Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs

eric clapton é o véio mais overrated da história do rock pau mole. vai tomar no cu que eu ouvi isso tudo. dito isso, se vier mais dele, eu vou chorar, papo reto.

não vou dar 1 estrela porque tem layla, que é ruim, mas meu amigo douglas gosta. em respeito a ele e só.

Great album. Yes, Clapton is a muppet, but he did know what he was doing with a guitar. This album is long, but it is fairly varied so it never really frels boring.

A mixed bag (as you would probably expect for a double album), I wasn't pleasantly surprised how much I didn't hate it.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5.

Once again, Eric Clapton is an asshole. I shouldn’t have to preface that, but I feel a need to say it anyway. I’ve given him some benefit of the doubt, but from what I’ve read since… yeah, dude’s a mega asshole. Still though, good music can be made by mega assholes, and this is good music.

Ironically enough, even with how much acclaim “Layla” (deservedly) gets as the shining opus of Eric Clapton’s career, I think a lot of what I wrote from “Disraeli Gears” still applies to this album. To quote myself, “there are a handful of moments where the album repeats verses & riffs and enters a bit of a stagnant state, but those moments don’t ruin the album that badly for me. That’s mainly why I’m at a 4.5, because they’re prevalent enough to be noticeable, but not obnoxious enough to bother me. When this album isn’t in a stagnant phase, it’s firing on all cylinders; the guitar work here is as good as advertised, the percussion is an incredible anchor that feels just a bit ahead of schedule, and the vocals” – and I’m going to cut myself off there, because I think my main complaint with this album comes in Eric Clapton’s vocals.

I don’t think Eric Clapton is truly feeling the emotions he’s trying to pull out on a number of these songs. When you look at how he belted out “Layla”, you can absolutely feel it, and it’s the sort of thing that’s so raw that even if it’s about lusting over another man’s wife, you almost kind of root for him to succeed, as weird as that sounds. Compare that to the track right before it, “It’s Too Late”, and you can feel just how phoned in that performance is – it’s not a bad performance, but it’s a very color-by-numbers cover that he’s not putting his all into. That sense of not “feeling” pops up for a decent chunk of the tracks here for me, and combining that with his grittier / lower registers feeling a bit strained / forced on the more blues-y tracks of the album, it makes his vocals the weakest part here for me.

I will also challenge the whole “prevalent enough to be noticeable, but not obnoxious enough to bother me” thing – these do get just a little bit obnoxious enough to bother me. I think the solos on this album go just a little too far with self-indulgence; knowing when to cut them off is a talent in its own right, but this album lets a lot of its instrumental breaks hang in the air for just a little too long. “Key to the Highway” is the prime example here; it didn’t need to be 10 minutes, and the amount of times it blueballed hitting an exit ramp on the extended solo in the middle just felt torturous by the end. This album ends up going longer than it should because of it; I think at least 8-10 minutes worth of slightly indulgent solos could’ve been trimmed down, as well as its two most plain tracks in “I Am Yours” & “It’s Too Late”.

With all of that said, I don’t think it’s enough for me to bump it down to a 4, though it’s certainly leaning closer towards it – when this album IS rolling, it just feels infectious, and for 1970, a lot of this does feel slightly ahead of schedule, especially in the guitar / percussion work. For the high tempo stuff here, there’s no notes; it’s just great rock & roll. The blues stuff could use a little more work, but when you’re in the groove (and it’s still very easy to be entranced into the groove), it just never feels like a big deal. At the end of the day, “Layla” by itself is such a strong track that it sort of overrides all of these things that are basically just nitpicks about how I’d approach this album. I think it’s worth the bump to a 5, and at worst, I think the floor here is a 3.5 that could go either direction. For my tastes, I enjoyed it. Sometimes, it’s that simple.

Still a mega fucking asshole, though.

This is a good sunday morning album, which is fortunate as it is sunday morning.

I enjoy the chilled blues approach and the songs glide by quite well at first but after 4 songs they start to feel like they could have been a bit tighter and less of a blues blow out. Obviously part of this is because the focus is on Clapton’s guitarmanship which is insane but i think stops this slbum from being truly great.

Thst said i love key to the highway, which maybe the worst offender of what i’ve just said.

That was dull. Even Layla is more boring for about 50% of it's runtime than I remember it being.

I feel like I can't give an album 1 for just being boring, and they're clearly very skilled musicians but it just wasn't my thing at all.

2/5

Odd choice to bury a seven minute version of the only great song on the album as the second to last track.

Holy guitaronie
The guitars are amazing, but the album is a bit too long and doesn’t work as an album for me

Clapton sucks. Most of this is ponderous trash. Only reason it’s not 1/5 is Duane Allman.

The album title was an immediate red flag, and it unfortunately proved to be accurate as far as describing the overall experience. Having the album's supposed centerpiece "Layla" as Track 13, after over an hour of tedious, self important twaddle for the most part, is trolling to a sickening degree. It's seriously lacking in the quality control department, and ultimately comes off as pretentious above its station. Could very easily have been a 4 or 5 track EP at most. I'll stick with Blind Faith and what I know of from Cream, thanks.

Nichts besonderes. Ich merk einfach die beste Dauer für ein Album ist so ca. 40-50 Minuten. Alles drüber ist einfach too much.
Eric Clapton kann toll Gitarre spielen, aber menschlich leider ein HuSo

Started off great, ended great with Layla. Lots of overly long blues songs that kinda bored me (despite Clapton stuffing those songs to the brim with good stuff). Was thinking initially I'd rate higher, but then the bluesier stuff kicked in.

Peak Clapton, aided by Duane Allman and a sympathetic band. Clapton never sounded so authentic or engaged with the blues.

Really a 3.5 great songs but many started to sound the same #albumsky #musicsky

Enjoyable classic rock. I liked "Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad?". Layla's electric guitar part sounds so much like the Russian song "Белая ночь" by Forum. Seriously, listen... did they plagiarize!? Its from 1985, so some Western music may have gotten into the USSR. CAPTIVATING MYSTERY

Don’t understand the Clapton hype. this goes on for way too long

This feels like it should be a live album. I know you can’t create a new band nobody’s ever heard of and release a live album as your debut, but I kinda wish that’s what this was. The whole second half of Layla is a pretty obnoxious thing to record, but I’m sure it went incredibly hard in concert.
Beyond that, writing a whole album about how much you love your best friend’s wife is a crazy thing to do. Especially when you include a song that explicitly says so (see: “Have You Ever Loved A Woman?”). It’s even more crazy that it eventually worked out.
As a (former?) guitar player, Clapton will always have my respect, but ultimately this album spends more time jamming than I need it to.

Some decent, listenable songs but a lot of self-indulgent drivel. Way too long and just background noise.

Overall felt a little eh.

standout track: Layla

This goes on far too long, both as an album and some of the individual songs; I thought Key to the Highway would never end. But there are some decent songs on it, and the playing quality is good. A low three.