THE SINGLES

This is a great addition to your record collection, if you own only "666" from this band and you are not interested of buying their other long players, which hold material varying quite much in quality. "Rain And Tears" and "End of The World" exploit both the emotional capacities of Demis Roussos' voice and powerful electronic tones of Vangelis' in slightly psychedelic manner. Also their fabulous Italian single "Quando L'amore Diventa Poesia" with its B-side are included here. "It's Five O'Clock" and "Annabella" are also wonderful emotional ballads from the other ways quite messy second album. Listening these poetic small masterpieces makes me sad, as the power of money made these two talented musicians to venture on more commercial careers. But it's great that they forged these jewels before going to their own paths, and left great legacy.

This collection consists of singles: A-sides and B-sides, especially taken from the era of Aphrodite's Child's first two albums, so this compilation doesn't show their most progressive collection of songs.

Still, this is a very good record, because Aphrodite's Child was an accomplished singles band. And more than that: even their B-sides are often worth a listen, and strangely enough they are not taking the level of the album down. Listen for instance to "Magic Mirror", the B-side of "I Want To Live": the song bursts out of energy, and has heavy rock playing with some definitive jazz playing as well. No filler at all. Still, even at moments where the A-sides do eclipse the B-sides in terms of composition, the album doesn't become dull. It is a joyful experience from A to Z.

What's Aphrodite's Child's strength? Strong keyboard playing by Vangelis, who was a keyboard wizard already in the late sixties, and on top of it a great production which is far ahead of its time. The sound is really mind boggling sometimes, so powerful! Vangelis is here still playing in service of three minutes songs, which is nice in addition to his later more free form albums.

Also a treat are the vocals of Demis Roussos, who is most known from his later non prog career, where he scored many hitsingles in the pop field. Demis is a sensitive singer, and he has a voice that you don't often hear. A bit lamenting, and to my ears (Western - European ears, I admit) there are elements of Greek folk singing in his singing.

And then... the songs themselves. AC were talented songwriters, though the melancholic songs are not to every progger's taste, I'm sure. Slow songs like Rain and Tears, Marie Jolie, Spring Summer Winter And Fall: I'm sure that many visitors of this site would find them either too melodramatic or to commercial sounding.

Demis Roussos would, in his early solo career, go not very far from early Aphrodite's Child in his songs, but what is extra in the music of this band is the magnificent production and the keyboards of Vangelis which are taking you like on a magic carpet ride. Therefore, even when this record is obviously more a pop than a prog record, it's the combination of Vangelis keyboard and studio wizardry and the variety in well written songs what make's this record (or another representative compilation) an excellent extra to any progger's collection.