Cream Albums: The Essential Guide

[westen44]

https://www.loudersound.com/features/cream-albums-the-essential-guide

[uwe]

With only three and a half studio albums under their belt, ranking them doesn't make much sense (it's like ranking Hendrix' first three albums), they're not Neil Young!  All of them were a blueprint for rock music that came after. I have that comprehensive 4-CD set, a Best of and the RAH recording from the reunion, given their long time apart and their collective age, that was surprisingly good.

[westen44]

I was also really surprised at how the music from the reunion turned out so well.  The drummer up the street disagreed.  He must have been expecting the sound of Cream from the 60s.  I guess that's natural to feel that way, but a person needs to be realistic, IMO. 

[Dave W]

I still listen to Disraeli Gears regularly.

[uwe]

The two (or three) worst things about Cream are;

- How nine out of 10 people reply when you say: "I really like Cream!":

  "Yes, Freddie Mercury was great."

- How everybody says they were "inspired" by Ginger's and Jack's style, yet 90% of all rock music since the 80ies shows zilch of their influence. While Clapton - the most conventional player in Cream - has spawned zillion devotees (he's good, I'm not knocking him). I hear Jack Bruce in Flea's approach to the instrument. Yes, he's famous, but how many bassists play with anything approaching the same zest & quest as Flea?

[lowend1]

The two (or three) worst things about Cream are;

- How nine out of 10 people reply when you say: "I really like Cream!":

  "Yes, Freddie Mercury was great."

- How everybody says they were "inspired" by Ginger's and Jack's style, yet 90% of all rock music since the 80ies shows zilch of their influence. While Clapton - the most conventional player in Cream - has spawned zillion devotees (he's good, I'm not knocking him). I hear Jack Bruce in Flea's approach to the instrument. Yes, he's famous, but how many bassists play with anything approaching the same zest & quest as flea?

You can't really use influences as a predictor of musical style. Sometimes people lose their way. Alex and Geddy were heavily into Cream. EVH adored Clapton. Steve Howe was a Buddy Holly nut. Kind of difficult to pick up those influences listening to 2112, Eruption or Close To The Edge.

[uwe]

Geddy plays more angular than Jack, but in that angularity he's organic - an organic little square!  I hear some Jack in him, he's not scared to go places. I find very little warmth in Lifeson's guitar playing though, his style I always found hardest to connect to in the Rush instrumental triangle. Same thing with Howe, excellent player, but no warmth.

[Dave W]

Sometimes influences are a lot more subtle than overt. Don't sell Jack's influence short.

[uwe]

I wish it were greater! But neither his penchant for bending on short scales/playing fretless on long scale basses to play between keys nor his avoidance of root notes (or lower notes in general) has left much of a mark in commercial pop music. Probably because it is deemed uncommercial and a hassle to record right and in one go.

I guess you could say that his preference for a more distorted bass (though not always in his career) has seen a general resurgence since Grunge came along.

In the 70ies, there were several bands whose bassists were unabashedly Jack Bruce-influenced: Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath, Mel Schacher of Grand Funk, Jim Lea of Slade, Felix Pappalardi of Mountain, Dennis Dunaway in the original Alice Cooper Group ... and I would count in Geddy Lee of Rush and John-Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin too. In all of'em, you could really hear his handwriting. Name me five bands of the same scale active today where you hear Jack Bruce'isms as much? Flea is the only guy I can really come up with though happily he himself has left his mark on a younger generation of bassists.

There was quite a bit of Jack Bruce in Cliff Burton too come to think of it. But it is my pet theory that Metallica needed Jason Newsted's more conventional style to mount the peaks of success. Steve Harris of Iron Maiden is another one - he shares Jack Bruce's frenzy.

[Dave W]

"Name me five bands of the same scale active today where you hear Jack Bruce'isms as much?"

Are you kidding? I can't even name five bands any more.    I just listen to old stuff.

[uwe]

Truth of the matter is that Jack's style is anathema to what bands like U2, Coldplay, Muse or Nickelback require. They need a root note based, steady-throb-with-little-dynamics approach forever enslaved to the drums. A bass that could just as well be played by a keyboard (and often sounds like it too). Try that with a Cream live recording! 

[Pilgrim]

"Name me five bands of the same scale active today where you hear Jack Bruce'isms as much?"

Are you kidding? I can't even name five bands any more.    I just listen to old stuff.

Squire Dave has the floor!

Oh yea, oh yea, oh yea.....the gentleman's motion is seconded.

[Grog]

"Name me five bands of the same scale active today where you hear Jack Bruce'isms as much?"

Are you kidding? I can't even name five bands any more.    I just listen to old stuff.

+1, I watch music awards nowadays sporting a blank stare......... Rarely recognize more than one group.

[uwe]

Bunch of old men you are! 

[westen44]

Truth of the matter is that Jack's style is anathema to what bands like U2, Coldplay, Muse or Nickelback require. They need a root note based, steady-throb-with-little-dynamics approach forever enslaved to the drums. A bass that could just as well be played by a keyboard (and often sounds like it too). Try that with a Cream live recording! 

I realize you don't like Muse.  But, seriously, U2, Coldplay and Nickelback aren't even close to being in the same league as Muse.  This may be the only time I give you advice, but check out the bass lines to the "Absolution" album.  The whole album is light years away from anything U2, Coldplay or Nickelback have ever attempted.  It's true the last few albums by Muse have sucked.  But some of the old ones are pretty good.  It also might be kept in mind that, even though you might not be able to hear it in their music, Muse was inspired by Jimi Hendrix.  I know this, of course, by what band members have said in interviews.  How relevant that is, I'm not sure.  But you would have to wonder if Coldplay, U2 and Nickelback have even heard of Hendrix.  The music of all three bands is mind-numbing.   As for Cream, that was very possibly the greatest band of all time.  Of course it will be hard to find anything to match what they did.  And as important as Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton were, Jack Bruce was the driving force. 

Addendum:



Although this is about an 18 minute video, there is no need to go much beyond the 8 minute mark.  By that time a clear decline in Muse's career, unfortunately, had begun.  In other words, things begin to fall apart roughly by 2009.