461 Ocean Boulevard

Generic, hollow, unispired, phoning-it-in-cashgrab

Eric Clapton would never let a bag of cocaine fall out a window.

It is important to look beyond the deeply flawed person that is Eric Clapton and to focus on his music. Turns out, his music has no redeeming qualities either.

Thought this was excellent.

I know Clapton has a pretty dubious reputation these days, but I tried to separate the art from the artist here the same way I have with Kanye and Kid Rock. Of course, Kid Rock still managed to earn his 1 star anyway. “Motherless Child” was a banger. The guitar work throughout the album is really what carried it for me, and there are some great riffs all over this thing. The main guitar part on “Let It Grow” reminded me a lot of the intro to “Stairway to Heaven.” “Please Be with Me” had a completely different feel and sounded like something Neil Young could’ve recorded around the same time. Then there is "I Shot The Sheriff" That’s probably the song most people associate with this album, and I really don’t think his version was that good. I’d take Bob Marley’s without hesitation. That being said, would a listen to it again? For sure. It’s laid back without getting boring, there’s plenty of blues in it, and Clapton’s guitar playing is obviously the main attraction. Definitely better than I expected going in. Favorite song: "Motherless Child"

Crusty Floridian beach bum music. Whitewashed Bob Marley cover song.

The Good: We know where we need to go! The Bad: We aren't even close to the state... The Ugly: Finding out that they moved the house... Clapton is God.... at least, that is what someone once painted on a wall... and the myth was born. Mr Slowhands is, undeniably, one of the greats of his time, if not of all time, when it comes to playing the guitar! It is, therefore, so frustrating to have to listen to his albums which, in my opinion, contain too much shit that acted as filler. This album is no exception. It has some awesome songs. True Clapton songs... then, then it just kind of makes us want to turn off the sound... For those who'd like to hear Clapton do the blues with a slight modern sound to it, go check out From the Cradle... some of his best soloing work! This, this was okay... I guess... 3*

Im not a huge Clapton fan

リラックスして聴ける曲。おじさんのリスナーが多そう。Laylaのイメージのエリッククラプトンとは全然違って、技巧派な感じももない。いい雰囲気です

It's Clapton, come on. He's a guitar god, and the riffs are excellent. You've got "I Shot The Sheriff", an excellent tune. The rest of the album is pretty much scaffolding to hold that up, though. It's not bad, it's just average. "Motherless Children" comes in pretty strong, but the grooves just kind of blend together up to "I Shot The Sheriff" and then continue blending after that. "Steady Rollin' Man" is pretty good. Can we just talk about the album in front of us instead of talking about the artist's activities off stage? Please? My Rating: 3/5

it was so sensual and intimate, i loved “i shot the sheriff” and “get ready”. super danceable to and great to listen to.

The best song is a cover and the rest can be a little too mellow for me. I can see how someone would like this though.

Eric Clapton is a polarizing figure. Weird that I got this album a couple days after watching Antichrist (2009). Enjoyable blues rock. 7/10

What a boring album! Yes, he's a great guitar player but...

Sounds like EC is off his head on cocaine the whole time. This is EC in the 70s, I'm probably right.

Meh. Clapton is overrated.

The first song starts very entertaining with some actually nice rhythm, something that doesn't come back until the last two tracks with a more mediocre delivery, and all in the middle is just slow blues rock, except for "I Shot the Sheriff", as its original version is a reggae track. This album is boring and it feels patronizing, something that makes sense considering the horrible person this guy is. My intuition tells me Eric Clapton really though he was doing some great covers, but I do not feel any passion coming out of his voice (which at least knows how to sing) or guitar performances, and the same goes for the rest of instrumentation. I'll admit that I haven't heard any of the original tracks, but I'm sure they are leagues better and filled with pure emotion, something these pieces here totally lack. If I have anything positive left to say is that the production is actually warm and that the length is short. Other than that, very inoffensive (in terms of emotions, as this can be considered as a collection of insults to the original songs) and boring.

Not as good as I remembered. Some of the songs were outright boring.

