Goodbye Cream

I am not at all a stranger to sitting on the floor in a collectibles shop and flipping through rows and rows and rows of records, debating what to actually buy, checking to make sure the actual record is in there, and walking out with a handful. As i was doing exactly that in the middle of running errands today, i came across Emmerson, Lake, & Palmer's Pictures at an Exhibition and i thought "Tarkus is very lonely, and it is my civic duty to buy all three EL&P albums sitting here and reunite them.

I'll write about them some other time. Today we're saying Goodbye Cream. That's not a non-sequiter. Cream is the encyclopedia example of a power trio. Goodbye Cream is their "we're not a band anymore" live/studio split. Nobody was really happy with it, but i think it's actually the perfect Cream album.

Let's be honest, these three lunatics were more narcotics than human at this point. Critics thought the live tracks were poor imitations of their studio versions, and the studio tracks were amazing but completely unfulfilling. I like Cream as much as anybody, and i'm not at all disappointed. It sounds like Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker smacking their instruments around they way they always did. Their intended multi-volume festivus would have been too much. As for the criticism that Clapton ruined everything by playing blues licks in tracks that weren't "the blues," that's the dumbest thing i've ever heard.

Everyone rightly decided that a few good recordings from their final tour and 1 studio track from each member was exactly what a band that parted ways before the masters even arrived at the pressing plant should make. They were great, now they're done, let's all get on with it. As far as album concepts go, i find that quite satisfying.

The standout track for me is Jack Bruce's "Doing That Scrapyard Thing." It sounds so infectiously ridiculously British, and it puts me in mind of Supertramp, Syd Barret's Pink Floyd, and Robert Fripp's jovial silly music with Giles and Giles. I don't need any more than that.

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