For Christmas 2025, I received a poster listing 100 albums everyone should hear before they kick the proverbial bucket. So, in 2026, I intend to listen to every last one of ‘em and write about it here. Some I already adore, some I’ve never heard of, and some I’m utterly baffled as to why anyone would waste their time. Either way I’ll be sharing my thoughts and impressions on all 100 records throughout the year. I hope you enjoy the ride!

I’m not really sure you can count a movie soundtrack as an album in the traditional sense, but then if any movie soundtrack gets to stand on its own merits, I guess it’s Saturday Night Fever. Wikipedia informs me it shifted over 16 million copies in the US alone, staying at number one in the charts for 24 straight weeks and ultimately being entered into the Library of Congress in 2012 for being "culturally, historically, and/or aesthetically significant”. Such was the power of disco in the 70s I guess.

Personally, disco music’s never really twirled my beanie. But there were actually a few tracks on here that I quite enjoyed. The pick of the bunch (for me) is Kool and the Gang’s Open Sesame, which leans more towards the funk end of disco, which I am quite partial to on occasion.

That’s another quirk of this album. Ostensibly billed as a Bee Gees album, with the Gibbs front and centre of the cover, the trio apparently only wrote eight of the 17 tracks here, performing less than half a dozen. In their defence, their contributions are certainly the most iconic. I was already familiar with all of their numbers (I even used to cover Stayin’ Alive in a glam rock stylee in my old band), which again speaks to the longevity of this stuff. Even this long-haired metalhead has spent a few nights bopping to You Should Be Dancing while a few jars deep in nameless nightclubs.

The instrumental stuff’s definitely the highlight for me though. The disco/classical crossovers of A Fifth of Beethoven and Night on Disco Mountain are ace (though arguably carried more by the original compositions than the more modern twists therein), and Calypso Breakdown and Salsation - along with the aforementioned Kool and the Gang number - are ones I’ve added to my library for when I’m feeling funky.

All in all, I actually enjoyed this album more than I was expecting, even if the actual Bee Gees parts of it weren’t for me. First pleasant surprise of this series, here’s hoping for more!