Cream "Disraeli Gears" [1967]

Long considered a "supergroup" even though Eric Clapton is the only person anyone knew from this band, Cream jumps onto the psychedelic blues bandwagon and clings for dear life. Effectively, Cream is to Jimi Hendrix what Vanilla Ice is to MC Hammer: a bald-faced robbery of riffage and sentiment -- watered down, of course -- with the record label philosophy remaining consistent in both comparisons: "Well if a black guy can chart with this kind of crap, a white guy ought to sell three times as much!" This strategy fails with the seemingly permanent x-factor in 60s music: drugs. Hendrix could still play and write on two tabs of acid, whereas Clapton and Jack Bruce sound like they're having trouble staying coherent after a couple tokes of ditch weed. Because of its aggressively commercial shallowness, "Disraeli Gears" actually provides the link between straight 60s-style garage rock and the agonizing overarching pretension of 70s pop-rock sewage. So next time you're looking for someone to blame for the existence of Styx and Kansas, start right here.