The music section of this blog has been online for quite a while, but only recently I made a first post in it. Today, I’m adding one more to let you know what I’ll be posting here in the future and to give you a first example of records I want to talk about for a bit. You may note I also put this post in the burnout blues section of the website, as records have also helped me a lot in slowing down in life. Next to my professional life, also my private life had always been too packed until a few years ago.
The younger ones (and heck, also the older ones I reckon) among you, are probably using Spotify or other streaming resources for your musical entertainment. While I’m really fond of how accessible a wealth of music is available through these, I can’t help but love it more to have physical records in my hand. The size, the sleeve and artwork, it feels good to hold and look at. It looks beautiful when it’s on the turntable, as you can see on the left. The imperfections because of dust, minor scratches or surface noise, it all adds to the experience. You’re holding history when you’re holding records, they’re more dynamic than one would assume. So you wonder why I’m not on Spotify if I’m into music that much? My Spotify is my record collection that today holds over 750 records, all collected during the past 2 years. That’s about 1 new record each day. That’s so much to discover, so much to listen to again and again.
It starts to look impressive in my humble opinion. This must be about 700 records that all have been tested and approved to stay in my cupboard for the near and distant future. It ranges from Abba to ZZ top, from John Denver to Black Sabbath, from Led Zeppelin to Motörhead, from Tom Jones all the way to Kyuss and back to The Beatles. You probably get the point, I could go on for a while. Just wanted to indicate that I’ll be posting about some of these in the future. I plan to post different types of blogs in the music section, and this one ends with an example of my collection of Creedence Clearwater Revival records. This is one of the artists of which I’ve got the full studio album collection. Next to that, I plan to make posts about whatever artists I stumble upon and that really surprised me in a positive way. I’ve discovered so many of those over the past few years, just by taking home albums at random from second hand stores, garage sales and flea markets. It’s like one of my favourite people of all time, Lemmy Kilmister said on their legendary Ace Of Spades album, The Chase Is Better Than The Catch. Okay, he might have been talking about a different type of prey here, but it’s true for record collecting as well. It’s just fun to go through boxes with random records and to stumble upon something great.
You might wonder how checking out so many records can be relaxing for me. Admittedly, once I start doing something, I tend to get carried away. But for me listening to records is a very relaxing thing. Just put the record on, lay back and enjoy the melodies, damn, I quoted Offspring here. On the picture on the left you can see the pile of incoming records on the lefthand side, while the piles of outbound records and singles are on the righthand side. Any of the records that are available for sale/exchange have been tested. The pile of inbound ones is still to be tested, as there were over 100 incoming records in the past month alone. The one on top is an example of one that’s waiting to be tested and then move over to the outbound pile, as this one I already have. You can check the list of outbound records on my record collection page.
Now for the first actual record review type of post! Who better to start with than Creedence Clearwater Revival? Because they are legendary, because they are brilliant, because they deliver instant happiness! Any given day when I feel down I put a CCR album on the turntable and I immediately feel better and happier! There’s more bands that can really make me feel better, but I don’t think there’s any band more uplifting for me than CCR. Why? Because it swings like a tit! (Pardon me French, the PC version of this statement in my world is: it swings like a tit!).
I also wanted to start with this one as yesterday I completed my collection of Creedence studio albums on vinyl, as can be seen in the picture below. There’s all 7 studio releases and one compilation double album that contains their biggest hits. I can tell you I’ve also got the collection complete for a few other bands, so I’ll add posts on those in future as well. I can already let you know that stoner rock legends Kyuss and the mighty Led Zeppelin are among the ones that have been completed.
| Artist: | Creedence Clearwater Revival |
| Years active: | 1967-1972 |
| Members: | John Fogerty (lead vocals, lead guitar) Tom Fogerty (rhythm guitar) Stu Cook (bass) Doug Clifford (drums) |
| Studio albums: | Creedence Clearwater Revival (1968) Bayou Country (1969) Green River (1969) Willy and The Poor Boys (1969) Cosmo’s Factory (1970) Pendulum (1970) Mardi Grass (1972) |
| To be found next to: | Special Touch (Crackin’) (lefthand side) Whistling Down The Wire (Crosby & Nash) (righthand side) |
| Value (2022-08-28): | 41 / 87 / 257 EUR (minimum / median / maximum price) |
Now one might argue that Creedence is “from before my time”, and that’s definitely true. Yet for my generation and those older than us, Creedence is part of the collective memory, and it should in fact also be the case for the younger generations. You might think to yourself, hey, I don’t think I know that many CCR songs. I had that same misconception up until the point I bought the compilation double LP “Chronicle” early on when I started collecting records. Turns out I knew 15 out of those 20 songs! It made me realise that CCR would be one of the bands of whom I’d be collecting all studio releases, because I realised they’d never disappoint me. By now I got all of these 7 that were released in just a short 5 year time span.
Now which songs are the ones you might also know? Or if you don’t, you might want to discover them! Each of the songs is linked you Youtube, so you can go and check it out if you feel like it. You’re welcome! I’m sure you know Bad Moon Rising (Green River) or Who’ll Stop the Rain (Cosmo’s Factory) or Lookin’ Out My Back Door (Cosmo’s Factory). This song always reminds me about the classic “The Big Lebowski“, in which this song is also appearing. There’s so many more you might know, such as Suzie Q (Creedence Clearwater Revival), Down on The Corner (Willy and The Poor Boys) or I Put a Spell on You (Creedence Clearwater Revival).
If you’re wondering why CCR is part of the collective memory of many generations down here in Belgium, it relates to the tradition of having annual fun fairs in every city and village every year. While the kids of course enjoy the rides and games at the fair, many of the parents and adults go out to the local watering holes. These will usually have live bands performing, and guess what? Almost all of those cover Creedence! Some better than others, but not many coming close to the original sound. The Creedence sound is so unique because of John Fogerty’s voice, similar to other bands such as Lemmy for Motörhead, Ozzy for Sabbath or Garcia for Kyuss to name a few!
I wouldn’t really be able to say which of the 7 albums I like most, as they all have so many good songs on them, but the one I tend to play it bit more often than others is Willy and The Poor Boys. When I mentioned earlier on how I consider CCR to be very uplifting, this is especially through for this one in my humble opinion. Starts of with Down On The Corner and ends on side A with Feelin’ Blue. Also the side B has a few marvels on there, with my personal favourite on this album being The Midnight Special.
That will be all for today! Main message is, if you haven’t listened to too much of Creedence Clearwater Revival, it’s about damn time to do so! I want to give one more suggestion for a less popular CCR song that I really, really like, which is Someday Never Comes (Mardi Gras).
Enjoy listening and stay tuned for more good music in the future!