Wheels of Fire
Polydor / Umgd - Polydor / Umgd
Cream
Release date: 1998-04-07
Audio CD
Album Rock, Blues-Rock, British Blues, British Psychedelia, Drums, Hard Rock, Pop, Pop/Rock Music, Psychedelic, Rock, Rock/Pop
1. White Room - Cream, Bruce, Jack
2. Sitting on Top of the World - Cream, Chatmon, Lonnie
3. Passing the Time - Cream, Baker, Ginger
4. As You Said - Cream, Brown, Peter [1]
5. Pressed Rat and Warthog - Cream, Baker, Ginger
6. Politician - Cream, Brown, Peter [1]
7. Those Were the Days - Cream, Baker, Ginger
8. Born Under a Bad Sign - Cream, Bell, William
9. Deserted Cities of the Heart - Cream, Brown, Peter [1]
average reviews
0 vote
0 vote
React and review
Wheels of Fire
Date undefinedTwo disk set, one studio/one live, that showcase one of the first "Supergroups". All virtuosos, Clapton, Bruce and Baker all showcase their respective talents on all songs. I was a little disturbed to hear how the limitations of sound recording technology of the time were not well corrected on the version I own. None the less, a series of great hits that define this group appear on the studio disk, and the live disk showcases the chemistry and energy this band exhibited.
Wheels of Fire
Date undefinedThe studio material veers from the inspired ("White Room," never mind that Jack Bruce and Pete Brown seemed to play a kind of see-and-raise on Eric Clapton's earlier "Tales of Brave Ulysses," though Clapton unfurls one of the finest rounds of controlled wah-wah fills and solos of its time; "Sitting on Top of the World," which sounds first too reverent until Clapton spins a spellbinding solo and Bruce supports him with a neatly climbing bass line; "Born Under a Bad Sign," in which Ginger Baker's Latinesque polyrhythm competes neatly with Clapton's stinging Albert King-like lines; "Those Were The Days," maybe the second-best song Baker wrote for the trio) to the modest ("Deserted Cities of the Heart," "Politician"), to the mundane. ("As You Said," which sounds still as though it were composed and executed on some particularly skittery controlled substances, though the cello lines save it from total disaster.)
The live recordings veer from the transcendent ("Crossroads") to the well-intentioned ("Spoonful," which tends to lag in a few places, in spite of several bursts of what made Cream so formidable as a freewheeling, improvisational concert unit), to the dubious (it's still hard to know whether "Traintime"---a superior take has since emerged on the BBC sessions---is inspired or exhausted, though the idea of chugging Bruce's harmonica to Baker's snare and hi-hat was a welcome relief, and the vocal is probably his most impassioned on the set), and to a combination of the three. ("Toad" was always more impressive for Baker's drumming---as colouristic as you'll find in rock of any era, never mind how many caterwauling inferiors it inadvertently inspired, than for its basic music bookends, the last of which you can barely hear through the mix under the crowd sound, anyway.)
As a whole, "Wheels of Fire" isn't quite the master blend of eclectic blues and pop adventurism "Disraeli Gears" was, and you wouldn't lose a thing if you skipped "Passing the Time" or "As You Said" (both way better as ideas than as executed songs). But in the best moments Cream lives up to the better sides of its reputation. Maybe the sense that they were about to decide on packing it in pervades too greatly, but for the better moments it's still worth the price.
(As an historical note: "Wheels of Fire" was the first double-LP set to be awarded a gold record, an award presented to Cream before they kicked off the Madison Square Garden appearance that concluded their 1968 farewell tour.)
Wheels of Fire
Date undefinedCream's best album combines studio and live material so you get the best of both. There are lots of reviews here and at allmusic and other places, I'm sure, that will go into detail about just what makes this album great. When I review something here, I am usually inclined to discuss the sound quality of particular classic rock releases in their various incarnations.
This is another case of the label's remaster actually sounding worse than the original release. It's got too much boost in the mid-frequency spectrum which causes a distinct lack of clarity on vocals and other details. In terms of loudness and compression, this one actually does a good job not brick walling everything to make it distorted like so many remasters tend to do. So, you have the good and the bad...but you can always choose to have only the good....
How, you say? First, if you can afford it, go for a used copy of the DCC gold disc version of this mastered by Steve Hoffman. It is the best version of this album on CD, period. The gold disc part really has nothing to do with that...it's the excellent and meticulous mastering by Mr. Hoffman that makes this shine. However, you'll pay well over $50 for one of these.
Your second choice would be a used copy of the original release on Polydor (amazon lists this as the 1990 version). This was done by Dennis Drake and sounds really good, too, and you can find it here in the marketplace for under $15 (just make sure to ask the seller if it's the original release in the wide or fatboy case with the silver discs). If you don't believe me, buy one of each and have your own shootout and find out for yourself.
