High Civilization
album by Bee Gees

High Civilization is the nineteenth studio album by British-Australian pop group the Bee Gees, released on 25 March 1991 in the United Kingdom and 14 May 1991 in the United States. It was their third and final album on Warner Bros. Records, following the release of the successful comeback albums E.S.P. (1987) and One (1989), and was self-produced by the group in their Miami studio.
Recorded with a small group of musicians, High Civilization was the first of two Bee Gees albums recorded with Prince's engineer Femi Jiya, whose preference for hard, loud percussion ensured that the drums and beats are loud in the mix, pushing the Bee Gees' vocal harmonies further back. The album favours a dance style with electronic instruments and studio effects, such as programmed drums and synthesisers, and features an eclectic array of material including art rock songs and love ballads. The record features high concept lyrical imagery and themes of romance.
On release, the album reached number 24 on the UK Albums Chart and was also successful in Germany, where it was heavily promoted. However, it did not chart in the United States. The Motown tribute "Secret Love" was issued as the lead single and reached number five on the UK Singles Chart. Music critics commented on the album's dense production and lengthy songs, which some Bee Gees biographers have dismissed.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “High Civilization” as album by Bee Gees. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as album by Bee Gees. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1036306. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1991, 1987 and 1989.
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This entry incorporates text from “High Civilization” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.