E.S.P. (1987)

• Chris Anderson's Review  
   

  Having only heard 'You Win Again' on record, and 'Giving Up The Ghost' live (radically different from the recorded version) from this album when i bought it, i thought it was going to be a really good album. I was disappointed by it when i listened to it. Apart from a couple of songs that i liked 'Live Or Die', 'The Longest Night',  there wasn't much else to get excited about. I then thought that perhaps that i was expecting too much because of that one song, so didn't listen to it for a while. When i listened to it again, the result was the same.

  The opening vocal harmony on 'E.S.P' i don't like at all. When the musical intro starts, it sounds as though there's going to be an improvement, but the melody doesn't go where i thought it might from the intro.

  'You Win Again', with it's crashing stomp, driving the song ever forward until it reaches the anthemic ending with crying exclamations from Robin while the chorus keeps looping, is already, at such anearly stage, the best thing on the album. 'Live Or Die' is an emotional ballad, the falsetto really bringing the emotion out of the song and showing the emotion that Barry is able to gain from using it. This song should have been the follow-up single to 'You Win Again'. 'Giving Up The Ghost' is an experimental song, and has a great lead by Robin.

  These three songs are the suggestion that the album, after the opening 'E.S.P', is going to be a good album. But, apart from 'The Longest Night', which has another strong lead by Robin, and has a dark, moody feel to it, falls apart for me after that.

  'Crazy For Your Love' has a 'Chain Reaction'-type beat to it, but isn't as well crafted, and at times, the hook in the melody doesn't work. I don't know why 'This Is Your Life' has all the song titles of previous hits in the lyrics at the end, and is something else that just doesn't work.

  Sometimes, listening to this album, it feels as though it's a work in progress, and perhaps if they had worked on the material for another year, maybe even written some more songs that were better than certain others, it would have been a better album.

   

• Barry Kim's review  

  This album is very good. I especially like 'YOU WIN AGAIN'....a really strong track. I actually saw a live tv show video they did of this song, and I thought it was well produced.
  
  Other great songs I liked were 'ESP', 'GIVING UP THE GHOST', 'OVERNIGHT', and 'CRAZY FOR YOUR LOVE'.

• Henar's review  

  This album meant the Bee Gees comeback. After Living Eyes (1981) the Gibb brothers worked on solo projects and writing and producing for other artists. In 1983 they had worked on several songs for the Staying alive soundtrack, but those songs seem more a Barry Gibb product than a Bee Gees joint effort. So, E.S.P. was the first Bee Gees album after six years.
  
  The highlight of this album is You win again, the song that brought the Bee Gees back to the top of the charts. It's a simple song, but its repetitive rhythm makes the song stick in your mind;  when you listen to it you need to listen it over and over again.
  
  I also liked the title track E.S.P., a song where Barry and Robin alternate on the lead, and the third cut, Live or die. I don't like the rest of the songs too much, though I must admit I only gave this album a couple of full listens. The day I bought this album I bought One too, and as I liked One quite a lot, I didn't give a chance to ESP. Maybe I should have :)