Pitchfork评测Creedence Clearwater Revival(CCR)专辑Cosmos’s Factory

Each Sunday, Pitchfork takes an in-depth look at a significant album from the past, and any record not in our archives is eligible. Today we explore Creedence Clearwater Revival’s improbable stardom with 1970’s Cosmo’s Factory.

每个星期天，Pitchfork都会深入查看过去的重要专辑，任何不在我们的档案中的专辑都符合条件。今天，我们通过20世纪70年代的Cosmo's Factory探索Creedence Clearwater Revival不可思议的明星地位。

The four hirsute, sheepish men of Creedence Clearwater Revival were greeted as conquerors when they arrived in London in April 1970. From humble beginnings in suburban San Francisco, the quartet had ascended, in barely a year, to the absolute height of late-’60s rock stardom. They’d headlined Woodstock, released an ongoing run of multi-platinum albums and singles, and in 1969, did what seemed impossible at the time: They outsold the Beatles.

1970年4月，Creedence Clearwater Revival的四名头发蓬乱的，羞怯的人在抵达伦敦时受到了摇滚征服者的欢迎。从旧金山郊区没有什么特别之处的乐队的开始，四重奏在短短一年内就登上了60年代末摇滚明星的绝对高度。他们成为伍德斯托克的头条，发行了持续的多白金专辑和单曲，并在1969年做了当时似乎不可能的事情：他们的销量超出了披头士。

They looked hale and healthy, too, muscular but bashful dudes in Army surplus jackets and flannel shirts. They lacked any real group personality or public image beyond tough-guy smiles and ubiquitous hits. Meanwhile, the Beatles were looking lurid. Since 1968, the rumors were all about heroin and bitter interpersonal squabbles. Just as Creedence arrived to begin their first European tour, Paul McCartney released advance copies of his first solo album to the media alongside a “self-interview” that referred to his “break with the Beatles.” There was suddenly no one left to outsell.

他们看起来很健康，肌肉发达，但羞怯的家伙们穿着军队剩余的夹克和法兰绒衬衫。。除了强硬的微笑和无处不在的热门之外，他们缺乏任何真正的团体个性或公众形象。与此同时，披头士乐队看起来很令人耀眼的。自1968年以来，谣言都是关于海洛因和激烈的人际争吵。正当Creedence开始他们的第一次欧洲巡演时，Paul McCartney向媒体发布了他第一张个人专辑的预发本（提供给媒体抢先听），同时进行了“自我采访”，其中提到了他“与披头士的决裂”。突然间，没有人可以超越了。

For those next two weeks in April, Creedence did what they always did: played an unchanging set for one adoring audience after another, then refused encores. (Their shows were so consistent that they famously released a “Live at the Royal Albert Hall” record that was actually recorded in Oakland). This was John Fogerty’s policy, one of an increasing number of rules that he’d created to match his total control over their group’s songs, production, and finances. His bandmates—drummer Doug “Cosmo” Clifford, bassist Stu Cook, and Fogerty’s brother Tom on rhythm guitar—went home to the Bay Area with wonderful memories of their self-taught bashing ringing out in opera houses. But they also remembered standing just offstage, thousands of new fawning converts screaming for more, and their leader expending all his clout just to deprive them of that worship for some meaningless personal code.

在4月份接下来的两周里，Creedence做了他们一直做的事情：为一个又一个崇拜的观众演奏一个不变的场景，然后拒绝安可。（他们的表演如此一致，以至于他们著名地发行了一张“Live at the Royal Albert Hall”唱片，该唱片实际上是在奥克兰录制的）。这是John Fogerty的原则，这是他为匹配他完全控制他们团队的歌曲、制作和财务而制定的越来越多的规则之一。他的乐队成员——鼓手Doug “Cosmo” Clifford、贝斯手Stu Cook和演奏节奏吉他的Fogerty的兄弟Tom——带着他们在歌剧院自学成才的抨击的美好回忆回到湾区。但他们也记得站在台下，成千上万的新讨好狂热粉丝尖叫着要更多，他们的领导人花费了他所有的影响力，只是为了剥夺他们一些毫无意义的个人行为的崇拜。

That was Creedence Clearwater Revival in spring and summer of 1970, as they finished and released their fifth album, Cosmo’s Factory. They had started playing music together in middle school and had been slugging their way through a music career for more than a decade in various iterations. There was the studio session backing an over-the-hill doo-wop singer, the years with Tom on lead vocals, the costumed jangly years as the Golliwogs. Having now achieved hard-won but revelatory success, they were still plagued by the same stubborn-garbage, masculine hardwiring that they’d been carrying since adolescence. They were all raw nerves and personal vendettas but were operating musically like one four-limbed brain.

