A Masterpiece

I'm in agreement with the unanimous reviews: this is one of the Bee Gees best efforts, and my personal favorite (a close second to "Cucumber Castle").

To anyone who has derogatorily and incorrectly defined the Bee Gees (and there are many) as a disco phenomenon, listen to this CD and realize what true fans have come to embrace about the group. The music and lyrics are lush, complex...the harmonies and arrangements, simply beautiful.

Though this concept album was riddled with production/creative issues that resulted in a less than ideal conceptual release, there remains a cohesive element that makes it a success nonetheless. Several reviewers have commented that some of the tracks were not conceptual and were added to the album more or less as filler, resulting in a "missing element" feel to the album. For me, this has added to the mystery and mood of the album: (i.e., why would a shipwrecked sailor think about "Edison"...why not??).

Whatever the history of this album, it is a masterpiece and in a class by itself. It achieves a beautiful yet melancholy mood that makes you feel like you are living in the sea-faring past of old England, each song a voyage in itself.

Cool album!

ODESSA,released in 1969,was a 2 LP set,now available on a single compact disc. My late uncle,a huge Bee Gees fan,never owned this album. My copy is second hand,because I got this at a garage sale years ago. The only hit from the album is FIRST OF MAY which would appear on 2001's THEIR GREATEST HITS-THE RECORD. The LP jacket was beautifully crafted. I love the solid red velvet. It was at this point in the history of the group that brothers Barry,Robin and Maurice Gibb carried on as a trio. This would last until Maurice's death in January 2003. There are three instrumental tracks on this album. They are SEVEN SEAS SYMPHONY,WITH ALL NATIONS and THE BRITISH OPERA.

Red Velvet Diamond

This is still the lushest of all the Bee Gees' albums, unless you count the late, great CUCUMBER CASTLE. That alone makes it worth hearing a few hundred times but my, oh my- -those songs. I don't know what the rift was over the band's direction that temporarily broke them up (a family affair, you see), but whatever it was the Brothers rose above the occasion and created one of the finest records of the glorious, inglorious Sixties. It was their last of that decade, and everything they'd done previous to it, great as it may have been, was merely prelude. In England ODESSA was released as a red-velvet two-LP box set; in the States as a red-velvet double LP with a remarkably green disaster-at-sea insert. You could put the thing on your coffee table (or floor, or kitchen counter) and let it speak for itself, or you could lie back and immerse yourself in its velvety sonic ocean. Or both, with or without headphones. Okay, that may be overstating it, but ODESSA contains some of the Brothers' finest compositions, ranging from the story-telling prog-rock of the title track (the cello solo is an ingenious touch) to the lighter-than-air, lovely 'Melody Fair' to the oboe-chugged, acoustic 'Suddenly' (Maurice was always the underappreciated contributor) to the desperately haunted 'Sound Of Love'. Heck, they even included an international anthem that actually sounds like one, the prescient globalists!! And two other orchestral instrumentals to boot! And- -'Lamplight'!! You want goofy instead? Okay, 'Give Your Best', and 'Never Say Never Again'! There! These guys are awesome! Now, stop me before I start raving about how incredible CUCUMBER CASTLE is!!