The Bee Gees: Barry Gibb (vocals, guitar); Maurice Gibbs (vocals, piano, organ, mellotron, bass); Robin Gibb (vocals).

Additional personnel: Alan Kendall (guitar); Joeff Bridgford (drums).

Recorded at I.B.C. Studios, London, England.

Ultradiscs are mastered from the original master tapes using Mobile

Fidelity's proprietary mastering technique, then plated with 24 karat gold

and housed in a stress-resistant lift-lock jewel box.

The Bee Gees: Robin Gibb (vocals); Barry Gibb (vocals, guitar); Alan Kendall (guitar); Maurice Gibb (bass, piano, organ, mellotron, vocals); Joeff Bridgford (drums).

Recorded at I.B.C. Studios, London, England.

The Bee Gees had entered the early '70s with a roaring success in the guise of "Lonely Days" and its accompanying album, which established their sound as a softer pop variant on the Moody Blues' brand of progressive rock. Trafalgar, which followed, carried the process further on what was their longest single LP release, clocking in at 47 minutes. The music all sounded meaningful, much of it displaying the same kind of faux-grandeur that the Moody Blues affected on their music of this era, the core group (playing pretty hard) acompanied by either Mellotron-generated orchestra or the real thing, with the group's soaring harmonies and Robin Gibb's quavaring lead vocals all over the place. As with 2 Years On's "Man for All Seasons," there was also one title ("Lion in Winter," featuring a startling falsetto performance) lifted from a recently popular film and play having to do with English history. It was all very beautifully produced and, propelled into record-store racks by the presence of "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart," the group's first No. 1 single, Trafalgar shipped very well initially. Nothing else on the record was remotely as memorable as the single, however, and its sales were limited. Trafalgar was also the handsomest and most elaborately designed of their albums, its cover reprinting Pocock's painting "The Battle of Trafalgar" and the interior gatefold containing a shot of the brothers enacting the scene of the death of Lord Nelson. It all imparted the sense of a concept album, though nothing in the music said so, except perhaps the finale, "Walking Back to Waterloo." Despite the hit single, the album showed the limits of the Bee Gees' talents as songwriters and of their appeal as album artists. ~ Bruce Eder

1971's TRAFALGAR can be seen as a distillation of the ideas explored on 1969's bountiful double album ODESSA. Though other material was released in between these two, there is still a discernible aural link. While ODESSA consolidated the Bee Gee's songwriting abilities, it was sort of their WHITE ALBUM, going off in a million different (though wonderful) stylistic directions. TRAFALGAR builds on the compositional growth of ODESSA, but is more stylistically focused, concentrated on the pop-rock vein that is the band's greatest strength. Though it's best known for the classic, heart-rending ballad "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" (later done the honor of an Al Green cover version), TRAFALGAR is full of top-notch Gibb compositions, like the Orbisonesque Robin Gibb feature "Remembering" and the moving ballad "I Don't Wanna Live Inside Myself."

Rolling Stone (10/28/71, p.49) - "...virtually every cut has...stylistic and fully matured singles potential...and all display a melodic depth which is apt to surprise the skeptical..."