Was ok

Not a big fan of Clapton but it was alright

Not a fan. Multiple listens doesn’t really improve this for me. Just makes me dislike it more, actually. 2 Boolean: True

Album #218: Eric Clapton – 461 Ocean Boulevard ⭐⭐⭐ This was a bit of a disappointment, to be honest with you. I’ve never really listened to Eric Clapton’s solo material, but Derek and the Dominos’ Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs came up on the generator and I was pretty blown away by it. I gave it four, but it’s in that category of probably should be a five. It’s so good. So I was excited for this one, being one of the next major albums Clapton released. And this doesn’t hold a candle to Derek and the Dominos. It’s good, but it’s not really showing the full potential of what this guy could do. The good stuff is this: it’s got a pretty fantastic Side A. Side B is a major decline. It just gets softer and softer as it goes on, and the softer stuff gets weirdly melodramatic. Then you’ve got the Chicago blues stuff with the Willie Dixon covers. It’s not my favourite type of blues, and it seems to be one of Eric Clapton’s favourite types of blues. Doesn’t really do it for me. It’s mostly covers as well, even though I think he’s a decent songwriter in his own right. He is a good interpreter of a song, and he does interesting interpretations. But, I Shot the Sheriff, which is pretty faithful to Bob Marley’s original, is probably the best song on the album. He has a really good soft voice, but he’s not bringing any of the intensity or life that he had with Derek and the Dominos to this. It’s very low-key. It works on the JJ Cale-style stuff like Get Ready and I Shot the Sheriff, with the reggae and low-key blues sound. But listening to Get Ready, I did kind of feel like I’d prefer to be listening to JJ Cale for this kind of stuff. Then it opens with this country-blues jam, Motherless Children, and I have a major bone to pick with that song. This is very personal. I say a lot of hyperbolic stuff and throw out big statements whenever I’m doing these reviews, but this is a fact for me personally. Blind Willie Johnson is one of my top five favourite artists and one of the most important artists ever for me. I discovered his music, and a lot of those very early blues recordings from the 1920s, during a very rough time in my life. I fell in love with that music and became kind of obsessed with finding recordings and listening to them. Blind Willie Johnson was, and still is to this day, my favourite bluesman. Motherless Children Have a Hard Time is one of his most desperately sad tunes. And I know it’s not uncommon for people to cover sad songs and liven them up or make them a bit rocky, especially when it comes to blues. But something rubbed me wrong about what Clapton does with this particular song. It’s a great arrangement that he’s created, but I think doing Motherless Children that way does the subject of the song a disservice. It almost feels a little disrespectful. For someone who had such a high reverence for the bluesman himself, I’m surprised he chose to cover that song with that arrangement. It doesn’t work lyrically for me anymore because all that shit happened to Blind Willie Johnson. That song is autobiographical to him, and you can’t recreate that pain. That’s not Clapton’s fault though, but the jauntiness then downplays the pain. That’s one of my favourite things about Blind Willie Johnson. You can hear all that experience in his voice. You can hear the awful tragedies and difficulties of his life. I’m not religious at all, but his music almost makes me wish I was, because his faith carries him through all these things and you can hear that in his voice. He’s one of the most amazing singers to have ever lived. And I’m not saying you can’t cover a Blind Willie Johnson song, because you can. Led Zeppelin took Nobodies Fault but Mine and made an amazing, lively version out of it. But this particular cover irked me. Look, I’m sure Eric Clapton would tell me to feck off and have a really good reason for why he did it. But I just think that’s one of the saddest songs ever written, and maybe it’s a song you don’t do that with. And yet it’s a great arrangement too, so I’m torn on that one. It sounds like a great Derek and the Dominos-style tune, as does Mainline Florida, with that real swampy blues sound. Mainline Florida is probably the only song on Side B that I really like. Yeah, I’ve rambled a bit about Blind Willie Johnson, but if anyone hasn’t listened to him, I’m pretty sure none of his music is on this list. He is one you need to hear before you die. As for 461 Ocean Boulevard, probably not.

Yes, the problems many people have with Clapton are significant, and I think quite justified. Can and should one separate the artist's personality from their art, in this case, the music? I have no idea, but I think Clapton isn't the only one whose personality completely backfires. But about the album, "Ocean Boulevard"—very bluesy, isn't it? Unfortunately, I can't stand that kind of bluesy music at all. Sure, Clapton is synonymous with bluesy music, and that's probably why I don't like Clapton, or rather his music, and that was long before I heard all the other awful things about him. What really pissed me off, though, was his version of "I Shot the Sheriff." Even if it's said that Bob Marley liked it, who had the biggest hit with it? I can only hope that something actually got through to Marley. To conclude, very briefly, I don't like either the album or Clapton.