那是1970年春夏的Creedence Clearwater Revival，当时他们完成并发行了第五张专辑《Cosmo's Factory》。他们在中学时就开始一起演奏音乐，并在各种迭代中经历了十多年的音乐生涯。有一个工作室会议支持一位在山上的doo-wop歌手，多年来Tom担任主唱，穿着Golliwogs的岁月。现在已经取得了来之不易但具有启发性的成功，他们仍然受到自青春期以来一直携带的顽固的，垃圾的，男性的硬核的困扰。他们都是原始的神经和个人恩怨，但却像一个四肢发达的大脑一样在音乐上运作。

You must remember: Literally and figuratively, they were brothers. When you hear one of those songs, you know the ones—in Vietnam movies, The Big Lebowski, classic rock radio, your uncle’s radio by the grill—you’re hearing bone-deep, childhood-borne closeness and codependency. They learned how to play instruments together, how to cultivate a discerning musical taste, how to give their music that elusive, ineffable “in-between” that their bluesman and R&B heroes had. They started with squaresville garage-band dance-party stuff, then slowly absorbed Booker T. & the M.G.’s, Bakersfield country, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Roy Orbison, Muddy Waters. John Fogerty grew into his role as bandleader while Phil Spector, Brian Wilson, and Berry Gordy were developing instantly recognizable musical brands. They had sounds as distinctive as Sun or Chess, which Fogerty also revered for their spareness and guitar tones. This was hardly in step with the psychedelic music that Creedence’s Bay Area peers were developing, but Fogerty was resolute. He was developing an entire aesthetic vision and the whole responsibility for enacting it rested on his brother and his schoolmates.

你必须记住：从字面上和比喻上讲，他们是兄弟。当你听到这些歌曲之一时，你知道那些歌曲——在越南电影、The Big Lebowski、经典摇滚电台、你叔叔在烤架旁的收音机中——你会听到深沉、童年的亲密和相互依赖。他们学会了如何一起演奏乐器，如何培养挑剔的音乐品味，如何让他们的音乐像他们的蓝调歌手和R&B英雄那样难以捉摸、不可言喻的“介于两者之间”。他们从squaresville车库乐队的舞蹈派对开始，然后慢慢吸收了Booker T. & the M.G.'s、Bakersfield country、Lightnin' Hopkins、Roy Orbison、Muddy Waters。John Fogerty成长为乐队领队的角色，而Phil Spector、Brian Wilson和Berry Gordy正在开发可立即识别的音乐品牌。他们的声音像太阳或国际象棋一样与众不同，Fogerty也因其闲暇和吉他音调而崇敬它们。这与Creedence的湾区同行正在开发的迷幻音乐几乎不同步，但Fogerty很坚决。他正在发展一个完整的审美愿景，制定这个愿景的全部责任都取决于他的兄弟和他的同学。

Cosmo’s Factory begins with the purest expression of those varied inspirations and pressures that the band ever recorded. “Ramble Tamble” has somehow escaped the kind of classic-rock canonization of “Black Dog” or “Baba O’Riley” as an epic album opener, but it stands tall among them. It opens with a jaunty country-funk riff that sounds almost like James Brown once the band kicks in, then they instantly switch gears into roaring double-time rockabilly. Fogerty’s guitar and howling vocals are both treated with the same ghostly slap-back effect that he’d borrowed from Sun and Chess.

Cosmo's Factory首先最纯粹地表达了乐队有史以来录制的各种灵感和压力。《Ramble Tamble》以某种方式逃脱了《Black Dog》或《Baba O'Riley》作为史诗般的专辑开场白的经典摇滚封圣，但它在其中站得名列。它以一个欢快的乡村放克即兴重复段开始，一旦乐队开始，听起来几乎像詹姆斯·布朗，然后他们立即切换到咆哮的双时间摇滚乐。Fogerty的吉他和嚎叫人声都与他从Sun和Chess那里借用的相同的幽灵般的拍打效果。

He shout-sings one of his signature apocalyptic scenes, full of images of junk and ruin, like “Bad Moon Rising” but furious. Then the band slows down, Fogerty’s sketch of “mud in the water…bugs in the sugar” comes to a halt and is replaced with a slowly building space-rock squall unlike anything that Creedence, typically so earthbound, ever recorded. Then they dissolve that and rebuild the rockabilly section, where Fogerty returns to his angry-preacher routine. He’d written about specters and new dawns before, but this was the first time that he’d conveyed the idea in music itself. “Ramble Tamble” sounds like a band fighting its way to find new horizons, new styles, all the way past language in the title.

