If you are familiar with the works of the the artists collectively known as Hipnosis, then the look of Barry Gibb's first (officially) released solo album art and accompanying video, NOW VOYAGER, will have a look I describe as a sort of deja vu -- unique, yet familiar. Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell were responsible for many great album covers from 1968 to well into the 80's as Hipnosis. They did classic covers for Led Zeppelin, Yes, Peter Gabriel, 10CC, Paul McCartney, Black Sabbath, and Pink Floyd. In 1983, Thorgerson, Powell, and Peter Christopherson formed Green Back films, and Nowvoyager became one of their first projects. The marriage of Barry Gibb's music with Hipnosis visuals create an interesting if somewhat surrealistic sojourn with the late veteran actor Michael Hordern as a Rod Serling type host who interacts with Gibb between the different sequences for the nine songs. It is ashamed that neither the album nor the video got much attention as it is well worth watching. Most of the songs broke new ground for Gibb who experimented with several new styles which worked very well in my opinion. Even though "Shine Shine" made the top 40, it should have been a bigger hit. American radio was still blaming the Bee Gees for a handful of disco songs some six years earlier and refused to play anything sung by the Bee Gees. They were clever enough to keep right on having huge hits as writers and producers for other artists.
Review of Now Voyager
