Artist

While the swirling, quasi-psychedelic, hooky but heavy rocking style of Shocking Blue earned them a host of hits in their homeland of the Netherlands, they are best known in the states for their frantic, insistent number one hit from 1970, "Venus." Although they'd formed in 1967, it wasn't until they recruited singer Mariska Veres a year later that they found their sound. Their debut album At Home bridged the gap between pop and progressive rock, and was rife with inventive arrangements, including a deft sitar on "Acka Raga." By 1972, the band was spent and dissolved, but made sporadic reunions, even getting together briefly to record in the mid-'90s, but the group fell silent for good when Veres succumbed to cancer in 2006. ~ Rovi Staff