Those Were The Days

This box set contains every studio recording officially released by the band, and most official live recordings. This includes the albums Fresh Cream, Disraeli Gears, Wheels of Fire and Goodbye; the non-album singles Wrapping Paper, I Feel Free and Anyone for Tennis?; outtakes from the various albums, such as The Coffee Song and You Make Me Feel from Fresh Cream, two versions of Lawdy Mama, Hey Now Princess, Weird of Hermiston, The Clearout, and demos of We're Going Wrong and SWLABR from Disraeli Gears, as well as a commercial for Falstaff Beer. All of this spread across the first two discs. On the second two discs are the live recordings taken for Wheels of Fire and Goodbye in 1968, mostly released on those albums or the two Live Cream Albums. The version of N.S.U. released in this box set is previously unreleased and replaces the version from Live Cream. Likewise the version of Politician from Live Cream Vol. 2 replaces the version from Goodbye. Lastly, there is a new edit of Toad which uses material from a recording from the previous day to extend the solo and a recording of Sunshine of Your Love from the Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour in May 1968.This makes for a fantastic collection of songs which can only be expanded with the  BBC Sessions  compilation, although some completionists may have to seek out the original Politician from Goodbye, the alternate N.S.U. from Live Cream and the additional demo of Blue Condition from the Deluxe Edition of Disreali Gears, featuring Clapton's vocals.One thing worthy of note is the running orders. The first disc contains the first two albums with Wrapping Paper proceeding Fresh Cream and Lawdy Mama proceeding Disraeli Gears. Disc two then contains the studio tracks from Wheels of Fire and Goodbye with Anyone for Tennis in-between and various outtakes crammed at the end. The other two discs seem to follow no order whatsoever. I believe this running order is not the best way to listen to these albums and has been compiled economically to fit on to four discs. This is no problem if, like me, you use iTunes or something similar to organise your music, where I split the tracks back into their original albums and their respective outtakes and burned off personal copies to give it back the album feel.What I didn't consider when buying this box set was the stereo mix. So far I have noticed that the stereo mix places the drums, bass and rhythm guitar to the far right with the vocals being in the middle and the lead guitar on the far left, with a few exceptions. I find this quite uncomfortable to listen to with headphones and I feel it slightly ruins the quality of these songs as it is hard to hear the whole song clearly with the majority of it crammed into one ear. This is only jarring on Disc 1 through headphones, particularly on Fresh Cream. The later recordings have a better mix and are much easier to listen to. I would have thought that the 2008 reissue I bought would have been remixed with more conventional stereo but it appears to have kept the original stereo mixes.If you are planning on listening to this collection with speakers, such as in the car, it should be fine and you probably won't even notice the effect.Between the running order, the minor omissions, and the missed opportunity to re-mix Fresh Cream and Disraeli Gears I feel this box set deserves 4 stars. It will be perfect for most consumers, and it is certainly cheaper than buying the six albums separately, but the perfectionists and audiophiles may need to add to this collection to get the full catalogue.

It goes without saying that this is a must for Cream fans and there are already plenty of detailed reviews of Cream's musical output, so I'm just going to highlight some other aspects of this superb compilation which might matter to new buyers:There are 2 versions of this box set - 1997 ('standard size') & 2008 (more compact). This makes a difference for two reasons - the compact version lacks some of the visuals where these have been cropped to fit the smaller format and the discs themselves overlap in the case and are less convenient (and also harder) to extract.When it comes to the music, nearly all of Cream's original releases are here (plus extras) but, oddly, Those Were The Days doesn't include "Politician" from the Goodbye album - a shame I think, for completeness' sake and it's a great version; it could have gone on disc 3 to avoid repetition (different versions of "Lawdy Mama" feature on discs 1 & 2 and "Sunshine Of Your Love" on discs 3 & 4). "Passing The Time" is stated to be an "alternate version" but is the full length version (the Wheels Of Fire studio album version being an edit). NSU is a longer version than on the Live Cream album (by 2 mins. - some reckon it's a different performance) and "Toad" is a slightly different version from on Wheels Of Fire live, as it includes part from the next day's show (!).

Just got into cream after discovering drummer ginger baker played in another band I liked.So far I like both CDs.Comes in nice presentation booklet with bands history.very good for price.

Comprising two CDs covering Cream's studio output (Fresh Cream, Disraeli Gears, Wheels of Fire, Goodbye Cream) plus singles and some demo tracks and two CDs covering their live albums (Wheels of Fire, Live Cream Vols 1 &2, and Goodbye) this provides complete coverage of Cream's seven main albums. It is well packaged, with psychedelic cover and CD labels, a hard, gloss cardboard wallet and 48 page booklet. At £25 it is excellent value. With this, plus the BBC Sessions CD and May 2005 Royal Albert Hall concert, you have all bases of Cream covered.

This collection came well packaged with a nice booklet detailing the history of the band and the music. The additional tracks over and above the original releases were surprisingly good and did not feel that they were filling the space remaining on the CD's The collection was cleverly put together with two CD's of studio music arranged chronologically and then two CD's of live music which were set up in the way they may have been played in concert. If you like Cream this is an excellent Box Set.

This is the best, most comprehensive Cream collection available. It reminds you how creative and ahead of their time they were in the studio and so different live, when a 5 minute studio song could become 10-15 minutes live. At their worst, though great musicians, they were self-indulgent live, no track more so than Ginger Baker's workout "Toad". I remember being at the matinee performance of Cream's farewell concert and being bored rigid by a 15 minute drum solo and that feeling has not diminished with the passing of time. That said, there are so many positives to this power-house trio. Clapton at his best, Bruce's vocals and high calibre bass and the excellence of their song writing, especially the Bruce-Brown combination. All in all, a fantastic overview of an excellent, though short-lived, group. Buy now!