Best Creedence Clearwater Revival Album?

[samjjones]

Which is the best CCR album?

Jul,1968 CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL

I Put A Spell On You
The Working Man
Suzie Q
Ninety-Nine And A Half (Won't Do)
Get Down Woman
Porterville
Gloomy
Walk On The Water


Jan,1969 BAYOU COUNTRY

Born On The Bayou
Bootleg
Graveyard Train
Good Golly Miss Molly
Penthouse Pauper
Proud Mary
Keep On Chooglin'



Aug,1969 GREEN RIVER

Green River
Commotion
Tombstone Shadow
Wrote A Song For Everyone
Bad Moon Rising
Lodi
Cross-Tie Walker
Sinister Purpose
The Night Time Is The Right Time


Oct,1969 WILLY AND THE POORBOYS

Down On The Corner
It Came Out Of The Sky
Cotton Fields
Poorboy Shuffle
Feelin' Blue
Fortunate Son
Don't Look Now (It Ain't You Or Me)
The Midnight Special
Side O' The Road
Effigy



Jul,1970 COSMO'S FACTORY

Ramble Tamble
Before You Accuse Me
Travelin' Band
Ooby Dooby
Lookin' Out My Back Door
Run Through The Jungle
Up Around The Bend
My Baby Left Me
Who'll Stop The Rain
I Heard It Through The Grapevine
Long As I Can See The Light



Dec,1970 PENDULUM

Pagan Baby
Sailor's Lament
Chameleon
Have You Ever Seen The Rain ?
(Wish I Could) Hideaway
Born To Move
Hey Tonight
It's Just A Thought
Molina
Rude Awakening No.2



Apr,1972 MARDI GRAS

Lookin' For A Reason
Take It Like A Friend
Need Someone To Hold
Tearin' Up The Country
Someday Never Comes
What Are You Gonna Do
Sail Away
Hello Mary Lou
Door To Door
Sweet Hitch-Hiker

[imported_The Vibesman]

I really hated to name just one, but I bit the bullet nad went with Green River, although Willy & The Poorboys and Cosmo's Factory are fantastic too. They really had the fastball going there.

[Slow Play Ray]

Chronicle Vol. 1, and it's not even close.

[Georgia Avenue]

I picked based on bare preference, don't really have any reasons. I think there is a class of bands like CCR that never realy changed to the point that you can classify one album as better than the others...This isn't a bad thing at all, they had there thing and they stuck with it, unlike say, the Ramones, who tinkered foolishly with the formula at times...

Other bands in this category?

Belle and Sebastian
AC/DC (w/Bonn, tho w/out Bonn, their quality is basically the same too /images/graemlins/tongue.gif)
Flaming Groovies
Fugazi
Crazy Horse
Yo La Tengo
so on...

[imported_The Vibesman]

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Chronicle Vol. 1, and it's not even close.

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??

That's a greatest hits album. It's a great greatest hits album. But still.

[Slow Play Ray]

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That's a greatest hits album. It's a great greatest hits album.

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precisely. precisely.

[imported_The Vibesman]

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I think there is a class of bands like CCR that never realy changed to the point that you can classify one album as better than the others...

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know, I think Pendulum and, to a lesser degree, Mardi Gras are both clearly inferior to the preceding albums. I can't believe Pendulum has a vote up there, actually. I have to think it's a joke.

I also think that Bryan Johnson AC/DC is pretty terrible compared to Bon Scott AC/DC. Back in Black wasn't that bad (tho no High Voltage) but things went rapidly downhill after that.

[samjjones]

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That's a greatest hits album. It's a great greatest hits album.

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precisely. precisely.

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Come on...we've done enough of these for you to know that we always exclude greatest hits compilations.

[samjjones]

I think the volume and quality of music they put out in such a short period of time is pretty staggering.

[Georgia Avenue]

I think his point (if he has a point, heheh) is that CCR doesn't really have a definitive album, but each album has a couple of great songs and a bunch of snoozers. I'd generally agree with that, but I love most of the B-sides on W&tehPBs, especially It Came outta the Sky.

Also, I haven't really heard much of Mardi Gras and Pendulum, so maybe I'm wrong about the consistency of CCR.

Really tho', are they the kind of band that has one great song and they remake it on every album to greater or lesser success? This is a good thing in my opinion. Eclecticism is the bane of modern rock.

[samjjones]

FYI, Mardi Gras is the non-Tom Fogerty album.

[Georgia Avenue]

[ QUOTE ]



I also think that Bryan Johnson AC/DC is pretty terrible compared to Bon Scott AC/DC. Back in Black wasn't that bad (tho no High Voltage) but things went rapidly downhill after that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't even like BinB halfasmuch as Bon stuff...that said, you gotta enjoy the iconoclastic meathead joy of something like Thunderstruck...maybe that's just based on being 13 and hearing that song amongst a bunch of Poison and Winger on 98Rok and being like "damn!"...The late 80s were a very very bad time.

