Bee Gees - "Stayin’ Alive"
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Topic: Bee Gees - "Stayin’ Alive"
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Subject: Bee Gees - "Stayin’ Alive"
Date Posted: 18 June 2009 at 7:34pm
In my copy of the 1955-1996 book, everything is labeled as either "LP version" or "45 version". While I don't have the RSO 45 to compare, if the Time-Life CD Sounds Of The Seventies - 1977 is truly representative of the 45, then all should be "LP length" or "45 length".
Sounds Of The Seventies - 1977 has a 36-beat fade on the downbeats from 3:19.5-3:40.3; not sure what the actual 45 does.
The best sounding version of the song that I've found is on the 4-CD set Tales From The Brothers Gibb. Truly sterling sound on this set. The tempo is 103.6 BPM throughout on both this and the Sounds Of The Seventies CD, so the edit points will match, if you want to create your own fade.
(Interesting note - the drum pattern is one tape-looped measure, taken from "Night Fever" and slowed down just slightly. The drummer was out of town when they had to record the song, so they did the best they could. The same loop was later slowed WAY down and used for Barbra Streisand's "Woman In Love".)
A close second in sound quality is the 1-CD 1995 mastering of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, which most likely uses the same analog transfer as the Tales set.
One tier down from those two are the Sounds Of The Seventies - 1977 CD (45 length) and, surprisingly, the 1984 sampler Hear The Light Volume 1. These may not be first-generation tapes, but they have very nice EQ and no noise reduction.
Down another tier are the original release 2-CD of Bee Gees Greatest and the original release 2-CD release of Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. Both of these are high-generation tapes, with a dull-sounding EQ. Greatest is just a transfer of the 1979 LP master, which ran about 3 seconds longer than all the other versions.
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Replies:
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 19 June 2009 at 12:24am
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The database was indeed updated a while back to reflect the difference between the 45 and LP of Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" is one of "length" rather than "version".
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Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 11 April 2015 at 8:40pm
A follow-up from nearly 6 years later...
For the LP version, I recommend the 1995 remaster of the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack, which uses the same analog transfer as Tales but has a longer tail to the fade and extends about 2 or 3 beats farther than Tales.
Based on Aaron's recreation of the 45, the version on Time-Life's Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 5 1977 (1990) starts its fade too early.
The true 45 has a 24-beat fade, downbeat to downbeat, from 3:28.7 to 3:42.6 of the LP version (timing based on the 1995 SNF soundtrack).
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Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 12 April 2015 at 5:01pm
I have the 45 length on Ultimate Seventies: 1977. The
fade points match what Ron and Aaron have determined, so
at some point, the fade was corrected on that series of
Cds...perhaps.
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