他大喊着唱着他标志性的世界末日场景之一，充满了垃圾和废墟的图像，比如《Bad Moon Rising》，但很愤怒。然后乐队放慢了速度，Fogerty的“水中的泥浆......糖中的虫子”的初样停了下来，取而代之的是缓慢建造的空间摇滚喧嚣声，这与Creedence（通常如此接地）所记录的任何东西都不同。然后他们解散了这一点，并重建了摇滚乐部分，在那里Fogerty回到了他愤怒的传教士的例行公事。他以前写过关于幽灵和新黎明的文章，但这是他第一次在音乐本身中传达这个想法。“Ramble Tamble”听起来像一个乐队在努力寻找新的视野，新的风格，以及标题中过去的语言。

Near the end of the record, the 11-minute take on “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” reverses the opening song’s sense of adventurousness, turning Motown’s sophisticated dance song into a droning, claustrophobic blues. The rest of Cosmo’s Factory is a hodge-podge, which was typical of Creedence’s full-lengths. Between the extended tracks and a handful of previously released hits like “Travelin’ Band” and “Long as I Can See The Light,” they included lively but inessential covers like “Ooby Dooby” and “Before You Accuse Me.” It’s not a statement record or some kind of grand step forward in the band’s evolution. It’s just an unpretentious collection of songs, named for their little San Francisco practice space and featuring one of the least affected album covers of the classic rock era. Somehow, in 1970, the year of Kent State, the My Lai massacre trial, and Let It Be, no album spent longer at No. 1 in the U.S. Creedence broke up within two years.

在唱片接近尾声时，11分钟的《I Heard It Through the Grapevine》颠倒了开场曲的冒险感，将摩城精致的舞曲变成了忧郁的、幽闭的蓝调。Cosmo’s Factory的其余部分是大杂烩，这是Creedence全长专辑的典型。在扩展曲目和之前发行的几首热门歌曲之间，如《Travelin' Band》和《Long as I Can See The Light》，它们包括生动但无关紧要的封面，如《Ooby Dooby》和《Before You Accuse Me》。这不是一张表达立场，也不是乐队演变中向前迈出的某种宏伟步骤。这只是一个朴实无华的歌曲集，以他们旧金山的小小的排练空间命名，并以经典摇滚时代最不受影响的专辑封面之一为特色。不知怎的，在1970年，肯特州立大学，My Lai的大屠杀审判，Let It Be，不再有专辑在美国排名第一。Creedence在两年内分手了。

Their roiling interpersonal difficulties explain the brevity of Creedence’s success, but what accounts for its intensity? How did a band so far apart from their peers and so untrendy become the most popular group in America—and during a time of so much unrest? Creedence never wrote a love song, barely ever used vocal harmony, never employed guest musicians, and had a strict (and mutually agreed-upon) policy against alcohol and drug use during music-making. They were not exactly the face of late-’60s youth culture, but they were its most consistent soundtrack.

他们动荡的人际困难解释了Creedence成功的短暂性，但是什么解释了它的强度？在如此动荡的时期，一个与同龄人如此遥远、如此不流行的乐队是如何成为美国最受欢迎的乐队的？Creedence从未写过情歌，从未使用过声乐和声，从未雇用过客串歌手，并且在音乐制作过程中采取严格（双方同意的）反对酗酒和毒品的政策。它们并不完全是60年代末青年文化的代言人，但它们是始终如一的配乐。

Those earlier iterations of the band were all relatively square—“a garage band, a little band” is how John Fogerty described them. It was his twin obsessions with recording technology and old blues that opened the band to new vistas. Starting with “Born on the Bayou,” on 1969’s Bayou Country, Fogerty summoned a mythic rock’n’roll South lyrically as well as musically: his songs were as spare and tight as Stax, whose records, along with Wilson’s and Spector’s, he studied like a scholar. But his words could bend toward Uncle Remus or the Book of Revelations. On Cosmo’s Factory, “Lookin’ Out My Back Door” is the former and “Run Through the Jungle” is the latter. “Back Door” paints a children’s-book scene of dancing animals, while “Jungle,” a staple of Vietnam movies, depicts a literal army of Satan.

