Track: End Of The World
Artist: Aphrodite's Child
Album: End Of The World
Tags: 60s, psychedelic, progressive rock, ballads, my gang rotw
Video: Click the pic...

YouTube, 1969


This isn't the song I originally wanted to reco this week. The one I wanted to go with is also on this album, the riproaring You Always Stand In My Way, but the video for this one is better.

For those of us born too late, it's hard to imagine Demis Roussos as the love god he was revered for in the 1970s, but once you see this video, you can begin to understand why Beverly made such a big deal about him at Abigail's Party.

In the 1970s, Demis Roussos, along with Nana Mouskouri, represented the height of sophistication and good taste. I always found them funny, but sometimes I'm a bit naughty like that. By then, Demis had let himself go and Nana wore odd glasses, both of which kind of spoilt the effect. There was no doubt they could sing, just by then, it was safe, bland and innocuous and they didn't look like all the other pop stars.

The song in the video, End Of The World, is of the safe, bland, innocuous type, heavily disguised as romantic, dramatic progressive rock. It's a love song, a ballad, sung by someone gorgeous, who knows he's gorgeous, and his friends think they're gorgeous too.



Laughter aside, there's definitely something there. On my first viewing, I was transfixed. That's what Demis looked like?! So which one's Vangelis? He must be the one on keyboards. Trying to go back that far in time and make sense of things was blowing my mind.



Aphrodite's Child was a supergroup of sorts. It was a Greek band, the only one at the time to make an international impact, led by Demis and included the now legendary Vangelis (Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou) and Lucas Sideras. End Of The World was their debut album and this week's reco was the first track off that. It's a patchy album, but imaginative. Overall, it stands as a good representation of ideas and themes in psychedelic progressive rock across late-60s Europe.

The band are most famous for their third, final and best album, the cult classic 6 6 6 (1971). My friend davidjennings has written a good blog about it here. Allmusic describes it as, "An amazingly bombastic concept album about the Apocalypse of St. John seen as a rock spectacle. Demis Roussos wails the lyrics in a frantically operatic falsetto, while the band pound fiercely through Vangelis' furiously complex music. It certainly has its moments, but the entire set eventually becomes too overwhelming to sit through. "



Demis Roussos has come through his awkward years and looks like a venerable, friendly old gentleman now (okay, maybe not in that pic). I'm pleased to discover he's still recording and, moreover, he's still with it and happening and uses social network sites. Here's his MySpace where he's promoting his new album, Love is, released in May this year.




Babs _{My Gang}

Reco of the Week archives



Admin - Stats as of today:

Last.fm listeners of this track - 2,304
No. of plays scrobbled in Last.fm - 6,906
Position in Last 7 Days: 20 / 45
Position in Last 6 Months: 22 / 685

Video
Date Added: May 28, 2006
Views: 220,794, Ratings: 407, Comments: 184, Favourited: n/a times

Stats after 7 days:

Last.fm listeners of this track - 2,326
No. of plays scrobbled in Last.fm - 6,969
Position in Last 7 Days: 21 / 45
Position in Last 6 Months: 22 / 685

Video
Views: 223,281 , Ratings: 410, Comments: 185, Favourited: n/a times


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