When I was a teenager I was a Bee Gees fan. (It is worth noting that this was in the late 80s when the Bee Gees were well past the height of their career).

I blame Craig McLachlan. I don’t know if anyone else remembers a TV special of a Bee Gees concert introduced by Craig but I must have stumbled across it while growing up in my town with only two TV stations. YEAH THAT’S RIGHT. TWO (the ABC and some weird local Channel 7). Previously, my only other Bee Gees reference point was The Goodies send up.

Anyway, we all know that the Bee Gees are completely daggy. Their hair was terrible. They had to survive the 70s fashions. But listen. The songs. The songs are amazing. I bought myself a double cassette tape (YES CASSETTE TAPE) of their Greatest Hits and set about torturing my family with it. I was reminded of this recently when I was re-reading Caitlin Moran’s How to Build a Girl where the heroine and her brother spend a lot of time singing along to Tragedy. I’m sure we can all agree this is awesome song. And that footage that gets trotted out regularly of them singing My Old Man’s a Dustman is all kinds of cute as well.

But at the moment I’m obsessed with Islands in the Stream which is more famous as sung by others. And Spicks and Specks. And Massachusetts. And I Started a Joke. And the rest.

And what I want to know is when are we going to see a Bee Gees tribute album featuring other Australian music greats? The melodies, harmonies and rhythms are just as deserving as Crowded House and others who are so regularly applauded. That would make teenage Wendy very happy indeed.