I'm about to unravel my research. It might not seem much but I guess it'll do for now. Introducing:
The Bee Gees!
Pardon the hair and all, but it is not as what they looked like. And some of you might think, the Bee Gees, they only sang disco songs. So how can they be categorised in this?
Wrong. They did not start out to be a disco group. They first came out as a rock band. And then they ventured into disco. Soon after that, they went back to making rock songs.
The origins of the Bee Gees was rather accidental. It started when Barry Gibb, Robin Gibb and Maurice Gibb were living in Australia, they started to like singing, and as children they'll constantly perform other songs in front of people, using the tape (don't ask why people are happy watching performances of kids lip synching because I have no idea). Then one day while running towards the stage where they usually performed, Maurice dropped the record that they were supposed to lip sync, and they had to use their original voices to sing and yet they received good response. That is how they've started.
In fact, their own fame was rather accidental either, when back then, the Beetles were so famous, their own recording company recorded their first song "New York Mining Disaster 1941", and send it to radio deejays nationwide in America. And these deejays played it, thinking it is yet another song from the Beetles, hence receiving massive radio play, it was only after that they knew it was another band. It seems that after this whole episode, the recording companies are now required to name the singers in the demo.
This is the 1960s when Television wasn't really in colour hence the grainy videos. But it propelled them to fame, what more when there are other songs like To Love Somebody, I Started A Joke, Massachusetts, and many more songs before the disco era. But then the band did not last long because Robin left the group due to creative differences, and that Robin felt that the recording company preferred Barry as the lead singer more than him, even though there were actually no preferences in the group when it first established. Indeed, Robin's departure left the Bee Gees to slump because there are little to almost none of the songs created then were memorable. Robin's solo career did not bear fruit either.
Then they reunited in 1969, the starting of disco music was born. Barry had created a tone that did not require the vocal chord, and can yet still sing in a very high tune called the Falsetto. In another way, Barry Gibb was the creator of Falsetto in pop music (Justin Timberlake should thank him). He started singing in this tune for most of the songs that were made back then, and it was widely accepted in disco bars, and then accepted even more worldwide when their song was featured in Saturday Night Fever. Okay, in another way, Saturday Night Fever was created to promote the Bee Gee songs. So the world knew about John Travolta, a young nobody, and the Bee Gees, what more, of their American disco culture. This is where the America became a culture guru, what they started will become a worldwide phenomenon. Among all the songs, the favourite till now is Stayin' Alive, Night Fever and You Should be Dancing.
This is their prime time, and it was in this era, that all men will start having shoulder length hair, wearing big tinted glasses for those with glasses, tight fitting pants (and it must be white), maybe leaving an extremely big moustache and beard. It may look very corny now but back then, it was the hit. It was what a trend really was. Proof would be you can go and check your father's old photos if he kept any and you'll see the difference between him back then and now. Other songs during that magnum opus era would be How Deep is Your Love, More than a Woman and Too Much Heaven. But this is also where their music credits were born, they helped to write Emotion for Samantha Sang (now resang by the more famous Destiny's Child), and also helped to composed the music and penned the lyrics for Barbra Streisand's Woman In Love.
Of course in the 1980s, they reverted back to playing more rock songs again, with You Win Again and Tragedy. If you could see a pattern here, this is counted their slump in record career, but they still are strong as musicians, often helping others to write music. But it is rather sad, that at January 2003, Maurice passed away due to a strangulated intestine. And with that, their band was retired to preserve the good name of the three brothers.
Some insight theories I've found:
Are the Bee Gees, trendsetters or just merely following the trend?
At first glance they may looked like they were influenced by current events that eventually led to them having different facial features. Notice that in the "New York Mining Disaster 1941" video that they had the familiar Elvis Presley side burns, wearing neat suits during stage performances (A Beetles' trademark) in the 1960s. Not to mention they started out young, another trend then and still is. Any singer had to be at most 18 years old, and it is still seen in pop music nowadays. You have to be young to be popular.
This would relate to Mass Society and Mass culture theory, whereby a Mass culture is developed due to a trigger, just because someone dresses out of the ordinary. It is almost like the Beetles. While Elvis Presley's rock style was more granduer and flashy, the Beetles's fashion direction was more about commoners, working class, and definitely, ordinary.
But what about the Bee Gees?
They were followers of the trend from the debut of the career. It was what they wore back then. But in the 70s. They were the trendsetters, and you do not have to look at Americans, even fellow Malaysian dads were also seen bearing those long hairs, especially those long hairs even if it didn't suit them.
But do you know, this whole mass culture of disco must-haves is a fiction?
Nik Cohn, the writer of "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night", a source of where Saturday Night Fever is born, confessed during the 20th anniversary of the film, that the article written was fictionalised. He was a British who came to America and he was clueless about this culture, and in desparation, he made a story.
And that story, created a phenomenon around the world. It made John Travolta popular, it propelled the Bee Gees to worldwide fame. It shaped disco into what we, the younger generations think. It was all because of a fictional story.
So this whole disco culture materialised due to a story.
Hence, I daresay, the Bee Gees is a product of mass culture. You'd think they were trendsetters, but no, they are trend followers. But they knew why they had to have those fashion sense. The blind followers will be those like the men of every corner in the world back then. My father, your father, everyone else's fathers, musicians, and many more.
Stay tuned for more research.
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