This album has a nice blues rock feel to it; It is smooth in parts, but with just the right amount of rock to it. How Eric's cover of I Shot the Sheriff got to #1 in the charts whilst Bob Marley's original didn't even make the top 100 will never not be wild to me. 7/10

Yeah, I love him

This is a really chill, bluesy album that was an easy listen. I am not personally a fan of “I Shot the Sheriff” (Marley’s original version or Clapton’s cover), but the rest was really pretty and chill. I don’t think I would listen to this again actively, but rather as background music. I did add “Give Me Strength” and “Please Be With Me” to my library. I need to go listen to the originals of these songs.

7.6/10. A nice blues rock album, it has a great vibe to it, and some great songwriting. His use of soft tones in singing, while having both softer and harder sounds for instruments at different times created a great shift throughout, but also had great individual sounds, like with solos and bridges. I enjoyed it, and definitely will be listening to at least some of the songs again.

This is just a completely soulless collection of covers, each one a far inferior version of the original. Get this off of this list. Eric Clapton can get fucked.

Plenty of catchy licks but clapton sucks

Clapton es importante, pero pues el album está breve

i enjoy it, if anything just kind of basic but has some variety to it, but i do not fw him

This really is my sort of music. Four stars…

The album itself is decent, musically very good at times. The vocal wasn’t one to blow me away but that was more than made up for with the guitar playing on the album, every string plucked giving out such an amazing sound. I don’t read into all the he said this she said that when rating the albums, so unlike all the comments that are calling Eric and giving scores of 1 they do not score the album correctly. That’s takes away the fact the instruments on this album flow through the speakers at such pace and intensity that you cannot help but move your body along to them! Best track- ‘motherless children’ Worst track- ‘who shot the sheriff’ he’s no Bob Marley is he let’s be honest! 7.5/10

Eric Clapton - 461 Ocean A favourite from my youth so tried to divorce the music from the nostalgia. And from the fact that Clapton is of questionable character....but so are so many others on this list. An album that gets more laid back as it goes on, it's Clapton post-lsdand heroin haze and, instead, on the porch supping moonshine. And, due to that, it makes no demands on you as a listener. And it succeeds on that basis. Highlights for me are Motherless Children (bit of a romp for a funeral, mind), Get Ready (Yvonne Elliman is brilliant here), the lovely Please Be With Me, Let It Grow (but the sibilance!), and Mainline Florida(guitars are great here). There's nowt groundbreaking here, nowt gut wrenching, but you can make great music swinging in a hammock. And that is just what Clapton has done here. Best Track - Motherless Cildren Worst Track - Willie and the Hand Jive 8.5/10

Pretty nice album and good production after all.

Decent record, but not one I'd intentionally seek out to listen to. Clapton has his moments and it's a unique Americana rock sound, it's just something I particularly have a strong feeling about either way. It's on this list for a reason though, I guess.

It's very vibey and cool but for me it lacks any real standout tracks. I enjoyed it through a few times but other than I Shot The Sheriff, nothing really grabbed me or stood out. The quality of the playing and songwriting is obvious but it just feels like it plods along pleasantly.

As atrocious as any Pat Boone album; constantly disorienting and disappointing. It is, in spirit, straight easy listening. But, of course, stylistically, it imitates the most hardcore soulful style - blues - with a splash of watered down reggae and calypso for, for, for, what I have no idea. The fact that he's spewed the most vial racist, xenophobic nonsense makes it all a bit nauseating.

Technically 3/5. That's the extent of my review on this.

