Cream - Disraeli Gears (Top 500 Countdown Update)

Despite the fact that there are two throw away songs on this album, "Blue Condition" and "Mother's Lament" this is one of the greatest rock albums of all time. "Sunshine of Your Love" and "Tales of Brave Ulysses" are simply fantastic songs. These songs are everything you want from all the experimentation of blues, psychedelia, and rock. The album as a whole is very tightly woven with short crisp songs that all have good pop hooks and this wonderful pounding mixture of blues and psychedelia. If I could pick one album to represent the rock sound of the 60's it would be this album. This album will give a lot of credit to Eric Clapton for his wonderful guitar work, but Ginger Baker is fantastic on this album with his odd jazz drumming driving every song. Jack Bruce is also flawless on this album balancing out Baker's rambling drums with Clapton's heavy blues guitar. For this one moment in time these guys balanced a very odd mix of sounds perfectly. In case you didn't get the message I really think this is a great album. If they had left off "Mother's Lament" and found a replacement for "Blue Condition" which just doesn't seem to fit with every other song on the album, this would possibly be the greatest album of all time.