| "Too Much Heaven" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Bee Gees | ||||
| from the album Spirits Having Flown | ||||
| B-side | "Rest Your Love on Me" | |||
| Released | 24 October 1978 (UK) 21 November 1978 (US, Canada) |
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| Format | Vinyl record (7" 45 RPM) | |||
| Recorded | Criteria Studios, Miami, Florida, June — July 1978 |
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| Genre | R&B, Soul | |||
| Length | 4:58 | |||
| Label | RSO | |||
| Producer | Barry Gibb Robin Gibb Maurice Gibb Albhy Galuten Karl Richardson |
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| Certification | Platinum (RIAA)[1] | |||
| Bee Gees singles chronology | ||||
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"Too Much Heaven" is a song by the Bee Gees, which was the band's contribution to the "Music for UNICEF" fund. They performed it at the Music for UNICEF Concert on 9 January 1979. The song later found its way to the group's thirteenth original album, Spirits Having Flown. In the United States and Canada, it became the latest in a long line of chart-toppers, and rose to the top three in the United Kingdom, as well.
Imbued with their falsetto style, it is also notable for being one of two songs on the album featuring the Chicago horn section (James Pankow, Walt Parazaider and Lee Loughnane)--the other track with the Chicago members being "Search, Find".
Contents |
The recording process was the longest of all the tracks on Spirits Having Flown as there are nine layers of three-part harmony creating 27 voices, though the high falsetto voices are the most pronounced in the final mix:
The horn section from the band Chicago play on the song, in return for the brothers’ appearance on the Chicago song "Little Miss Lovin".
In the summer of 1978, the Gibb brothers announced their latest project at a news conference at the United Nations in New York City. All of the publishing royalties on their next single would go into UNICEF, to celebrate the International Year of the Child, which was designated to be 1979. The song earned over $7 million dollars in publishing royalties. Then-United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralded the move as "an outstanding and generous initiative."
The Bee Gees were later invited to the White House, where President Jimmy Carter thanked the group for their donation. At the ceremony, the brothers presented Carter with one of their black satin tour jackets. Carter remarked that he was "not a disco fan" but knew enough about their music because his daughter Amy was a big fan.
"Too Much Heaven" was released nine months after "Night Fever". At the time, this had been the longest gap in The Bee Gees' distribution of singles since 1975.
The single "Too Much Heaven" was released in the late autumn of 1978 (it had originally been intended for use in the John Travolta movie Moment By Moment, but was pulled before the film's release reportedly because Barry Gibb thought the movie was awful when he was shown a rough cut.), and started a slow ascent up the music charts. In the first week of 1979, preceding the Music for UNICEF Concert, the single first topped the charts in both the United States and Canada. In the United Kingdom, the single peaked at number three late in 1978. A slow ballad that was unlike the previous two singles off the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, Barry Gibb noted that the group wanted to "move in an R&B direction, still maintaining our lyric power, and our melody power as well."
| Chart | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Argentina | 1 |
| Australia | 5 |
| Austria | 13 |
| Brazil | 1 |
| Canada | 1 |
| Chile | 1 |
| China | 5 |
| Finland | 4 |
| France | 2 |
| Germany | 10 |
| Ireland | 2 |
| Italy | 1 |
| Netherlands | 2 |
| New Zealand | 1 |
| Norway | 1 |
| South Africa | 1 |
| Spain | 1 |
| Sweden | 1 |
| United Kingdom | 3 |
| United States | 1 |
| Preceded by "Le Freak" by Chic |
Billboard Hot 100 number-one single 6 – 13 January 1979 |
Succeeded by "Le Freak" by Chic |