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Music : Wheels Of Fire
1 2 3
Rating: 
- Sterotypical 60s rock
To set the cat amongst the pigeons here a little, I will have to disagree with those who view Cream and this album as a kind of holy grail of rock. This album suffers from that 60s disease known as selective memory, a disease which with one hand inflates the value and worth of anything that was produced during the years 1966 - 69 and with the other wipes the board of everything that was done since, in the end we talk of Cream as if it all happened a number of centurys sgo and in a far away land in which everything was bigger and better, the truth however is that Cream were then and everything that has come after struggles to get past the nostalgia block that selective memory creates.
This album like so much of the 60s stuff is another white attempt at black American spiritual music and like all the others it sounds like it. This album is great if you wish to study a particular part of music history and specialise in the 1960s however I feel that the album does not stand up to the original masters of the blues that it attempts to copy. But then again, thats selective memory isnt it?....
Rating:
- The 16min 'Spoonful' is probably the greatest achievement of rock music so far
This performance of 'Spoonful' is the 3rd/5th/9th* Symphony of Rock. It's 'The Rite Of Spring' and Bruckner's 8th. Jack Bruce is the human race individualised. He is the first and last man on earth. He is Job, Mani and Zarathustra. His song is a great Humanist Assertion or a great song of Gnostic defiance or both. You say it's just a blues with two chords. No, it's the blues transcended. It's the apotheosis of the blues - and it could only be achieved with Bruce's 'heroic jouissance' as a singer and simultaneously playing bass, which is partly where the incredible tension comes from (i.e doing both: Robert Johnson achieved a similar contrapuntal tension singing and playing the guitar at the same time but only connoiseurs seem to be able to hear it). No one else could have achieved this, and the performance also benefits of course from the tensions contributed by the other two as well. These tensions, need I say, are mainly rhythmic and contrapuntal (rhythmic contradictions and ambiguities are also what this neo-contrapuntalism are all about). And I havn't even mentioned the improvisation, which is sustained concentration but with plenty of light and shade and variation of dynamics. The most powerful example in music apart from this is Stravinsky's 'Rite Of Spring'. There aren't really any other examples worth mentioning: there are no examples of it being the sustained principle of the work or the piece - outside of Cream live and and a very few other (usually shorter) pieces of live rock music that is.
Cream did occasionally play straight blues but in their best work they achieved a Beethovenian affirmation of life in the face of everything that ALL human beings are confronted with. In these performances the blues has come a long way from social marginalisation and right to the existential centre. In other words there is no longer any sense of this being the music of the powerless underdog or self-conscious social deviant.
Many other people have said a lot about Crossroads and given it very high praise which is fine by me except in as much as they neglect Spoonful,(and I'm So Glad, Politician, and Sitting On Top Of The World in the live versions found on 'Goodbye Cream'). It seems with it's two separate solos and it's rich live sound to be on a larger scale than the other notable mini-masterpieces of high intensity rock such as 'My Generation' and 'Communication Breakdown', and it is more directly derived from blues. So perhaps it may be better compared to Hendrix's 'Purple Haze' and 'Hey Joe'. But Crossroads is of course faster and more exhilerating and triumphantly affirmative.
*Beethoven obviously.
Rating: - They're On Fire!
This is a classic. It unfortunately doesn't quite reach the peaks that "Disraeli Gears" had the previous year, but gets very close.
It starts with a cracker; "White Room". This is one of rock's classic tracks which mingles Jack's weird and wonderful lyrics with Ginger's crashing drum beats, an opening that sounds like it's out of a spaghetti western and Eric's wah-wah laden solo that that comes from nowhere and eclipses most things done before or since. Things quieten down slightly with the old blues staple "Sitting On Top Of The World". "Passing The Time" is probably the albums weakest track, but has a nice hypnotic feel to it. "As You Said" is an weird track for Cream, cos it's acoustic. It's very creepy at points, but brillient - it's probably the first time someone thought of putting a cello with an acoustic guitar. "Pressed Rat And Worthog" is a very funny (what's this!?! humor on a rock album!) and adds a variety to an album already laden with different types of music. "Politician" takes us back to good ol' blues with a crunching base riff. "Those Were The Days" isn't a classic by all means, but still packs a punch. "Born Under A Bad Sign" is an excellent cover version of another blues track. "Deserted Cities Of The Heart" is a fantastic ending to the first disc, with violins, acoustic guitars and a fiery solo from Clapton. However it's not till we get to the "Live At The Fillmore" disc do we get to hear Cream in all their glory.
