Review Summary: A very, very good example of how to put together a Best-Of compilation, which shows why Cream are such a revered band among classic-rock circles, and makes the listener wish the trio had stuck around for just a little bit longer.
Somebody once stated that
'it's better to burn out than to fade away', and in the arts world, this definitely appears to be true. While some artists try their hardest to keep their careers going for as long as possible, eventually entering creative auto-pilot and losing much of the respect they earned early on, just as many peter out or otherwise have their careers ended while their momentum is still on a high, and end up achieving legendary status exactly
because they never really started that downward trajectory.
English proto-hard-rock trio Cream are perhaps the best example of this tendency. With a career spanning just under two years (across which the group released no less than four records, as was customary at the time) the band's main legacy as far as mainstream audiences are concerned was smash-hit single
Sunshine Of Your Love, with most of the rest of their cred stemming from the further exploits of two of its three members. Those in the know, however, will understand that Cream's God-tier rating among hard rock fans stems from more than just the famous names involved – as the album in review here shows, the actual music was pretty fantastic, too.
Released in 1983 - almost exactly 15 years after the band's demise -
Strange Brew – The Very Best Of Cream rounds up a dozen tracks from across the group's discography, making for the perfect one-stop overview of their short but bountiful career. While the main focus is, unsurprisingly, on megahit
Disraeli Gears and follow-up
Wheels of Fire – each contributing four songs to the twelve included here – the selection is actually far more thorough than might be necessary, stretching as far as to include a previously single-only track,
Anyone For Tennis?. The result, as noted, is a near-perfect encapsulation of what Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker were capable of as a unit, delivering all of the group's best-known tracks while trimming out the fat.
The canvassing of the band's career is, in fact, not the only thing that is well done about this album – the tracklist itself is rather carefully curated, as well. Despite the apparent paucity of tracks and the relative short running time for a Best-Of compilation (just shy of 44 minutes),
Strange Brew lives up to its sub-title, truly delivering
The Very Best of Cream. Every song on this album – whether a group original or a cover of an old blues standard - ranges from very good to excellent, making for a uniformly pleasant and totally effortless listening experience, which any fan of late 60s and early 70s proto-hard-rock will happily repeat on a regular basis. Not only that, but the tracklist does a good job of demonstrating how varied the group's sound truly was, presenting them at their rockiest (
Sunshine, Politician, the live reinterpretation of Robert Johson's
Crossroads), their bluesiest (the reverential covers of Albert King's
Born Under a Bad Sign and Howlin' Wolf's
Spoonful) and their most hippy-trippy (
Badge, Anyone For Tennis?, I Feel Free) while showcasing how good they were at all three approaches.
Indeed, as varied and eclectic as it is this compilation skillfully manages to keep itself from ever coming across as disjointed or directionless. Regardless of how different each track sounds from the next, they are all still identifiably performed by the same group of artists, and share a few common traits, most notably Clapton's blistering solo work, invariably backed up by Baker's lively, shuffling percussion work. It is these connecting elements which allow a minimalistic, quasi-acoustic, flute-driven track like
Anyone For Tennis? to co-exist on the same record with a crushing slab of sludgy blues-rock like
Politician and still feel like a part of the same band's output.
In short, then,
Strange Brew is a very, very good example of how to put together a Best-Of compilation. Granted, some tracks (
Sunshine, Tennis, I Feel Free) are more memorable than others (
Badge, Tales of Brave Ulysses), but overall, the selection is as close to all-killer-no-filler as a release of this type gets. Plus, the standouts are of an absurdly high standard not only musically, but also lyrically, with the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing social critique of
Anyone For Tennis?, the ode to psychotropic drugs
Swlabr and the actively creepy
Politician leading the pack in this regard. When coupled with the musician's performative and compositive skills, they make for an all-around pleasing whole, which shows why Cream are such a revered band among classic-rock circles, and makes the listener wish the trio had stuck around for just a little bit longer.
Recommended Tracks
Sunshine of Your Love
Swlabr
Anyone For Tennis?
I Feel Free
Politician
