When we were kids, my brother and I would make fun of Eric Claption, and our dad for presumably liking him (Dad had a Clapton Greatest Hits, but preferred early Elton John and Grand Funk and such). We did this without having really heard Clapton, in the fashion of juveniles everywhere: we made fun of him because he was old, and a honky, and had the kind of name that a bank executive or CPA might have.
Later on, when my brother actually sat down and learned to play guitar, he came to a 180 on this position, and briefly went through a period where Clapton was the man, coinciding with a period of digging the Beatles. I never went through this period, preferring always Jimmy Page to Clapton, and I’ll have loads to say about this when I get to my Zeppelin collection.
There’s plenty about Clapton that I don’t like, especially as he’s aged (if there’s ever been a more tedious hit song than “The Way You Look Tonight,” I haven’t heard it). He’s too much the formalist to ever really create anything new. He’s the guitar-player’s guitar player, technically perfect and always on point. I won’t pretend to say that he’s never been too wasted to play a show, but he’s not notorious for it the way Jimmy Page or Iggy Pop is. But he’s also never been at the forefront of re-defining pop like Page or Pop have. Like the Rolling Stones, whose music so closely resembles his, Clapton has been well content to follow the trends.
I could go on like this, decrying Cream as nothing more than a Sgt. Pepper’s/Piper at the Gates cover band, but I’ve gotten past the point where I need to mercilessly slag everything that’s not as cool as it’s supposed to be (especially since nothing ever is). The very point of good music criticism is not to slag but to savor what's savorable, to sift the chaff to find the wheat.
One of my other plans for this blog have been to put together "listening genres," the music I tend to listen to together, the mood music of my life. For example, why do I instinctively reach for Beck's Mellow Gold whenever summer vacation rolls around? Why do I pair it with Miles Davis' Tribute to Jack Johnson? What about these discs says "summer" to me? So I've got a genre I'm calling Hair-Down Music, and another called January Rock. And I've got a genre I call Insane Stupid Bloated Hippie Music.
Since the 70's, there's been a good cohort of rock fans who can't abide hippies and quail at the thought of listening to hippie music. There's nothing unnatural about that; hippie music is intended to be slightly nauseating. The idea behind mixing electric guitar, tom-tom drums and Ravi Shankar-style Hinduism Lite was the promise of redemption in consumption, drunkeness as englightenment, the Stuffed Man as Savior (as for the stuffing, well, we are all mortal). High Romantic consciousness is never a joy ride; there's always scars and deaths and sudden stops. And let's be honest: at this point, we’ve heard it so many times that it’s become a post-modern reflection on itself more than a real pop moment.
So what?
If we really are just too fargin’ punk anymore to enjoy the ridiculous, the overwrought, the slightly pretentious, if only lo-fi, half-assed, self-aware garbunkulum is acceptable as a statement of serious Pop, if you actually take the first Ramones album as a Mosaic Tablet rather than a (much-needed) Bronx Cheer from the Goon half of the spectrum, then the lesson of Punk was lost on all you idiots, and Johnny Rotten thinks you’re a slave, and so do I.
So let’s embrace Disraeli Gears. Let’s enjoy its hippie-thick lyrics, its silly falsettos, its fever-dream aesthetics. Let’s dig the moment it represents in itself, a bright and colorful freak flag held high above a decade dismal with self-directed rage, with some righteous guitar stirring the pot. Because there’s nothing wrong with digging the tasteful wa-pedal on “World of Pain”, or the spaced-out layered solos on “Dance the Night Away,” or the angry rythmn of “Tales of Brave Ulysses.” In fact, they all rock, and none of the pabulum Clapton's sold in the decades since can ever change that.
When I get off my dead rear end and put together my Insane Stupid Bloated Hippie Music retrospective, I’ll get into the “meaning” of the lyrics on this album, should any be found. For the nonce, I’ll content myself with saying that there was a brief period, when pop music believed its own bullshit. This may have been bad in and of itself, but to walk among the pressed flowers of that time is still a pleasure, and if you are patient, the scent is still lovely.
Grade: L
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