The second disc starts off with "Crossroads"; the quintessential Clapton track. It takes an old fashioned blues song by Robert Johnson (yeah the guy who sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads to be a good guitar player) and brings it bang up to date with a furious beat and the inferno that is Eric's guitar playing. The solo is quite simply genius. It's worth buying the album just to hear this track. "Spoonful" is yet again a blues cover, and provides the guys a simple basis to go all out and over the top. Jack's singing is better than ever and the 10+ min improvisation is classic Cream, with everyone going crazy, especially Eric. "Traintime" gives Jack a chance to show off. Ginger keeps a locomotive beat as Jack gets jiggy with the harmonica while singing yet again in great voice (yes men can multi-task aswell). Heaven knows how he keeps it up for 7 mins without collapsing. And then the track stops with Eric crancking out the distortion on his guitar for "Toad", Ginger Baker's tour de force. After 2 mins 23 secs Jack and Eric leave Ginger to it, and we're treated to a quarter of an hour of the best drummer in the business - mesmerizing.
It's a classic. Buy it now!
Rating: - A must have! Cream at their peak!
Disreali Gears was a superb album that got Cream the popularity they so rightly diserved and thus Wheels Of Fire cemented that with an album that showcased how good they were.
Particular note needs to go to Clapton, he was having a field day with this album. Every song is drenched in his smooth guitar licks and it's jaw dropping as a guitarist to listen to him work the fretboard. Cream represented their musical unity to astounding effect, the bass plays off the drums, drums off the bass etc. Jack Bruce has such a distinctive sound and his bass lines are so unpredictable and inspiring. I'm not even gonna talk about Ginger Baker cause you'll hear all you need to know about him when you buy this album.
"White Room", "Passing the time", "Born Under A Bad Sign" oh what the heck all of them. Just buy this album and don't look back.
Rating:
- Who did this remaster?
I have the vinyl version of this 2 CD set. The remaster has clarified a lot of the tracks, and revealed some imteresting extra bits undetected on vinyl. The bad news is that some of the remixes are AWFUL!The most clear victim is Clapton - many guitar parts that soar and kick on vinyl are either mixed down or have bizarre tones.I manipulated the equalizer as best I could, but still didn't get a decent sound. The live tracks suffer especially Crossroads, where the classic soloing is dulled down. Crossroads for God's sake! One of the great rock tracks of all time. I also compared it track for track through the same amp (Aiwa black system)and the vinyl won out most times.
It's still good - but the sheer excitement and edge - that raw wild sound - is dimmed. You're better off with the old Live Cream compilations.
- Sterotypical 60s rockTo set the cat amongst the pigeons here a little, I will have to disagree with those who view Cream and this album as a kind of holy grail of rock. This album suffers from that 60s disease known as selective memory, a disease which with one hand inflates the value and worth of anything that was produced during the years 1966 - 69 and with the other wipes the board of everything that was done since, in the end we talk of Cream as if it all happened a number of centurys sgo and in a far away land in which everything was bigger and better, the truth however is that Cream were then and everything that has come after struggles to get past the nostalgia block that selective memory creates.
This album like so much of the 60s stuff is another white attempt at black American spiritual music and like all the others it sounds like it. This album is great if you wish to study a particular part of music history and specialise in the 1960s however I feel that the album does not stand up to the original masters of the blues that it attempts to copy. But then again, thats selective memory isnt it?....
Rating:
- The 16min 'Spoonful' is probably the greatest achievement of rock music so farThis performance of 'Spoonful' is the 3rd/5th/9th* Symphony of Rock. It's 'The Rite Of Spring' and Bruckner's 8th. Jack Bruce is the human race individualised. He is the first and last man on earth. He is Job, Mani and Zarathustra. His song is a great Humanist Assertion or a great song of Gnostic defiance or both. You say it's just a blues with two chords. No, it's the blues transcended. It's the apotheosis of the blues - and it could only be achieved with Bruce's 'heroic jouissance' as a singer and simultaneously playing bass, which is partly where the incredible tension comes from (i.e doing both: Robert Johnson achieved a similar contrapuntal tension singing and playing the guitar at the same time but only connoiseurs seem to be able to hear it). No one else could have achieved this, and the performance also benefits of course from the tensions contributed by the other two as well. These tensions, need I say, are mainly rhythmic and contrapuntal (rhythmic contradictions and ambiguities are also what this neo-contrapuntalism are all about). And I havn't even mentioned the improvisation, which is sustained concentration but with plenty of light and shade and variation of dynamics. The most powerful example in music apart from this is Stravinsky's 'Rite Of Spring'. There aren't really any other examples worth mentioning: there are no examples of it being the sustained principle of the work or the piece - outside of Cream live and and a very few other (usually shorter) pieces of live rock music that is.
