Review: Eric Clapton: Complete Clapton [A/D]

Artist: Eric Clapton

Album: Complete Clapton

Released: 2007

Label: Reprise Records

Genre: Classic Rock / Blues / Pop

Purchase Date: 26 October 2010

Format: CD (used)

Source: Friends of the Library Book Sale

The last CD I picked up at last October's Tompkins Library Book Sale was the two-disc Eric Clapton best-of collection Complete Clapton. As far as collections go, this one is pretty good-- it contains just about every major hit from Clapton's career from The Yarbirds to the present day. As a career retrospective, it's excellent. The tracks are mostly in chronological order by release date, and it's really interesting to hear Clapton's evolution over the past 40+ years.

Unfortunately, this is also the compilation's weak point. Clapton is one of those musicians who started out at the apex of his talent and slowly declined. His records from the '60s are by far his most interesting, and the absolute dreck he's released in the past decade is the palest of shadows of his former talent. Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis of Sound Opinions did an episode last summer called "Off the Rails," in which they took a look at artists whose careers have gone completely off the rails. Clapton was their number one pick of how the mighty had fallen.

From the amazing heights of his work with Cream, Blind Faith, and Derek and the Dominoes, to the kitschy nigh-unlistenable "blues lite" of his recent work, Complete Clapton is an excellent career retrospective. Disk 1 is amazing, chronicling Clapton's career as a superstar in the 60s, 70s, and early 80s. You can hear the quality of his songwriting and the level of his ambition decline a bit by the end of Disk 1, but it is a wonderful ride with just one or two weak tracks toward the end. Then there's Disk 2. When the best track on a Clapton album is the yawn-inspiring acoustic version of "Layla" from his 1992 MTV Unplugged album, you have a problem.

So, while an excellent career retrospective for one of the great musicians of the late 20th century, I found this album to be a disheartening chronicle of the deterioration of a once-great career.

Rating: Disk 1: A; Disk 2: D-; Overall: C+

Listen to "Layla" (Derek and the Dominoes, 1970) [The "A" part]

Listen to "Riding With The King" (2000) [The "D-" part]