Released in 1978, The Bee Gees' song "Night Fever" captured the excitement and romance of a hard night's disco dancing in one magical song.
The Bee Gees' shift from balladeering boy band to global disco phenomenon began in 1975 when they teamed up with renowned producer Arif Mardin and began to develop their trademark funk'n'falsetto vocal sound on songs like "Nights on Broadway", "Jive Talking" and "You Should Be Dancing".
The brothers had begun recording some songs for a new album when film producer Robert Stigwood asked them to contribute to the soundtrack of a forthcoming film about the club scene in New York.
"He told us about this film about a guy who works in a paint shop and blows his wages every Saturday night."
The brothers became very involved in the film, contributing four hit songs to its Grammy award-winning soundtrack. They were even involved in choosing its title.
"We said – 'it sounds too much like a porn film!'"
Disco uses a four-to-the-floor beat – that's a bass drum played on every beat of the bar. This insistent rhythm seems to give most people the urge to boogie.
The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack was a huge success, selling more than 30 million copies worldwide, and to date it holds the record for the best selling soundtrack album of all time. "Night Fever" reached #1 in the UK, while other Saturday Night Fever songs had no problems shimmying up to the higher echelons of the charts either; "Stayin' Alive" and "How Deep Is Your Love" reached # 4 and #3 respectively. And the Bee Gees became forever associated with the explosion of disco which swept the world.
Recommended Reading The Ultimate Biography of the Bees: Tales of the Brothers Gibb. Belinda Bilyeu, Hector Cook and Andrew Mon Hughes. Published 2002, Omnibus Press.
The memories make for a classic pop song. Smile. Enjoy.
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An audience probably won't bother listening to your song if the melody is weak.
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