TNB Night Owl – Bee Gees

Long before the Bee Gees became superstars of the seventies’ disco era, they were a world-renown, very successful, pop/soft rock group. When they started knocking out monster disco hits, their musical pedigree and reputation legitimized and mainstreamed the new genre.

Personally, I was a rock ‘n’ roll fan at that point in my life and detested disco music. Looking back now, I think disco must have been been the reason I stopped listening to Top 40 radio and switched to rock format FM radio stations in the late seventies, and I’m certain I wasn’t the only one. If true, it could be said that disco killed Top 40 variety radio by encouraging growth of alternative radio formats, particularly classic rock.

Forty-some years later, I’ve mellowed, and now appreciate disco music. In fact, I’ll go so far to say that the Bee Gees were musical geniuses. (But I still mourn the decline of Top 40 radio).

Below, the year the single was released is followed by the highest the song reached in the U.S. charts. There’s one exception: More Than a Woman was not released as a single in U.S. and so has no chart data as a single. Check out how many #1 hits the Bee Gees had. They absolutely dominated Top 40 from 1975 to 1979. As far as record sales, only a handful of artists have sold more records worldwide than the Bee Gees.

1967 #14
New York Mining Disaster 1941 (2:10)