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When four young longhairs from Long Island decided to take the Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love" and stretch it into a seven-minute psychedelic dirge, they probably didn't realize they were about to invent heavy metal. But that's exactly what Vanilla Fudge accomplished with their audacious 1967 debut, a record that took the very concept of the cover version and turned it inside out, upside down, and cranked it through Marshall stacks until it emerged as something entirely alien.

The band had been kicking around the New York club circuit since 1965, initially as The Pigeons – a name that hardly suggested the sonic earthquake they were about to unleash. Drummer Carmine Appice, bassist Tim Bogert, guitarist Vince Martell, and organist Mark Stein were influenced by the British Invasion but refused to simply ape their heroes. Instead, they developed what they called "psychedelic symphonies" – taking familiar pop songs and subjecting them to a process of extreme musical stretching that was part séance, part sonic terrorism.

Producer George "Shadow" Morton, fresh from his work with the Shangri-Las, recognized something special in their approach and signed them to Atco Records. The resulting album reads like a greatest hits collection from an alternate universe – one where Motown melodies are filtered through a haze of purple smoke and existential dread.

The opening track, their infamous take on "You Can't Hurry Love," sets the template immediately. What Diana Ross delivered with breathless urgency, Vanilla Fudge transforms into a glacial meditation on romantic impatience. Mark Stein's Hammond organ drones like a church service for the damned, while Appice's drums crash with the weight of impending doom. It shouldn't work – by all rights, it should be an abomination – yet it emerges as something genuinely transcendent, a blueprint for everything from Black Sabbath to Soundgarden.

Their version of "Take Me Back" follows similar principles, turning a straightforward soul number into something that sounds like it was recorded in a cathedral during an earthquake. But it's their treatment of The Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On" that truly showcases their genius. Here, the band doesn't just slow down the tempo – they deconstruct the very DNA of the song, rebuilding it as a monument to romantic obsession that predicts the gothic grandeur of Led Zeppelin.

The album's most adventurous moment comes with "Eleanor Rigby," where The Beatles' string-driven character study becomes a full-blown rock opera. Stein's vocals shift between whispered confessions and primal screams, while the rhythm section creates a foundation so heavy it seems to bend spacetime. It's simultaneously respectful to the source material and completely blasphemous – exactly the kind of contradiction that makes great rock and roll.

Not everything succeeds quite so spectacularly. Their take on "Tic Toc" feels somewhat perfunctory, and the closing "Illusions of My Childhood" occasionally threatens to collapse under the weight of its own ambition. But these are minor quibbles with an album that essentially created its own genre.

The influence of this record cannot be overstated. Without Vanilla Fudge's willingness to slow everything down and turn up everything else, there would be no Sabbath, no Zeppelin, no Deep Purple. Carmine Appice's thunderous drumming style became the template for hard rock percussion, while the band's overall approach – taking existing songs and making them heavier, darker, and more psychedelic – became a standard practice throughout the genre.

The band members went on to form or join other influential groups – Appice and Bogert later worked with Jeff Beck and formed Cactus, while their rhythm section approach influenced everyone from John Bonham to Neil Peart. Various reunions have occurred over the decades, but none have matched the lightning-in-a-bottle chemistry of this debut.

Today, the album stands as one of rock's great what-if records – a glimpse into an alternate timeline where pop songs were routinely subjected to extreme sonic makeovers. It's simultaneously an artifact of its psychedelic era and a timeless statement about the transformative power of volume, space, and sheer bloody-minded vision. In an age of respectful cover versions and note-perfect tributes, Vanilla Fudge's debut remains a masterclass in creative destruction, proving that sometimes the best way