Creedence Clearwater Revival were one of the many bands that my Dad passed onto me. We had a couple of albums kicking around (Willy & The Poor Boys and maybe Green River) but Cosmo’s Factory is the album that stuck in my head, possibly because of Travelin’ Band and Up Around the Bend, a couple of songs I have fond memories of. So this was the album I grabbed this morning when I thought a blog post was long overdue.
I’ve just made my way through it but it was bloody hard going – an album full of charmless, stodgy, chunky dross with very little clue as to what I may have liked about it. Fogerty’s voice grates and the majority of the album stinks to high heaven. The side two centrepiece of an eleven minute version of I Heard It Through the Grapevine was shameful. I shall never listen to this again.