← Back to Countries

Greece

A concept album too much for 1972

Aphrodite's Child

Aphrodite's Child were Demis Roussos, Vangelis and Lucas Sideras, all Greek and all based in Paris. At the end of 1970 they spent three months recording 666, a double album loosely built around the Book of Revelation. Their label balked at releasing it. The main objection was a contribution from actress Irene Papas, a vocal performance widely described as simulating ecstasy. The album sat on the shelf for over a year and was eventually pushed onto a more experimental subsidiary label. By the time it came out in 1972, the band had already broken up.

A soundtrack withheld for 12 years

Vangelis

Ridley Scott liked Vangelis's score for Chariots of Fire enough to bring him in for Blade Runner, and reportedly went to his London studio most nights during editing to watch him build cues live against silent footage on a Yamaha CS-80 synthesizer. The finished score is moody and synthesizer-built, and hard to separate from the film's rain-soaked skyline. It got a BAFTA nomination, but for all that reputation, no Academy Award nomination at all. Stranger still, there was no official soundtrack album for twelve years after the film's 1982 release. Bootleg tapes filled the gap until Vangelis finally authorized an official release in 1994, for reasons he never fully explained.

The Collection