The Best of Vanilla Fudge

Vanilla Fudge | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Atlantic / Wea
• ASIN: B000008LY7
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #56,307 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Track listing a) "Illusions Of My Childhood (Part 1)" b) "You Keep Me Hangin' On" c) "Illusions Of My Childhood (Part 2)" "Shotgun" "Some Velvet Morning" "Ticket To Ride" a) "Take Me For A Little While" b) "Illusions Of My Childhood (Part 3)" "Where Is My Mind" "Season Of The Witch"

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Maybe not THE best, but some of the best, February 19, 2011

By 

Daniel Lisk "Music Is My Life" (Chicago,IL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Best of Vanilla Fudge (Audio CD)

I had this on vinyl & wanted to get it again on CD beacuse it does have outstanding tracks by these guys & I particularly liked the order of songs & the way they flowed into each other. This is sort of unusual for a "Best Of" compilation, but then again, the Fudge were an unusual band.

The interspersed short little organ intros of "Illusions Of My Childhood Pts I, II, & III" add continuity to the album overall.
It contains some of their best original material such as "Some Velvet Morning" and "Where Is My Mind", not to mention killer covers like the blistering "Shotgun" or the plaintive "You Keep Me Hangin' On" (yes, the Supreme's made it famous but Vanilla Fudge put their mark on it also). At times, Vince Martell's guitar takes on a sitar-like sound.

Ending with a truly dark version of the great Donovan's "Season Of The Witch", this album showcases the Fudge's knack for deconstructing songs from various musical styles into their own unique sound as well as serving as a counterpoint to some great originals. Keep in mind that these guys put out 5 albums in 3 years, & their ratio of covers to originals leaned higher to the covers.

2.0 out of 5 stars speed-up, slow-down hyperbolic crescendos, June 3, 2011

By 

Gordon L. Fuglie - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Best of Vanilla Fudge (Audio CD)

Not having listened to VF for a couple of decades, I picked up BOVF at a yard sale.

This band tried to capitalize on the psychedelic trend by overhauling Motown classics and Hollywood studio arranger mystico-kitsch: "Velvet Morning." From my current vantage point, the results of this approach to doing other people's music are mixed. To obtain variation and distinctness from the originals, the band relies on the variation of tempos and the serial pitched concentration/withdrawal of instrumentation and vocals, i.e. speed-up, loud instruments, then to slow-down, fewer instruments and quieter. The vocals are intense, but become laughably serious when compared to their originals. "You keep me hanging On," in its original Motown form, had a fairly brisk tempo and tight harmonies to drive the song's anguished, masochism. This helped it avoid the hyperbole that befell the VF version, where the song gets swamped in bathos and mannered agony, under-girded by creepy organ trills.

The band could arguably be called proto-heavy metal for those interested enough to classify them in the History of Rock. For me, the mixing of contrasts and coloration (Vanilla vs. Fudge, get it?) muddies the music. Once the novelty is over after first hearing, we're done here.