Search - Aphrodite's Child :: Complete Collection

Best Psychedelic Album, Yes

Martin I VandenHurk | Westerly, Rhode Island United States | 09/28/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

""The Complete Collection" is a bargain at any price. i own an extensive Aphrodite's Collection, and it's the best-sounding pop-psychedelic cd I now own. Vangelis is now well-known, but Demis Roussos' voice is one of the most powerful I have ever heard, listen to "Spring, Summer, Winter, and Fall", and "It's Five O'Clock", and you'll be blown away. If you liked the Beatles in their psychedelic period then you'll like A.C. Don't think of what's not there: think of the treasures that are there, including the demos: "Plastics Nevermore" and "The Other People". Never mind the comparison between the Beatles "Fool on the Hill" and "Day of the Fool". This stuff is priceless, and you'll be a fool if you love 60's psychedelia and pass this up. A unique Greek take on the 60's A'D. 1968-1974. Far out!"

It's the best of Greek Soft Rock

Guilherme Purvin (gjpurvin@uol.com. | São Paulo, Brazil | 10/19/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The music of Evangelos Papathanassiou (better known as Vangelis) makes a strange combination with Loucas Sideras voice and drumming and Demis Roussos voice and bass guitar lines. It's a kind of religious greek chants mixed in a beatle style, something really peculiar. Although, there is no song named "Justice", "Prudence", "Temperance", "Humility", "Faith", "Hope" and "Charity". I became very upset when I received the double CD and found out that these songs (1, 2, 3, 41, 42, 43 and 44) are not in my record."

Psychedelic mediterranean experience

Hubert Potts | Austin, TX USA | 03/21/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"First let me note that the copy of this album which I received contained 36 songs - not the 44 songs indicated on this listing (6 songs are simply absent from the CD). Well, no big deal, I am happy to have the CD anyway.Secondly I would like to address the points made by the disappointed reviewer (in the "What a disappointment after 666..." review). The 666 materials represent the second incarnation of Aphrodite's Child, whereas the other materials on this record represent the first incarnation - two clearly very different phases for the band (and probably two very different phases in the musicians' lives). And to understand their art (like probably all art) surely it helps to know its social and historical context.The early Aphrodite's Child hit Europe suddenly like a storm. They were newly arrived from Greece (a rock band from Greece in 1968? who ever heard of "rock from Greece", an oxymoron in those days - perhaps even now). Their attempts to make English psychedelic music seemed so amateurish, and they obviously can't even speak the language (bad pronunciation, faulty grammar). But they brought an aesthetic inspiration (or perhaps aspiration) that was as wonderous and infectious as tales of ancient Greece, and which grabbed everyone's attention at that time.Their singer Demis Roussos had a voice as emotionally rich as any voice could possibly be, a voice that could infect others with the poignant feelings he was rendering. And the underlying music is, on further and closer listening, carefully put together: the drumming is moderate and nicely fit in; the piano and keyboard work are gentle and classically influenced; the melodies and arrangements are rich and varied; the production is extremely professional, smartly borrowing many types of sounds from the best bands of the time: the Beatles of 1968, the Bee Gees of 1967-68, some of the London jazz fusion work of 1968-69, and many more bands and "sounds".Aphrodite's Child in its first incarnation was a very important band in Europe for a short time (a year or two), as were many other bands that comprise the important music of the late 1960's. And for a bunch of young aspiring rockers from Greece, their works are a great tour de force, placing them along with the best rock bands of the late 1960's."