If you buy many retrospective boxed sets, you know that the last disc usually sucks. By the time it rolls around in your CD changer, the band is old and tired, and you are sick and tired. Enter the Bee Gees box, Tales Of The Brothers Gibb. The Bee Gee's career unfolded in at least four distinct phases, each of them packing a substantial commercial wallop. The first disc of Tales Of The Brothers Gibb takes us through the group's Beatle-esque 60's period characterized by "I Started A Joke." Disc two traverses their neglected decade of artful pop (e.g. "How Can Yo Mend A Broken Heart"). Then, they tear the roof off the sucker on disc three with "Jive Talking," "Staying Alive," "Tragedy," and more. But disc four? Holy Mary, Mother Of Christ, it sucks! It blows! It stinks up the joint! The Bee Gees still sell a lot of records these days -not in the United States but in Europe and Asia. There are reasons for that, and those reasons are all over disc four.

But ya gotta love discs one through three! The Bee Gees had put a pretty respectable career behind them by the time they came to symbolize everything people loved and hated about the 70's, but those glorious sides of fake funk featured on Main Course, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, and Spirits Having Flown really were "the bomb." Still, with the possible exception of those three albums, the Bee Gees were the quintessential singles band. Best Of Bee Gees and Best Of Bee Gees Vol. 2 cover the early years while Bee Gees Greatest does a nice take on the "disco years." The boxed set is mastered better and wraps the Bee Gees career into a nice, neat package - just watch out for disc four.