7. CreamBest Of
I never knew if this was a compilation album or not, but it was the one that was around when I was at school. All of my mates had this record. ‘Sunshine Of Your Love’ and ‘Crossroads’ are my two favourite cuts off the album, but the thing was although as a band they were gifted with tons of ability they were also very musical with their recordings. One of the things they got, which I don’t think a lot of the other bands did, was that it’s great to jam for an hour live, but a record is a repeated instant. When you make an album it’s something that people listen to over and over. So I think there were two Creams. There was the one that recorded and did songs that were four minutes long like ‘Badge’ and things, and then in something like ‘Crossroads’ they kind of just kept the best bits. I think they got it right. It’s very difficult to be inspired and to be inspirational to your other players without it having to be a long-winded routine to get there. And alongside all that was that track ‘A Mother Was Washing Her Baby one Night’ which was brilliant [‘Mother’s Lament’ from Disraeli Gears]. When I heard that it made it okay to have a sense of humour sometimes and to not take yourself too seriously. For me that last three minutes on the album probably had more of a message than a lot of the rest of it did, because it resonated that yeah, you can do something that’s fun. You can do something that’s funny, because actually we’re pretty good at the rest of it already.
