Creedence Clearwater Revival – Cosmo’s Factory

Review Score:

A

January 21 / 2024

Creedence Clearwater Revival is credited as the only band to outsell The Beatles in their heyday. I’ve not been able to find enough solid and clear evidence that this is true to make a definitive statement on it. Maybe I’m too lazy to do any proper research. But you don’t need to sell more records than the “fab four” to make a mark. I couldn’t care less about that.

My grandpa likes CCR. About once a week, maybe twice (we’ll say Tuesdays and Thursdays for the sake of this), I would get dropped off at my grandparent’s house instead of the babysitter’s. These would be called “grandpa days”. From 9 to 3, I was my grandfather’s responsibility. He’d often take me (and later my brother as well) to the zoo or a museum or a park or some piece of woods he owned. After a long day, he’d put on some meditative music so I’d fall asleep in the backseat on the car ride home. But on the way to our destination, I’d get a taste of the kind of music he liked. CCR was on that list.

“I never cared for The Beatles. I always liked something a little tougher than the ‘main thing’.” he would later explain. And that’s a good way to describe CCR. They were always just one step removed from the top of the charts. In fact, they hold the record for most number 2 hits (I also could barely verify this information so just take my word for it).

Cosmo’s Factory released in the summer of 1970. In the age of psychedelia, John and Tom Fogerty, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford were writing their own brand of “swamp rock”. Close your eyes and imagine an animated frog singing “Run Through The Jungle” and tell me that I’m wrong.

The album is as much a tribute to the band’s influences as it is CCR continuing to cement themselves as one of the most iconic and memorable rock groups of all time. “Travellin’ Band” is inspired by the early rock of the 1950s. And of course “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” is a reinvention of Marvin Gaye’s song, on which the band breaks into a rare free form groove that turns a three minute song into an eleven minute jam session.

Willie and the Poor Boys had come out the year prior. “Fortunate Son” would become the unofficial anthem of the Vietnam era. And if “Fortunate Son” is the angst ridden critique of the draft era, “Who’ll Stop The Rain” is the wistful plea for peace. While not exactly a lullaby, it briefly deviates away from the grittier sound the band is best known for in favor of a gentler anthem. As gentle as Fogerty can be, anyway.

Are CCR “underrated”? I don’t know that you could call them that. Perhaps underappreciated is more appropriate, if at all. But their undeniable artistry and distinctive sound have clearly defined the future of rock and roll as we know it. Not to mention that they’re the only band to have outsold The Beatles.

Review Score:

A

Gubb wrote this review. You can’t get mad at Gubb.