Review Summary: I wouldn't hold out any hope for the tape deck though. Or the CREEDENCE.
If I were John Fogerty, I’d be really pissed. It’s an unmitigated travesty the dude wasn’t allowed to perform his own songs for like 10 years and received no royalties form songs he wrote, sang, and played guitar on because some record company douche was righteously pissed about the prospect of being born with a three inch cock. The reason this holds any relevance is because Fogerty is probably one of the ten greatest rock songwriters of all time. You could spend your time going through Creedence Clearwater Revival’s discography, and that is an undertaking that would certainly be rewarding, but if you want a quick glimpse of Fogerty’s genius, look no further than Chronicle Vol.1, one of Creedence’s first greatest hits packages and one of the best money grabbing compilations ever released.
Chances are, if your parents, uncles, whoever the hell you grew up around were blessed with a set of ears devoid of cloth and carrying a semblance of taste, you’ve heard most of this record before. Unless you were born in some backwoods gator-f*cking outhouse ala Bobby Boucher in the Waterboy, you’ve been graced with the three chord masterstrokes that are simply genius in their simplicity. In other words, if you haven’t heard “Fortunate Son,” you are either an idiot yourself or were raised by morons whose taste in music could be filed under “pretentious douchebaggery.” Simply put, this is a record of 20 songs, 20 songs that hit like a ton of bricks yet carry a subtle grace, all carried home by Southern cocksureness melding with a sh*tload of intelligence and understated brilliance.
Chronicle is one of those albums you put on shuffle. Why? Because it doesn’t matter which track comes up. Sure, “Fortunate Son” is their magnum opus and “Proud Mary,” “Green River,” “Down on the Corner,” and “Have You Ever Seen The Rain” are beyond famous and burned into our brains over the course of a million soundtracks, compilations, and classic rock radio, but you are missing out if you’ve never checked out the bayou drenched genius of “Suzie Q.” You haven’t heard a meaningful power ballad until you’ve put on “Who’ll Stop the Rain” and “Long as I Can See the Light.” You’ll never hear a better “I’ve been on the road for like two years and it really sucks but is totally awesome at the same time” until you throw on a little “Travelling Band,” and to a greater extent, the heart wrenching “Lodi.”
Sure, Fogerty could have made this the greatest compilation album of all time if he had replaced “Sweet Hitchhiker” and “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” with cuts like “Midnight Special” and “Born on the Bayou,” but let’s not bite the hand that feeds. Let’s appreciate Fogerty and all the other dudes who are now travelling the country in an inexcusable bastardized version of Creedence. After all, there’s only one f*cking reason the Dude’s car got stolen, and it wasn’t because of Larry Seller’s homework. It was because of the f*cking CREEDENCE.
