Clapton is God (Clapton Chronicles: The Best Of Eric Clapton - Eric Clapton)

Member Name: markhobbs

Product:	Clapton Chronicles: The Best Of Eric Clapton - Eric Clapton
Date:	20/05/02 (353 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: His most pleasent songs

Disadvantages: Not all of his best work

Maybe Clapton is too bluesy to actually be God, but there’s no denying that he is a compellingly sexy and talented man. There’s no song quite like Wonderful Tonight to attract the attention of the ladies, in fact a friend of mines sole purpose for learning to play the guitar is seemingly to lure them to him with its intro. So it’s no wonder Clapton is so prolific in that department.

This cd features the best of his work from the early eighties to the late nighties. By doing this it misses out on most of his most famous material, that from the late sixties/early seventies, but there’s still enough here to warrant its purchase. It’s basically a Clapton album for housewives, much of it is comprised of his more up tempo and anthemic material. I speak mostly of his eighties work, it’s nice listening it’s just not what he’s going to be remembered for. That said there are some great songs on the album, the opener Blue Eyes Blue, from the Runaway Bride soundtrack, is one of my favourite songs. It’s a far cry from the rawness of Cream ( it has a string section for crying out loud) but it’s an absolute classic. Change the World is beautiful and one of the highlights of the album, and indeed his career.

Other highlights include two songs from his Unplugged album, Layla and Running On Faith and a live version of Wonderful Tonight. All of these are vintage Clapton and show that apart from being a great guitarist he is enchanting performer ang songwriter. Although there are no bad songs on the album there are a few that aren’t quite up to the standard of these three, namely Pretending and Forever Man. Despite this the album as a whole is an extremely enjoyable listen, often euphoric but sometimes reflective and mournful such as in the touching Tears in Heaven.

For those who are looking for an album littered with his famous guitar wizardly this is not for you, this is a compilatio
n of his more structured work although there are some great solos. Clapton once said he had two ambitions in life, to make a roomful of people cry with just his guitar and to make love to ten thousand women…the chances are the one song has left him with no regrets

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