There's a reason why this 40-track collection spanning five decades of hits begins with disco. Having scored 13 U.S. Top 40 singles before they ever released a single dance cut, the U.K.-born trio of Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb were the first superstar pop-rock group to try club music, and they remain to this day the most triumphant. Dozens of acts may have been more popular in the hardcore clubs. But to middle America, the Bee Gees are disco like Coke is cola. Few musical acts of any sort have sold more than their estimated 200 million records.

It's likely that the Bee Gees' persona and popularity would never have become so intertwined with disco had it not been for Saturday Night Fever and its sweeping cultural impact. Yet their initial disco hits, "Jive Talkin'" and "You Should Be Dancing," were already pop chart-toppers in '75 and '76 before they reappeared on the Fever soundtrack. Disco changed not only the band's rhythms, but also who sang and how. Robin was, for many years, the focal vocal point; his distinctive quavering cry defined the psychedelic folk ballads that established the Brothers Gibb in the late '60s. When the trio reinvented itself with… read more »