ERIC CLAPTON "old sock"

[CRAZY-HORSE]

ERIC CLAPTON "old sock"

i was never a fan of "old slow hand" until i saw him play live
a few years ago...that changed on that night,awesome show,
great effortless guitar playing,plus 'the blues' should be heard live
and not on cd IMO...it lacks feel from a studio!
so i thought i'd give this one a listen on itunes..
its a bloody covers album!...what the heck!!!!!
why do these old guys persist nowadays in releasing covers
albums...Rod Stewart ha a lot to answer for for being so
successful with his ones!
i can say that i only sort of like five of these on a first up listen, the rest,
well, it just appears EC is going through the contractual obligations
here, very little feel in his voice, very few riffs or great melodies on
his part...i expected more, i expected him to at least put a bit of himself
into these tracks but they are straight out covers...not my thing at all..
now, i am dreading Fogerty's album of covers coming out in the near
future and im a big fan of him...
this album's rating 1.3, would have been less but i respect the fact EC
has been around for so long, is so influential, and with all the drugs in
his early years the fact that he actually lived to tell the tale! so for
that alone the score gets lifted to 1.5

from the album:

"i still got the blues for you"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPgKTGOyiyg audio

[Music Head]

damn, now that's a low score for such an established artist.
I agree though, hate covers albums by one artist
don't mind 1 or 2 tracks, but not an album

[LMD]

I was excited when I first saw this album, but then I saw it was a series of covers and I lost interest. I think some cover albums can be good and fun, but most are a waste of time. Like MH and CH said, one or two songs is fine. But a whole album seems overkill most of the time.

Like Santana. I love Carlos' music, but there's just not much about "Guitar Heaven" that I care about. And I don't mean that in just a like/dislike way... I mean, I just don't care about in any sense. I think "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is an amazing song but the rest of the album is just a complete waste of everyone's time. He's had some covers through the years that were really good and that I really enjoyed, but when you limit yourself to an album of just covers, I think you're locking yourself in a box and you're going to get some unmotivated junk. And too much unmotivated junk on one album just becomes overkill.

Same thing happened with Great White. They did "Once Bitten, Twice Shy" which was awesome and then years later did a covers album. It fell flat. There were a couple really good songs on it (Like Robin Trower's "Lady Love" which is a song that sounds like they were made to play), but the rest was just worthless. Then they had one of just straight Led Zep covers and package the two albums together as one. I can't even imagine listening to a legitimately successful band like GW sing and play other people's songs for ~2 hours straight with little of what made the band so great before.

Speaking of Trower, he just did a "covers" album which I really appreciate. "Roots and Branches" started as just a covers album but then he added a couple original songs to it because he realized there just weren't enough songs for him to cover/he couldn't just play other people's music for such a long period of time (Not really play... But spend so long recording and release, you know?). Its still mainly covers, but some of them have been re-arranged in such a way that its hard to tell its a cover (See his version of "Hound Dog;" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiSKRtUFLTw). That's a type of cover album I can get behind and buy.

Tesla did a good one too; "Real to Reel." They went to some cabin or something and recorded a bunch of covers live, on a reel to reel machine. It wasn't a mind-blowing album or anything, but at least it sounded different.

Anyway, that's my mini-spiel about cover albums. I was bummed to see Clapton was doing a straight cover album and even more bummed reading this review and listening to the samples on Amazon. "Angel" sounds like a song that 20 years ago Clapton would have made incredible. But, I agree with CH... It just sounds unmotivated. There's been too many useless cover albums coming out recently from artists who shouldn't need to stoop to that level. Hopefully Clapton goes the way of Santana and has another mini-career revival after this (ala Santana ditching the guest vocalist concept and ignoring the charts to make Shape Shifter after "Guitar Heaven.").

[CRAZY-HORSE]

great post/reply LMD...

[Music Head]

great post/reply LMD...

yes it is

hey LMD, would you please come around here a bit more often.
we are seriously lacking in inteligent people here.
you are an inteligent person
please abandon your other sites and post here
pretty please

[SteveO]

Yes LMD! You've got to post more often!!!!!
:biggrin:
As for Clapton it's evident that his first love is the blues! He still remembers the early days with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers.

[LMD]

Sorry guys. Its no disrespect or anything. You're my #1 choice for music discussion. I try to check in everyday (not necessarily sign in, but at least see what's going on). The issue is that I'm in my first year of law school and its just so demanding and draining that on the off-chance I do have time to post, I'm so beat up I don't really feel like going into an elaborate post or discussion. And I don't want to lessen discussion with useless posts of "I agree" or the sort, so I try and only post when I've got something I think is worth discussing. I'll try and stop in/find something worth posting more often though.