It isn't until the second track of the second side ("Country Lanes") that you hear what we used to call a Bee Gees song, instantly identifiable, tightly organized to take advantage of Barry Gibb's whispering approach and Robin Gibb's vibrato in the chorus harmonies, riding on a simple, almost-too-ripe melodic line. The lads are still flitting, some of their new concepts too fragile to really grasp, and it's the annoying repetitions of "Jive Talkin'" (that's how we do things, all right) one minute, and the modern - wobbly, mannered - construction one expects of Curtis Mayfield in "Winds of Change" the next, and the curious wavering between intensity and detachment in "Songbird" after that. Some of those ubiquitous jazz influences have come their way (along with other American influences their fascination with this place, once harmlessly manifested in such plainly English-made things as "Massachusetts" and "Living in Chicago," has narrowed down to concentrate on how we do things), and the washed-out colors of nostalgia attract them for the moment, but this new deal, whatever it's going to be, hasn't yet settled into shape. The remarkable durability of the Bee Gees suggests they're pretty good at charting the audience's zig-zagging (some would say tick-tacking, and some would say worse) taste, but with the last two albums the Gibbs seem to be circling in on something, and not sure what it is. Stephen Holden, Rolling Stone, 7/17/75. In this respect, Main Course is no different from its predecessors. For all their professionalism, the Bee Gees have never been anything but imitators, their albums dependent on sound rather than substance. "Edge of the Universe" is a slice of dumb psychedelia, "All This Making Love," a passable novelty. "Songbird," "Country Lanes," "Come on Over" and "Baby as You Turn Away" sound characteristically sugary. The rest of the album more or less reflects the Bee Gees of old. While I find the idea of such pretensions offensively cooptive, musically the group carries them off with remarkable flair. In "Wind of Change," also synthesized Stevie Wonder style, the Gibb brothers dare to pretend to speak for New York black experience.
"Jive Talkin'" approximates the synthesized propulsion of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition," whicle the song itself offers an inept lyric parody of black street argot. "Nights on Broadway" and especially "Fanny (Be Tender with My Love)" boast spacious disco arrangements against which the Bee Gees overdub skillful imitations of black falsetto. My guess is that it should succeed, at least to some extent, due to Arif Mardin's spectacular production, which presents the Bee Gees in blackface on the album's four genuinely exciting cuts. Main Course, the best-sounding Bee Gees album ever, represents a last-ditch effort to reestablish the group's mass popularity in front of their upcoming U.S.
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