Cream did occasionally play straight blues but in their best work they achieved a Beethovenian affirmation of life in the face of everything that ALL human beings are confronted with. In these performances the blues has come a long way from social marginalisation and right to the existential centre. In other words there is no longer any sense of this being the music of the powerless underdog or self-conscious social deviant.
Many other people have said a lot about Crossroads and given it very high praise which is fine by me except in as much as they neglect Spoonful,(and I'm So Glad, Politician, and Sitting On Top Of The World in the live versions found on 'Goodbye Cream'). It seems with it's two separate solos and it's rich live sound to be on a larger scale than the other notable mini-masterpieces of high intensity rock such as 'My Generation' and 'Communication Breakdown', and it is more directly derived from blues. So perhaps it may be better compared to Hendrix's 'Purple Haze' and 'Hey Joe'. But Crossroads is of course faster and more exhilerating and triumphantly affirmative.
*Beethoven obviously.
Rating:
- They're On Fire!This is a classic. It unfortunately doesn't quite reach the peaks that "Disraeli Gears" had the previous year, but gets very close.
It starts with a cracker; "White Room". This is one of rock's classic tracks which mingles Jack's weird and wonderful lyrics with Ginger's crashing drum beats, an opening that sounds like it's out of a spaghetti western and Eric's wah-wah laden solo that that comes from nowhere and eclipses most things done before or since. Things quieten down slightly with the old blues staple "Sitting On Top Of The World". "Passing The Time" is probably the albums weakest track, but has a nice hypnotic feel to it. "As You Said" is an weird track for Cream, cos it's acoustic. It's very creepy at points, but brillient - it's probably the first time someone thought of putting a cello with an acoustic guitar. "Pressed Rat And Worthog" is a very funny (what's this!?! humor on a rock album!) and adds a variety to an album already laden with different types of music. "Politician" takes us back to good ol' blues with a crunching base riff. "Those Were The Days" isn't a classic by all means, but still packs a punch. "Born Under A Bad Sign" is an excellent cover version of another blues track. "Deserted Cities Of The Heart" is a fantastic ending to the first disc, with violins, acoustic guitars and a fiery solo from Clapton. However it's not till we get to the "Live At The Fillmore" disc do we get to hear Cream in all their glory.
The second disc starts off with "Crossroads"; the quintessential Clapton track. It takes an old fashioned blues song by Robert Johnson (yeah the guy who sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads to be a good guitar player) and brings it bang up to date with a furious beat and the inferno that is Eric's guitar playing. The solo is quite simply genius. It's worth buying the album just to hear this track. "Spoonful" is yet again a blues cover, and provides the guys a simple basis to go all out and over the top. Jack's singing is better than ever and the 10+ min improvisation is classic Cream, with everyone going crazy, especially Eric. "Traintime" gives Jack a chance to show off. Ginger keeps a locomotive beat as Jack gets jiggy with the harmonica while singing yet again in great voice (yes men can multi-task aswell). Heaven knows how he keeps it up for 7 mins without collapsing. And then the track stops with Eric crancking out the distortion on his guitar for "Toad", Ginger Baker's tour de force. After 2 mins 23 secs Jack and Eric leave Ginger to it, and we're treated to a quarter of an hour of the best drummer in the business - mesmerizing.
It's a classic. Buy it now!
Rating:
- A must have! Cream at their peak!Disreali Gears was a superb album that got Cream the popularity they so rightly diserved and thus Wheels Of Fire cemented that with an album that showcased how good they were.
Particular note needs to go to Clapton, he was having a field day with this album. Every song is drenched in his smooth guitar licks and it's jaw dropping as a guitarist to listen to him work the fretboard. Cream represented their musical unity to astounding effect, the bass plays off the drums, drums off the bass etc. Jack Bruce has such a distinctive sound and his bass lines are so unpredictable and inspiring. I'm not even gonna talk about Ginger Baker cause you'll hear all you need to know about him when you buy this album.
"White Room", "Passing the time", "Born Under A Bad Sign" oh what the heck all of them. Just buy this album and don't look back.
Rating:
- Who did this remaster?I have the vinyl version of this 2 CD set. The remaster has clarified a lot of the tracks, and revealed some imteresting extra bits undetected on vinyl. The bad news is that some of the remixes are AWFUL!The most clear victim is Clapton - many guitar parts that soar and kick on vinyl are either mixed down or have bizarre tones.I manipulated the equalizer as best I could, but still didn't get a decent sound. The live tracks suffer especially Crossroads, where the classic soloing is dulled down. Crossroads for God's sake! One of the great rock tracks of all time. I also compared it track for track through the same amp (Aiwa black system)and the vinyl won out most times.
It's still good - but the sheer excitement and edge - that raw wild sound - is dimmed. You're better off with the old Live Cream compilations.