Cream has always annoyed the piss out of me. I mean they’re a legendary band if you have a thing for singers who can’t sing, songs that make clunking noises when dropped, boring white blues, mostly crap psychedelia, and shitty lyrics. Admittedly they have their moments, but then Hot Tuna (not that I would know, I flee whenever somebody tries to force them on me) probably do too.
Cream, which holds the dubious distinction of being rock’s first supergroup, were, as everyone knows, Eric Clapton on guitar, Jack Bruce on bass, and Ginger Baker on drums. They all pitched in on vocals, badly. Their 1966 debut Fresh Cream was primarily a British blues album, but by 1967 everyone had turned on, tuned in, and dropped all pretense of common sense, and psychedelia was the dayglo order of the day. And Cream, not to be left out, leapt in with all six hallucinating feet with Disraeli Gears.
Disraeli Gears is a classic, everyone knows that, just like everyone knows dodos had superb survival skills. I’m not saying the album’s an absolute power trio cow flop, and I’m willing to cut it some slack solely because “White Room” isn’t on it. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve found myself singing its opening lines, not because I want to but because my brain seems to take great delight in torturing me. “In the white room, with black curtains, oh hell not that again!”
But the omission of a song from an album doesn’t make that album a great album, or even a good album for that matter. A great album is made up of great songs, and great songs are in seriously short supply on Disraeli Gears. I count two very good ones, or three if I’m being charitable and include “Sunshine of Your Love,” which I’m disinclined to be because I heard it too many times the second time I heard it.
What I will say, before I get around to addressing the songs on Disraeli Gears, is Eric Clapton plays one hell of a wah-wah guitar, especially for a racist anti-vaxxer who doesn’t have a chin. And Bruce and Baker are superb musicians as well. But the same can be said for Emerson, Lake & Palmer, who went out of their way to prove that musical talent and good music can be mutually exclusive. But boy did that Palmer guy give great gong!
“Strange Brew” is one of the good ‘uns, because it comes as close to shaking its brittle English butt as the tight-assed triumvirate get on the album. And Clapton, say what you will about his being a mere technician, plays some stinging guitar fill, even if he does his best to ruin the song with his anorexic vocals. The proto-metal “Sunshine of Your Love” boasts one of rock’s most recognizable opening riffs, but the same can be said for “Smoke on the Water,” which some stupid guy with a flare gun should have burned down the same way he did that casino in Montreux. And once again Clapton’s thin-lipped vocals do the song a great disservice.
Mountain’s Felix Pappalardi—who produced Disraeli Gears—and his spouse wrote “World of Pain,” a dullish affair with an admittedly nice acid-drenched feel that again features Clapton on wah-wah guitar. But Clapton’s quavering vocals and pathetic attempts to hit the high notes are the song’s undoing. As are the lyrics, which have something to do with the world having no pity on Clapton or the tree outside his window, or (for all I know) the shrubbery in the park down the street. Swinging London could be cruel to guitar gods and innocent fauna.
The problem with the relatively low key “Dance the Night Away” is that it in no way, shape or form is a dance number, although it features some very nice LSD-influenced guitar and more pile driver drumming by Baker. Unfortunately it also features Clapton’s anemic vocals and a risible set of lyrics, which mention castles in the sky and living with golden swordfish. Also included are the lines “Gonna turn myself to shadow/So I can’t see your face,” which you would think would be the other way around. “Blue Condition” is a laid-back number whose only redeeming feature–and it ain’t much to write home about–are the charmingly inept vocals of Baker. The guy can’t sing a lick but his singing has personality, and personality is in desperately short supply on Disraeli Gears.
On “Tales of Brave Ulysses” Clapton’s wah-wah guitar and Baker’s combination of thunder and finesse are nice touches, but the song moves like it has a peg leg and Jack Bruce goes bad thespian on vocals, doing his best to sound like a bard reciting the song’s lyrics to King Arthur and his Court. “SWLABR” is the album highlight hands down what with its driving tempo, and Clapton’s mastery of his guitar pedals. And miracle of miracles his vocals don’t sound in need an infusion of charisma. I also love it for its ludicrously dumb lyrics. You’ll have to look long and look hard to find lines as side-splitting as “You’ve got that rainbow feel/But the rainbow has a beard.” You can almost hear the French surrealists keening.
And from thereon in it’s straight downhill, off a cliff, and into the crashing surf of some charmless, mediocre sea. Baker’s drumming and a few Clapton guitar lines are all “We’re Going Wrong” has going for it, but they’re easily outweighed by Bruce’s tortured warble. The trio’s cover of Blind Joe Reynolds’ “Outside Woman Blues” just squats on the LP being useless; its only point of interest is its guitar riff, which the band filched from “SWLABR” in a shameless act of self-plagiarism. “Take It Back” is a straightforward blues whose get up and go can’t disguise the fact that it’s butter knife dull. As for closer “Mother’s Lament” it’s a throwaway, with the lads singing in very thick accents to the accompaniment of a piano. It may have charmed their mums, but supergroup material it most certainly isn’t.
Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker would go on to form yet another supergroup, Blind Faith, but Clapton’s post-Blind Faith achievements have been limited to his stint with Derek and the Dominos and a small handful of good songs. And even they must be weighed against the inexcusably bathetic likes of “Tears in Heaven” and “My Father’s Eyes.” Baker and Bruce, on the other hand, spent the rest of their lives wandering about being enormously talented to no good end, humming the melody to “Can’t Find My Way Home.”
As for Cream, they were vastly overrated then and they’re vastly overrated now, although I have to give them their due. Thanks to them I’ll spend eternity in that white room with black curtains at the station asking myself, “Will that goddamn train never arrive?”
GRADED ON A CURVE:
D+
