3/30/2023 0 Comments Vanilla fudge albums![]() This is only recommended to the most die-hard of psychedelic collectors - all others should proceed with extreme caution. A directionless and confusing album, The Beat Goes On is a failed experiment in my book, and a disappointing followup to Vanilla Fudge's 1967 debut. The Beat Goes On aims to transport the listener through history, musical and otherwise, and although this is a great concept, the execution is baffling. It's actually a shame that the band never decided to flesh out any of the tunes here, as I think a heavy psychedelic version of "Fur Elise" or "Hound Dog" could have made for an entertaining listen. Instead, they briefly touch on numerous compositions, and the result is an incoherent mess. The Beat Goes On does have some cool musical ideas from time to time, but they rarely expand beyond interesting fragments although Vanilla Fudge sticks to cover tracks once again, they never actually recreate any of the tracks they pay homage to. As cool as a sound collage of twentieth century political figures can be if done right, it seems out of place and overly long when it takes up eight minutes on a rock album. There are flirtations with conventional music, like the piano intro "Sketch" and a few Beatles covers in rapid succession, but a majority of the music seems to have very little direction at all - a good portion of side two can hardly be called music, if truth be told. The Beat Goes On has a few interesting things going on, but the band's total disregard for musical structure and composition makes for a tough pill to swallow, even when looked at from a historical perspective.Īlthough the music on 1967's Vanilla Fudge was primarily straightforward organ-led psychedelic rock, the same can not be said for The Beat Goes On. The success of that album only increases the confusion generated by The Beat Goes On, the American outfit's controversial sophomore observation - this experimental album is a 'head scratcher' for sure, and though some have hailed it as a misunderstood masterpiece, I will join the choir of folks that just don't get it. That mixture of overpowering Rascals organ and psychedelic Hendrix guitar, all those slow build-ups and crescendos, those lulls and storms, every bit of it copied by a hundred other Long Island hard-rock groups-it finally got too much for everyone except the fans of what the Fudge termed "psychedelic symphonic rock.Vanilla Fudge's debut may not have moved me a whole lot as a listener, but I certainly understand the album's place as a seminal album in the development of psychedelic and heavy rock music. But their own songs and in live performance they were almost too hard to take. Vanilla Fudge had made the whole notion of interpretaion interesting again. Carmine Appice and Tim Bogert formed Cactus and eventually ended up playing with Jeff Beck in Beck, Bogart & Appice. The third album "Renaissance" was released some months later and featured mostly original songs as well as a nine-minute version of Donovan's `Season Of The Witch`.īy 1970 Vanilla Fudge issued their final album "Rock And Roll" and disbanded. The second Vanilla Fudge album "The Beat Goes On" was one of the most gallant disasters in the annals of rock, a musical record of the previous 25 years including the entire history of music in less than twelve minutes. Their almost fussy neo-gospel harmonies and cinerama arrangements were irritating a lot of people, but created a certainly exhilarating sound. Vanilla Fudge had slowed down this song to half its original tempo, inserted plenty of neo-classical organ and Indian guitar licks and swelled it up to an almost Spectoresque extravaganza.Ī full seven-and-a-half-minute version of this single was included on the 1967 debut album "Vanilla Fudge", plus Fudged-up arrangements of such songs as `Eleanor Rigby`, `Ticket To Ride` (both written by the Beatles), `Bang Bang` (by Sonny & Cher) and `People Get Ready` (by The Impressions). Known as 'the first of the heavy bands' and 'doyens of punk mysterioso' this Long Island group first came to public attention in 1967 with a revival of an old Supremes hit `You Keep Me Hangin´ On`.
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