50 St Catherine’s Drive
Robin Gibb
(Reprise Records)
Two stars
More than two years after his death, the songs Robin Gibb recorded between 2006 and 2008 have finally surfaced.
If you like the music wafting out of shopping malls and lifts, then this is for you. There is barely a hint of the falsetto for which Gibb was famous and only glimpses of the fragile, quavering lead vocalist who drew us to the early Bee Gees hits Massachusetts and I Started a Joke.
Unlike many others of his generation – Yusuf Islam (previously known as Cat Stevens) and Robert Plant, to name just two – Gibb never really reinvented himself, nor did he harness one of the most distinctive voices in pop music and apply it to anything that really does it justice. Instead, what we mostly get here is Bee Gees lite.
There is a lot going for the disco-style Avalanche, One Way Love (is that a Robert Palmer bassline in there?) and a passable reworking of the 1966 Bee Gees hit I Am the World – but the rest of 50 St Catherine's Drive just blurs into the background.
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