Description
Offered for sale is a Japanese pressing of the double album Odessa by the Bee Gees, including the original felt cover and original obi.
About this copy: This copy of Odessa is a 1969 Japanese pressing on the Polydor label.
This is technically a second issue; the first issue had a catalog number of SMP-9305/6; this one is MP-9305/6. Discogs lists both issues as being released in 1969, though we believe this version may actually date from 1971. We’re not exactly sure when the catalog number was changed, but Electric Ladyland by Jimi Hendrix was issued shortly before this title in 1969 (catalog numbers SMP-9301/2 and later MP-9301/2) and that album’s second issue was released in 1971. Regardless of exactly when it was issued, it remains an early pressing of the LP.
The cover is VG++, with slight corner wear on the back and slight wear on the spine. The gold-stamped lettering is sharp. The obi is VG++ with slight foxing on the back.
This LP was issued without an insert; there is a photo/lyric booklet inside the gatefold cover instead.
The discs are M-, with a few spindle marks on the labels, but no marks on the vinyl. The first disc looks like it may have only been played once or twice; the second disc appears to have had slightly more play. Clean discs!
A nice copy of a scarce (and pretty good) Bee Gees LP. It’s very difficult to find a clean example of this title, as the album is usually found with serious cover wear and a missing obi.
Background: Odessa was, and remains, the Bee Gees’ most ambitious work, a heavily-orchestrated double album that was originally planned as a concept album around the disappearance of a ship.
The album was lavishly packaged in a felt-covered cover, which was unusually prone to wear. When reissued in the mid-1970s amid the Bee Gees’ disco-flavored revival, Odessa was repackaged in the U.S. as a single LP with a simple printed cover.
Allmusic gave Odessa a 4 1/2 star review:
The group members may disagree for personal reasons, but Odessa is easily the best and most enduring of the Bee Gees’ albums of the 1960s. It was also their most improbable success, owing to the conflicts behind its making. The project started out as a concept album to be called “Masterpeace” and then “The American Opera,” but musical differences between Barry and Robin Gibb that would split the trio in two also forced the abandonment of the underlying concept. Instead, it became a double LP — largely at the behest of their manager and the record labels; oddly enough, given that the group didn’t plan on doing something that ambitious, Odessa is one of perhaps three double albums of the entire decade (the others being Blonde on Blonde and The Beatles) that don’t seem stretched, and it also served as the group’s most densely orchestrated album. …
The myriad sounds and textures made Odessa the most complex and challenging album in the group’s history, and if one accepts the notion of the Bee Gees as successors to the Beatles, then Odessa was arguably their Sgt. Pepper’s. The album was originally packaged in a red felt cover with gold lettering on front and back and an elaborate background painting for the gatefold interior, which made it a conversation piece.
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| Country of origin: | Japan |
| Size: | 12″ |
| Record Label: | RSO |
| Catalog Number: |
MP-9305/6 |
| Year of Release: | 1969 |
| Format: | Stereo |
| Share: |       |
