The Very Best of Cream

There've been numerous one-disc Cream retrospectives over the years, but this is probably the best. Of course, Cream's official recorded output was only four albums during the group's brief two-year run, with very little chaff amongst the wheat, so one might be excused for wondering if you'd be better off with those still-in-print albums, or with Those Were The Days, the four-CD box set that collects more or less every note Cream ever recorded.

In any case, at 20 songs, this is the most comprehensive one-CD Cream best-of extant and conceptually it's certainly the most interesting. Despite the fact the group was mostly esteemed as (and occasionally dismissed as) a live, blues-based extended-jams outfit that sometimes didn't know when to quit, most of the songs here are tuneful, concise studio tracks with Beatle-esque touches in the arrangements; it's hard to imagine how anybody could dismiss gems like "Anyone for Tennis" or "Badge" as excessive.