Customer Reviews

Disraeli Gears: Rarities Edition

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Released in 1967 "Disraeli Gears" was Cream's sophmore release. The band was clearly going in a different direction than their first release "Fresh Cream" released a year earlier. Where "Fresh Cream" was primarily blues based, "Disreaeli Gears" was new territory especially for guitarist Eric Clapton. Incorporating his tasty blues licks and experimenting with different sounds by cutting back on the use of treble he came up with a sound he called "Women Tone" (I believe this is what it was called but I may be mistaken) as well as the use of wah wah on some songs ("Tales Of Brave Ulysses" and "World Of Pain") the band's sound fit right into the psychedelic movement that was gaining popularity at the time. To say this album was influential to many up and coming young guitarists would be an understatement. Songs such as "Sunshine Of Your Love", "Tales Of Brave Ulysses", "Swlabr" and "Strange Brew" were often favorites played on rock stations throughout America. Even Jimi Hendrix did a version of "Sunshine Of Your Love" so you know he must have been impressed by the song as well as the band. This edition of "Disraeli Gears" which is part of Universal's "Rarities Edition" cd's contains the entire album in mono as well as various outtakes. If you already own the "Deluxe Edition" of "Disraeli Gears" you won't need this as you'll already have everything here plus more. What you have is a condensed version of it and nothing more. The sound quality of this cd is excellent and the extra bonus tracks (outtakes) is a nice addition if as already mentioned, you don't already own the "Deluxe Edition". Also, for the record, the gold Ultradisc II version of "Disraeli Gears" also included the mono version so this is the third time that it's been released on cd.

It's great to have a digital copy of these old classics. The extra tracks are fun to listen to, but there's a reason they were left off the original release of the record. Really great stuff overall.

A lot of vintage '60s/early '70s rock material is being raked from the vaults, and this is a good example of the genre: a mono version of "Disraeli Gears" accompanied by out-takes and demos.

"Sunshine Of Your Love" is an iconic track, and "Tales Of Brave Ulysses" is frequently anthologized. The rest of "Disraeli Gears" isn't up to the level of those tracks, and consists of spacey lyrics set to "psychedelic" backing music of a type the band partly abandoned for its one masterpiece, "Wheels Of Fire"--which was based more in the blues. It's ironic that Clapton, who left The Yardbirds for John Mayall's Bluesbreakers because he thought The Yardbirds were degenerating into a pop band, would support some of the silliest lyrics ever recorded by a headlining act.

In its mono mix, "Disraeli Gears" has absolutely no soundstage, sounding dry and flat. Some of the bonus material has a few bars of better music than went into some of the tracks that made the album, but it's stuff you'd only listen to once. Why the band decided to morph "Lawdy Mama" into "Strange Brew" is a mystery, because the "Lawdy Mama" lyrics are better.

"Disraeli Gears" is one of those albums owned by everyone who likes '60s rock, yet it's an album that doesn't get played a lot. If you want more Cream of this period, check out Live Cream II.