Customer Reviews

The Best of Creedence Clearwater Revival

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

5 star music...3 star collection (because it's missing so much great stuff)for an average of 4. Let me explain why I'm giving thisonly 4 stars...While this is a great collection of CCR songs the two "Chronicles" CDs cover the band's style and best music better than this two CD set. Additionally, you'll get more music there and the artwork is quite a bit better with notes discussing CCR's career. Although the sound quality on the "Chronicles" sets aren't the best (the only place to get the best sounding CCR remasters are to buy either the individually remastered sets, boxed set and/or Steve Hoffmann's terrific remasters of the CCR albums "Born on the Bayou", "Green River", "Willie and the Poor Boys" and "Cosmos' Factory".

With the boxed set (if you decide to invest that much)you get every track the band recorded and that was released including a 25 track disc that the band recorded when they were known as Tommy & The Blue Velvets and The Golliwogs. While the former tracks are decent some of The Golliwogs tracks such as "Fight Fire" could hold their own with the best swamp music John wrote.

It's your choice but I would suggest going for the "Chronicles" set or one of the others I mentioned as the music sounds so much better. One other option is the CCR/John Fogerty single disc set which also sounds great AND includes some new live tracks as well.

This is an odd, somewhat skimpy collection which omits some of Creedence's best songs, and includes several lesser ones instead. At this price it definitely can't be recommended...the two "Chronicle" CDs are a much better purchase.

Taking the majority of CCR: Chronicle Vols. 1 and 2, this release is a real deal. Get this instead of the others. All the major hits are here, one good song after another. Funny though - for a two disc set, you'd think there would be some information on the band in the booklet, but no: just a folded one-sheet listing the tracks. Surely these guys deserve a little better than that?

In 2 discs, "The Best of CCR" contains 28 of the greatest songs of all times. Disc One is the better of the two discs in my opinion, starting out strong with the classics "Proud Mary", "Bad Moon Rising", "Susie Q", and "Up Around the Bend". Disc One also contains my all time favorite Creedence song "Looking Out My Back Door". But Disc Two is not a bad disc either including such great songs as "Down on The Corner" and "Hello Mary Lou". It is unfortunate that CCR were only together for four years ('68-'72) but they released a lot of quality music in those years, and these two discs have distilled their very best.

Lots of great CCR music and a pretty good compilation, but lots of wasted space. As one critic wrote: Production, design, artwork is appalling! The cover design and photos are lame too.
You better off buying the "Chronicles Volume One & Two" instead.

Buyers beware!

This is actually the first CD(s) I ever bought and boy did I ever start my collection off on a high note! I'd always liked CCR growing up, but I never realized how many of their songs I knew until I got this album. All of the standards are here, including "Down on the Corner," "Travelling Band," "Bad Moon Rising," "Green River," etc, etc...There are also some pleasant surprises on this one, such as a very long, very good rendition of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and "The Nightime is the Right Time," which I didn't know they did. Strangely enough, the only place I knew it from was on the Cosby Show when Rudy lip-synced to it.

In conclusion, I love this album! There are 28 songs and all are hits in their own right. If you are a CCR fan, this is a nice collection to own. If you are looking to buy your first CCR album, this is an excellent place to start. If you are a fan of classic rock in general, you'll never regret buying this great compilation. The sound quality is very good and the songs are outstanding. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

This double cd set has many great songs. The two star rating I'm giving it is mostly because of the sound quality. I bought the cd set expecting a better audio experience than an mp3 format can attain. Well what a disapointment it was when I played it in my car and on my computer. The mix was muffled and of poor quality. If you're looking for a trip down memory lane with old 45s quality, then this may work for you! From now on I'll look for that magic word known as "Remastered".

