Mama - if that's movin' up then I'm movin' out

Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time...

#170 : Disraeli Gears - Cream (1967)

Of all Cream’s studio albums, Disraeli Gears is the sharpest and most linear. The power trio focused their instrumental explorations into colorful pop songs: “Strange Brew” (slinky funk), “Dance the Night Away” (trippy jangle), “Tales of Brave Ulysses” (a wah-wah freakout that Eric Clapton wrote with Martin Sharp, who created the kaleidoscopic cover art). The hit “Sunshine of Your Love” nearly didn’t make it onto the record; the band had trouble nailing it until famed Atlantic Records engineer Tom Dowd suggested that Ginger Baker try a Native American tribal beat, a simple adjustment that locked the song into place.

I am aware of the supergroup Cream, without being entirely sure who all the super people involved were - I thought it was Clapton, but I had to make sure and I knew it was Ginger Baker, but only because of his reputation for unpleasantness.  And I could have guessed all year and never come up with Jack Bruce's name - yup, I know, I'm a heretic.  Whatever, I was not expecting to like this album in the slightest - except for "Sunshine Of Your Love" which I was aware of and liked, but was expecting to be aberration.

But, in places, it was a pleasant surprise.  As well as "Sunshine...", I positively liked "Strange Brew" and found most of the other tracks at least bearable, with some somewhat dated but nevertheless impressive playing involved.  It wasn't all great - "Blue Condition" is a very odd track, "sung" in a most "unusual" style.  "Mother's Lament" is also extremely odd - and takes me back to my childhood because I think my Mum used to sing it, although it might have been my Grandma.  It probably won't surprise you to hear it's not a Cream original - it's the "my baby has gone down the plughole" song, but sung in weird Cockney accents for no obvious reason.  But overall, this album was a lot more enjoyable than I was expected - and it's hard to imagine an album cover more of its time!

Wikipedia has very little to say about the album other than explaining why it's called what it is - which I wanted to know until I read the story and then immediately no longer cared.  The band's entry is more interesting - apparently Clapton (and hence the band) were unknown in the US before the album's release, but it sold a million over there, so did OK.  The story of the band seems to be neatly encapsulated by the sentence "From its creation, Cream was faced with some fundamental problems that would later lead to its dissolution".  Baker and Bruce in particular just didn't get on - despite having played together in both Blues Incorporated (lead by Alexis Korner, who I only knew as a Radio 1 DJ) and The Graham Bond Organisation.  

It was also interesting to read the band member's pages - I was unaware how highly regarded Jack Bruce was and was also impressed that, unlike the other two, his heroin addiction was trivial enough not to warrant a mention.  At first I thought maybe he'd avoided picking up the habit, but found that really hard to believe and a quick Google soon set me straight.  "Customers also listened to" - yeah all them people.  But I liked this a lot more than most of them people - it was a pleasant (if somewhat dated) surprise.

#169 : The Stranger - Billy Joel (1977)

On this record, Billy Joel found the recipe for success: a bottle of red, a bottle of white, and a sharp eye for the local color of New York street life. The Piano Man sharpens his storytelling gifts with a Scorsese-style sense of humor and compassion, whether he’s singing about a down-and-out Little Italy hustler in “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song),” the femme fatale in “She’s Always a Woman,” or the doomed Long Island greaser couple Brenda and Eddie in “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant.” Meanwhile, Joel hit the pop charts with the Grammy-winning “Just the Way You Are” (written for his first wife and manager, Elizabeth), which became a wedding-band standard.

I'd never heard this album, but the best of Billy Joel is a firm favourite with my lovely wife and I like it varying amounts depending upon which Billy-era is playing, but I think my favourite tracks are from this era.  And given that it features 6 tracks from this 9 track album, I think we can safely say I'm reasonably familiar with it.  And the other 3 tracks didn't disappoint - all in all, it's a fine selection of quality story-telling songs, with "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" and "Only The Good Die Young" probably being my favourites (and it's amusing to read how controversial "Only The Good Die Young" was at the time, with religious groups pushing for it to be banned - which, of course, just made it much more successful).  It's a weird album cover though...

Wikipedia tells us that Billy was close to being dropped by his record label prior to the album, having been unable to reproduce the success of Piano Man.  But, it did OK, I guess - selling over 10 million copies in the US and spending 6 weeks at #2 on the album charts (kept off by Saturday Night Fever, which I suspect I will get a chance to compare in a bit).  Apart from that, Wikipedia is surprisingly devoid of interesting stories about the album.  I wasn't expecting his page to be interesting because he's never struck me as a particularly newsworthy guy, but there's a surprising amount in there including an amateur boxing career, 4 marriages (including a supermodel), battles with depression and a suicide attempt (by drinking furniture polish because "it looked tastier than bleach").  Oh, and there's a bit of music as well.

"Customers also listened to" Elton John, Paul Simon and 10cc (who I was totally expecting to see) and Hall & Oates (who I wasn't, but they pop up quite frequently in the strangest of places).  I was expecting to like this album, but since it turns out I pretty much knew it all anyway there wasn't a great deal of surprise in that.

#168 : Can't Buy A Thrill - Steely Dan (1972)

Working as hired songwriters by day, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker rehearsed this debut in executives’ offices by night. “We play rock & roll, but we swing,” said Becker. For proof, check the cool lounge-jazz rhythms of “Do It Again” and the hot guitar of “Reelin’ in the Years.” Even florid lead vocalist David Palmer (who the band soon fired) couldn’t damage the sad, stately beauty of “Dirty Work”; on “Brooklyn,” Becker and Fagen wrote the perfect elusive ode to their native borough. Their debut kicked off an amazing run of albums, like 1973’s Countdown to Ecstasy and 1974’s Pretzel Logic, that are just as fantastic.

I was aware of "Reelin' In The Years" and "Do It Again" and thought I quite liked them, but they're not really the sort of thing you hear any more, so I wasn't entirely sure I was right - and expectations for the rest of the album were also unclear.  But I was pleased to find I did like them and the rest of the album is in a similar vein - it also reminded me of 10cc in quite a few places.  I'm not entirely sure I'd describe it as great, but it's certainly perfectly passable.  It's also quite interesting that timewise it sits halfway between the previous two albums on this list and you can find bits that sound like both of them in places.  It's got a horrible album cover though - and apparently the band hated it as well.

Wikipedia has remarkably little to say about the album - it wasn't particularly well received upon release but has, unsurprisingly, been re-evaluated as a masterpiece since.  The band's entry is slightly more interesting, relating the somewhat convoluted story of the band's line-up - they formed because Becker and Fagen were writing songs too complex for others to record, hiring the rest of the band as required.  Including a vocalist who they didn't actually like, so Fagen took over - but he didn't like singing live, so they stopped touring.  Which pissed the rest of the band off, so they left - and so they were back to where they started.

"Customers also listened to" The Doobie Brothers, Gerry Rafferty and The Steve Miller Band - I wonder if he's going to pop up later?  All in all, I'd say this was surprisingly enjoyable although I'd be unlikely to revisit it - but I have added the two tracks I'd been pleasingly reminded of onto my general playlist, so you never know when I might be tempted back.

All in all, this was a much more enjoyable round than I was expecting from three albums from the late 60s to the late 70s.  I was totally expecting to hate Cream and wasn't expecting much from Steely Dan, but both were interesting listens (although Cream was distinctly odd in places).  Billy has to take the win though, it's a great album showing off his superior story/songwriting skills with some superb tracks on it.

#173-171 - A rose between two thorns
#167-165 - Just slightly biased