乐队早期的迭代都是相对方形的——“一个车库乐队，一个小乐队”是John Fogerty对他们的描述。正是他对录音技术和旧蓝调的双重痴迷为乐队开辟了新的视野。从1969年的《Bayou Country》的《Born on the Bayou》开始，Fogerty在抒情和音乐上都召唤了神话般的南方摇滚：他的歌曲像Stax一样冗长而紧凑，他的唱片与Wilson和Spector的唱片一样，他像学者一样学习。但他的话可能会转向雷穆斯叔叔或启示录。在Cosmo的工厂中，“Lookin' Out My Back Door”是前者，“Run Through the Jungle”是后者。《Lookin' Out My Back Door》描绘了儿童读物中跳舞的动物场景，而《Run Trough the Jungle》是越南电影的重要内容，描绘了撒旦的字面上的军队。

Fogerty didn’t write from one clear vision for America; instead, he tried different visions on like hats, singing passionately about lazy riverboat days as well as societal collapse. Another Cosmo’s Factory standout, “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” depicts a storm that lasts generations, leaving widespread sadness and confusion. Moments of great civil unrest tend to refocus our view of the past—we see previously overlooked steps to destruction with renewed clarity. The Vietnam era spawned many pop acts with a deep sense of history, from the Band’s Faulknerian evocations to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s epochal bluegrass love-letter, Will the Circle Be Unbroken? But none had John Fogerty’s monastic understanding of pop record structure or his clear-eyed obsession with instrument separation.

Fogerty没有从一个清晰的美国愿景中写作；相反，他像帽子一样尝试了不同的愿景，热情地歌唱着懒惰的河船时代以及社会崩溃。另一个Cosmo工厂的佼佼者，“Who’ll Stop the Rain”，描绘了一场持续几代人的风暴，留下了广泛的悲伤和困惑。重大内乱时刻往往会重新聚焦我们对过去的看法——我们再次清晰地看到了以前被忽视的破坏步骤。越南时代催生了许多具有深刻历史感的流行音乐，从Band’s Faulknerian的召唤到Nitty Gritty Dirt Band的划时代的蓝草情书，Will the Circle Be Unbroken？但没有人像John Fogerty那样对流行唱片结构有着修士般的理解，也没有人像他那样对乐器分离有着敏锐的洞察力。

They had notable album tracks throughout their career, but Creedence were a singles band, where Fogerty’s fussy, learned vision was best-expressed and his sidemen showed themselves of highest musical sensitivity. Listen to the way they push and pull Fogerty throughout “Heard It Through the Grapevine,” following his solo as much as prodding it on. The simple gallop of “Ooby Dooby” is just marvelous from the first note, while “Long as I Can See the Light” stands as one of Creedence’s most powerful ballads and soulful, nuanced band performances. Clifford’s bass drum alone makes the song sound heartbreaking.

他们在整个职业生涯中都有著名的专辑曲目，但Creedence是一支单曲乐队，Fogerty的挑剔、博学的愿景表现得最好，他的副手表现出最高的音乐敏感性。听听他们在《Heard It Through the Grapevine》中对Fogerty的推搡和拉拽，就像在推动他的独奏一样。《Ooby Dooby》的简单疾驰从第一个音符开始就令人惊叹，而《Long as I Can See the Light》是Creedence最强大的民谣和深情、细致入微的乐队表演之一。Clifford的低音鼓本身就让这首歌听起来令人心碎。

So it almost seems silly to ask why Creedence—and Cosmo’s Factory—were so popular as the country burned. They played ’70s rock with the emotional intensity of early R&B and the workaholic tightness of the Muscle Shoals or Dixie Flyers bands. They defined the early years of album rock, but their background was in the single format. For all their aww-shucks media personalities, their sound was flexible enough to be fun, angry, sorrowful, or worried. They were a band that could match the sweaty, crowded emotional tenor of America at war, and they could please anyone but themselves.

因此，问为什么Creedence的Cosmo’ Factory在国家陷入困境时如此受欢迎，这几乎是微不足道的。他们以早期R&B的情感强度和Muscle Shoals或Dixie Flyers乐队的工作狂紧张来演奏70年代的摇滚乐。他们定义了专辑摇滚的早期，但他们的背景是单曲格式。对于他们所有令人震惊的媒体个性，他们的声音足够灵活，可以变得有趣、愤怒、悲伤或担心。他们是一个可以与战争中美国汗流浃背、拥挤的情感男高音相匹配的乐队，他们可以取悦除他们自己以外的任何人。