No matter what kind of music you like, you can trace it back to the roots. Creedence Clearwater Revival, or CCR, was the roots for rock and country. Their best music was compiled on a two-disc set entitled, “The Best of Creedence Clearwater Revival” and was released on May 16, 1998. I can almost guarantee that everyone has heard a CCR song, even if it wasn’t sung by them. “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” was first heard in Motown by Marvin Gaye. When CCR revised it and put in on their 1970 album, you can but that it sounded nothing like Motown. John Forgerty put a perfect spin on it, jazzed it up just a little, and made it a hit. “Hello Mary Lou” was written by Gene Pitney and later made into a hit by CCR. This goes both ways. Not only did CCR take other’s songs and transform them into their own, but their songs were taken by others and transformed once again. In the 1980’s, the popular country band, The Statler Brothers, redid “Hello Mary Lou” once again, adding a country twang to it. It’s all the signs of an amazingly written song. It can be sung in all different styles and still be made a hit. It was also in the 1980’s that Tina Turner took a CCR song, one that was actually written by Fogerty. This time, it was “Proud Mary”, which at the time that it was released by CCR, was a somewhat catchy tune. No one knew, however, how catchy it could really sound until Tina Turner sunk her teeth into the tune, and made it a huge hit of her own.
Not all CCR songs were borrowed or remade though. Although I’m not going to go through all twenty-eight songs in depth, I would like to touch on a few that I found essential to the CD. I have to start with me personal favourite, “Down on the Corner”. Now, I’m not sure why this has always been my favourite, but it has been since I was little. Maybe it’s because it was the very first CCR song that I had ever heard. Maybe it was all the fights my family and I had over whether it was ‘stamp you feet’ or ‘tap your feet’ featured in the song. We all heard ‘tamp your feet’! The bass in this song is amazing. Even for a fairly old song, it sounds pretty good on the new stereo systems, which is a lot more than I can say about my other old CDs. This is just a feel-good song. Speaking of good bass, “Fortunate Son” definitely does not lack bass. This song is also featured on the soundtrack to “Forrest Gump”, which is also and awesome CD, but we won’t get into that right now. If you want a good old repetitious song that’s easy to learn the words to, “Cotton Fields” is for you. Normally, I don’t care for repetition. It gets boring. This song is different. It has a great beat and wonderful harmonies. It takes you home, thinking about ‘them old cotton fields back home’. If you remember a Telus commercial from awhile back, you might remember hearing “Run Through the Jungle” advertising high speed internet service. I never really saw the point of this song until that commercial. It just fit is so well. It still does have a good beat and it’s great to listen to, I just haven’t found the meaning behind it yet. There are a couple of motivational songs on this CD also; at least, they are motivational to me. “Up Around the Bend” also has an awesome beat and it’s a great song to dance to. The guitar rips at the beginning and close to the end are amazing. “Travelling Band” always makes me smile. I can just imaging this band flying all the way around the world in fast-forward, running everywhere just to get things done. It’s a very short song, and does not have too many words to it, but I think that it has huge meaning, if you use a little imagination while listening to it. “Midnight Special” is a little different. While most CCR songs, in my opinion, have a feel good dancing beat, “Midnight Special” slows it down a bit. It has a swing-feel to it. You can’t help putting your hands together and clapping out a beat of your own, swaying back and forth in the meantime. CCR shows their soft side on “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?”. At first listen, it may sound like a sort of depressing song; however, upon listening carefully to the lyrics, one will notice that it fully satisfies CCR’s reputation of fun-loving music. The symbolism, metaphors, and ironies in this song are incredible. It almost sounds like once of those poems that you had to analyze in high school, you know those ones that you had no idea what was going on in. ‘Have you ever seen the rain, coming down on a sunny day?’ is only an example of one line that makes you really think. There is only one downfall, only one CCR song that I have never been able to develop an appreciation for. “Suzie Q” has an evil background beat that doesn’t seem to fit in with CCR’s normally happy music. I haven’t been able to find the meaning behind it. Maybe this is just my fault, because I know that this song is a favourite for some. It just doesn’t let CCR shine the way that they can.
Just because I didn’t mention every song doesn’t mean that they are not important. Aside from “Suzie Q”, I love every song on this CD. I would recommend it to anyone, whether your music taste is country, rock, or classical. CCR is a band, like The Beatles or Rolling Stones, whose name and legacy will live on through generations, with their music being appreciated for years.

No one can tell us what the best is. However with the volume in this collection you will be hard pressed not to find your favorite.

Creedence Clearwater Revival produces sounds that permeated the many movies from the 60's on. It is almost a game to figure out how many movies used their music. You know the image for Suzy Q (hint: Apocalypse Now). But do your remember "Bad Moon Rising" from "Werewolf in London?" I leave the others for you to discover.

For me thought each song brings up actual places I have been. If you are new to Creedence you have a treat coming to you, as they are as unique now as when they recorded the music. Their songs are also great to listen to while driving. Start your own revival.

I have been a big fan of CCR's since the days of seeing them regularly in LA and San Francisco. I searched through the entire selection of CDs available on Amazon looking for a compilation that had the 5 songs I wanted most. Other than paying (...) for the Box Set, I found 2 sets that had 4 of the 5. This being one of them. I even put up with songs like "Cotton Fields", "The Night Time Is The Right Time", and "Hello Mary Lou" (songs they didn't even write) being called their best. I also put up with the exclusion of some of their real "best of" such as; "Keep On Chooglin'", "Poorboy Shuffle", and "Rollin' On The River", just to get 4 of the 5 songs I was looking for. Then when I played the first CD, the version of "Susie Q" was the short radio version and not the amazing "classic" long instrumental version. I went through the roof! Even some of the songs aren't the "best" versions of that song, were they worried about using up some of the dead space they left on the CD? Obviously this is an exploitation set. The creators were not the least bit interested in including the true "best of" for a band that deserves alot better consideration. As a result, my conclusion is; THIS CD SET (...)!!