, which was maybe a first?), Robin’s did well in Europe (Juliet was a no.1 single in Germany, Another Lonely Night In New York is their best semi-forgotten single).

And they cut whole albums for other people between ’82 and ’86: Dionne Warwick (Heartbreaker, All The Love In The World), Diana Ross (Chain Reaction) and Kenny Rogers (Islands In The Stream – the best selling ‘country’ single in US history). Adding their backing vocals to all of them, it wasn’t the Bee Gees sound that had gone away, only the teeth and hair.

By 1987 they figured the dust had settled and they could re-emerge from SNF darkness. The rapid ascent of You Win Again was still surprising (22-6-1), and I remember everyone thinking ‘The Bee Gees? what the…?’. But what surprised me most was that they released it in late September. It sounded, literally, like Christmas. Bittersweet melody, bells and whistles, fairy lights, overstuffed. And that’s how I hear it now, as a slightly out of sync Christmas song. Sat alongside Shaky or Boney M, then, it’s a 9. As an early autumn hit with an asthmatic verse but a killer chorus coda, it’s a 7.

i do not get what people are saying about ‘the production’ holding this back or smothering it or whatevs. i really like that drum sound — and it gives the slow pace some gravity. mostly what bob said at the end there. it’s one of those songs i’d love to do karaoke but then realise i have no idea what the verses are on about. a 7 for me too. fondly remembered, but not in my all time greats

Can we please keep Punctum occupied here – I’m trying to beat him to covering a certain LP on our respective blogs ?

Bit of a plodder, isn’t it? Not one I’d place on the positive side of the Bee Gees ledger. Thinking of John Lydon as we inevitably are today, the drum sound reminds me a little of PiL’s “Rise”, but with so much less purpose.

Hell, I’d forgotten that while this was number one, Kiss had a UK number 4 hit! – with “Crazy Crazy Nights”. The first time they darkened our doors to that extent.

And it was while this was number one that I split up with my girlfriend of the previous four and a bit years. Unbeknown to me, my future wife saw it as an opportunity. Some you win…

I’d totally forgotten they had another #4 a few years later with their reworking of Argent’s “God Gave Rock’n’Roll To You”.

This must’ve been one of the first pop songs I was aware of as a young child. To me, this song is recorded from a badly tuned radio onto an old worn-out cassette tape. Thinking back on it, I didn’t remember the drums, it was the vocal melody which I was able to hum before actually playing the song despite not having heard it for years. Actually playing it, it’s pretty ordinary stuff and doesn’t deserve more than a 5.

I think it’s a good, shivery chorus – no great surprise from the Brothers, granted – but it always sounded empty, “hollow”, and now even worse with the iPod’s laissez-faire sound scheme. Bless them though, they can have as many long service medals as they like.

This always had a certain “No restraining order is going to stop me loving you” vibe to it.

If you can find it, Paul Morley’s Ask: The Chatter Of Pop compilation of interviews, observations, digressions and mournings is about as good as New Pop field reports and modest proposals get.

If you’re patient, and presuming Zero Books or anyone else is prepared to publish it, you can read the definitive history of New Pop which Lena and I are about to begin writing.

For my thoughts on Odessa scroll about halfway down this ancient manuscript.

Good grief, I’m in the minority here…I adored this so much, it was the first song I ever downloaded on mp3. The day of Maurice Gibb’s death in January 2003, VH1 played all the Bee Gees songs non-stop, and until then I’d only known them as those high-voiced ‘Staying Alive’ people from the late 70s. No idea they’d had more of a career than that, and this grabbed me – although the OTT drums are an irritation to most, they make the song even better for me. It’s like a slowed down ‘True Faith’.

So in the pre-iTunes days, I searched a million pages on Google before finding a website with this on. The previous Christmas I’d tried to find Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ to no avail, this was my first success. For the first song I *legally* downloaded, we have to wait until 2006…but you’ll find out which when it gets its own Popular entry.

I’d definitely give this a high mark. One my faves of a great year for number 1s (PSBs/Whitney/MARRS/Mel & Kim/Steve Silk Hurley included). I also quite like later Bee Gees tracks like Secret Love and For Whom The Bell Tolls…

Yes, not unexpected but sad news. Tributes from Mike Read and Paul Gambaccini on the Beeb this morning. Seems to have come too late for most of the dailies. The group had a few number 1s didn’t they, Robin’s tremulous voice being much more suited to the sixties hits. He can’t have been comfortable with the switch to the falsetto disco style which made Barry (the only looker in the group, tbf) effectively the front man. For Robin it was almost as inappropriate as wearing his hair shoulder-length, Clifford T Ward style.

“Strangely enough, though, one of my moments of “Gasp!” was when I first heard a much later work, “You Win Again”.
To me it’s a modern masterpiece of production – devastating simplicity executed with devastating subtlety.
What a wonderful wall of sound, yet what sensitivity! ”
— Brian May

(lol)

The guy out of XTC was Colin Moulding. Which rhymes, but.

A quick addition to your flop,No1,flop series.. John Denver

Forgot to mention Abigail Mead went on to win BBC’s Any Dream Will Do and married Denise van Outen.
Sorry for the “‘Gouding/Moulding’ above MarkG, was trying for humour.

Re hardtogethits. Diana Ross must have the gold medal with that one! Amazing stat.

Interesting that they are all old, 60+,solo artists apart from Nena (who’s a grandma and a group)

I agree, possibly quite a few in the “not a hit at all” camp, and quite time consuming to check if they did actually release something. Lee Marvin (didn’t- so not in the list), Joe Dolce Music Theatre (did). I think it could get a bit messy. Sak Noel, etc

Moving on, if I am making the rules, I would say all releases have to chart. I wonder if “Rage Against the Bunny” or the “Bluebunnies” will reform to join the list?

Good points, though you seem very aggressive and angry. I wonder why you thought abuse was an appropriate means of discourse? Nobody else is deploying it. You don’t know anyone here. Would you behave that way in real life? You would? Oh, you must be a real joy.

This board is indeed full of criticism, some pretentious, though you’re actually wrong to say that no-one here has ever written a hit because I know of at least one poster who has written several dozen. However, I am interested in the implications of what you write – specifically that only those more successful may criticise. This thread would be rather short, wouldn’t it?! It would be just you and Paul McCartney, and that’d be nice.