[Slow Play Ray]

That was my point exactly - Creedence is one of those bands (for me anyway) where there is absolutely no purpose to own anything except their greatest hits album. They did "their thing" well, but it gets *very* tiring/monotonous to listen to beyond the hits.

[imported_The Vibesman]

[ QUOTE ]
I think his point (if he has a point, heheh) is that CCR doesn't really have a definitive album, but each album has a couple of great songs and a bunch of snoozers...Really tho', are they the kind of band that has one great song and they remake it on every album to greater or lesser success? This is a good thing in my opinion. Eclecticism is the bane of modern rock.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree with every sentiment expressed here. I think Pendulum and Mardi Gras are albums w. a few good tunes and a bunch of snoozers, but the rest are fairly solid the whole way through, esp. the three I named in my first post. CCR had a "sound" but it wasn't "one song." Many of the songs that make up their sound are very different from each other. "Lodi" and "Travelin' Band" for instance. Maybe I'm wrong tho, I could be too close to their music.

As to the second part, I don't know about that either...some bands do well with the same thing (Bon Scott AC/DC for one, Tom Petty), some fall flat when they try to reinvent themselves (Axl Rose is the biggest example, tho I include Petty in this group too), some reinvent themselves rather well. I have always been a John Mellencamp fan, and one of the things I like about him is he doesn't keep making Uh-Huh over and over again, his albums are different every time. Do some of his fans find his newer music less accessible than The Lonesome Jubilee? Sure, but that's their problem. It's great music.

I liked your post on AC/DC, and I think you're right...Thunderstruck and tunes like that sounded a lot better when they were surrounded by glam hair metal pussies.

[MonkeeMan]

They're all damn good, so I didn't vote.

As far as songs go, my favs are Suzie Q (album cut of course) and Fortunate Son.

[Slow Play Ray]

FWIW, Fortunate Son is my favorite CCR song, as well as one of the most bad-ass, balls-out songs in rock history.

[istewart]

Probably Cosmo's Factory, but let's be realistic. Call Chronicle what you want, it's the only real staple in CCR's collection.

[imported_The Vibesman]

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Probably Cosmo's Factory, but let's be realistic. Call Chronicle what you want, it's the only real staple in CCR's collection.

[/ QUOTE ]

Whatever. It's fine if you just like the radio songs of any particular band, but to just say that like it's fact or something is insane. Excepting the last two Creedence albums, I think they're all staples, and some of the best albums of their time.

And Chronicle doesn't have "Wrote A Song For Everyone," "Midnight Special" or "Cotton Fields" on it, so clearly more Creedence is needed than that.

[Slow Play Ray]

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And Chronicle doesn't have "Wrote A Song For Everyone," "Midnight Special" or "Cotton Fields" on it, so clearly more Creedence is needed than that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Chronicle Vol. 2 does though...

[imported_The Vibesman]

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And Chronicle doesn't have "Wrote A Song For Everyone," "Midnight Special" or "Cotton Fields" on it, so clearly more Creedence is needed than that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Chronicle Vol. 2 does though...

[/ QUOTE ]

Another point. CCR had so many good tunes on their album that there are two Chronicle volumes each with 20 songs, but there's only 65 songs on the albums listed here. So about 2 out of every 3 Creedence songs are on their greatest hits collection. Very few artists have that high of a percentage of solid work.

[samjjones]

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And Chronicle doesn't have "Wrote A Song For Everyone," "Midnight Special" or "Cotton Fields" on it, so clearly more Creedence is needed than that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Chronicle Vol. 2 does though...

[/ QUOTE ]

Another point. CCR had so many good tunes on their album that there are two Chronicle volumes each with 20 songs, but there's only 65 songs on the albums listed here. So about 2 out of every 3 Creedence songs are on their greatest hits collection. Very few artists have that high of a percentage of solid work.

[/ QUOTE ]
I was just about to make this same point as well.

[Slow Play Ray]

For clarification, Chronicle Vol. 1 is their only "Greatest Hits" album. Vol. 2 is labeled as "Classics" and is really only a companion to Vol. 1. I bring this point up only because the songs on Vol. 1 are waaay better than those on Vol. 2.

Sorry, I will stop being a nit now.

[zephed]

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Eclecticism is the bane of modern rock.

[/ QUOTE ]
Wrong.

[Georgia Avenue]

Well, let's battle then! /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

I'M RIGHT!
BOYAKASHAH!

Seriously, explain yrself. I find that the more "genre-bending" that's done in pop-music, the crappier the band...until you get some funky-jazzy-hiphop-metal-buckethead-jacopastorious-billfirth-weatherreport-doodoo.

The few genre experiments that do suceed, like say, "Check Your Head" are much rarer than then the failures like, say, the Bossanova songs on Hello Nasty.

Greatness in modern music consists of cornering the market on one particular sound...finding a unique voice that exists outside of labels (Portishead is my favorite example)...OR just playing straight-out Garagey RockandRollah.