88. Cream - Disraeli Gears (November 1967)

1. Strange Brew*

2. Sunshine of Your Love*

3. World of Pain

4. Dance the Night Away

5. Blue Condition

6. Tales of Brave Ulysses*

7. SWLABR

8. We're Going Wrong

9. Outside Woman Blues

10. Take It Back

11. Mother's Lament

B

So this is another one of those highly regarded albums that I don't particularly like. There are some great songs here, mind - it just doesn't manage to sustain my interest all the way through. I think the problem is just that I don't particularly like British Blues, Heavy Psychedelia or Hard Rock. Which is a pity, because this album really is an excellent example of all those things. Just, you know... things I don't give a damn about.

I think the biggest problem is Eric Clapton. I don't know what it is about him, but I just don't like his music. I think the problem is that he's technically perfect, and that renders his music slightly bloodless as a result. But I have to admit, he's been massively influential, and a lot of bands I do like owe a debt to his work with Cream.

Anyway, I'll focus on the good. "Strange Brew" is not the most famous song on this album, but it is the one that best encapsulates the highs and lows of the group. It's a shuffling monster of track, complete with quasi-funk guitar jabs and an excellent vocal by Clapton. It's also slightly too long, and once again a little bloodless. "Sunshine of Your Love", of course, needs no introduction. I think babies are born knowing the riff from this song. It's easily one of the greatest guitar tracks ever recorded, which helps because lyrically it's pretty stupid. I mean, the whole song is an extended metaphor for fucking a woman all night until you run out of cum, for Pete's sake. I also have a personal grudge against it because I once had the riff stuck in my head for a fortnight (a record only bested by Journey's "Any Way You Want It", which stuck around for three weeks). Still, the excitement and breadth of possibility suggested by the opening riff probably couldn't be matched by anything, so there's that. And in any case, it was an obvious influence on Hendrix and Black Sabbath, two acts I genuinely love.

My favourite song here, however, is "Tales of Brave Ulysses". It's a bizarre song, coping the melody from Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" to tell a story rich in psychedelic imagery that makes "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" seem positively sedate, all interspersed with rollicking wah wah guitar riffs. It's totally awesome, and if they ever send a gold record into space to explain psychedelic rock to extra-terrestrials, it should be on it.

The rest of the album, while innovative and obviously influential, is in my estimation merely "pretty good". And really, "three classic songs and the rest is OK" is a pretty good achievement for an album, especially one that falls so far outside my scope of interest. Anyway, this is my blog and I can say what I like. This is worth listening to, and others might find more to like in it, but personally this sort of nonsense leaves me cold.