Ahh Eric Clapton, dude is hard to pin down. Goes on a racist rant in 76, doesn't continue saying racist shit. Personally helps blues player like Buddy Guy and Gary Clark Jr. Goes on a anti vax rant and release anti lockdown songs, still gets the vaccine. I mean he loved BB King like a brother for all accounts. I'm just not sure about him. That said there are better albums where Clapton plays. I really believe he is one of those folks that do better with people around him that can direct him. I think his ego and drive get the best of him and his solo work suffers from it.

very alright

Eric Clapton, the racist asshole & generally overrated bloke, is also no sort of rocker at heart. Virtuosic as he probably is, he's languid rather than all that impressive or visionary. The thing is, when his languorous style is on, Clapton is able to make some pretty good music. It's just that he's rarely on top of his game, & his solo output consists mostly of bore after bore. I mean, what's there in the end? I like some of Cream, sure, his work w/ the Bluesbreakers is quite good, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, thanks to Duane Allman, is an absolute classic, & finally, 461 Ocean Boulevard is a nice touch of record, an easy-listening tribute to life as it rolls past us in a blink. That's 'bout it. Don't expect much from Clapton. Then you'll get it.

7/10

4⭐️

Riktigt bra album som passar de flesta tillfällen. Kan åka in i samlingen om jag springer på det.

Really solid blues album. Guitar driven blues. Great guitar parts throughout.

De acá nace I Shot The Sheriff! Sé que Clapton tiene muchísima influencia musical para muchos, este álbum es una muestra de su versatilidad y de su evolución como artista Para mi es muy interesante ver cómo pasó de Cream, un rockcito un poco más pesado, a algo más balanceado. No sé si este sea su trabajo insignia, me atrevo a creer que hay más, pero este es un álbum muy bien trabajado, sé que entre más se escuche más crece en el oyente, musicalmente muy bien elaborado y la voz de Eric es muy característica, se diferencia bien

+1 for Let it Grow

You know, it sucks that Eric Clapton is not a great person, because there is music he’s made that I genuinely like, and sometimes separating the artist from the music is easier said than done. As for 461 Ocean Boulevard, though, I’d say it’s decent. There aren’t really any tracks here that I outright dislike, and it’s generally a pretty pleasant album to listen to. There’s a nice mix of blues, reggae, funk, and rock throughout, and there are definitely moments I really enjoyed. My main problem is that a lot of it just feels pretty derivative. Much of the album consists of covers, and in most cases, I’d rather listen to the originals. Clapton and the band perform everything well, and maybe the intention was to pay tribute to the music that influenced him, but I never felt like the album brought enough of its own personality to those songs. So yeah, it sounds good, and there’s really nothing offensively bad here. But when I think about the original versions of these songs, along with some of the other music coming out around this time, 461 Ocean Boulevard just doesn’t stand out all that much to me. Perfectly decent, but definitely not a favorite. 3/5

Relaxed mood, great tunes and performances - what's not to like.

I can't. A lot of people have started hating Clapton's music because they found out what I prick he is. I get that, but it really over complicates the issue. I have always hated his music, because it's uninspired drivel. That's good enough for me.

Fuck Eric Clapton. I hate racists

Excellent

No thanks

Despite my feelings on Clapton as person, I still love Cream. This... This is just NOT good.

Racist cunt 2, go meet up with Kanye

It’s fine

3.5

Eric Clapton has been an artist that I respect musically but don’t overall love. This style of Blues Rock isn’t usually my style but it’s pretty decent. His vocals are pretty subtle which I enjoy and he’s not being overall flashy with his vocals. I do enjoy the causal easy listening feel to these songs. His Cover of “I Shot The Sheriff” won me over Light 3. It’s good but nothing ground breaking for me. Easy on the ears. The Back End of the album is best Top tracks I Shot The Sheriff (music is great) Please Be With Me (My Favourite) Let It Grow (2nd best) Mainline Florida

Nice laid back blues sound. Really like the guitar without it taking over everything.

Equal parts reggae, guitar wank and easy listening love songs, what more could you want. Predicting Mainline Florida will be in GTA6 Less said about the man the better, some say his guitar skill is inversely proportional to his sense of human decency

Ngl a bit bland which I wasn’t really expecting Outside of I shot the sheriff I can’t really remember much 2

A nezz, koliko je god on poznat i mozda ikona, osim I shot the sheriff, nije mi album nesto sad.

Pretty good. Kinda just had this one on in the background and didn’t notice anything in particular. Too bad about him being a jerk.

I gave this album a low rating because Clapton just isn't that amazing of an artist when he's not backed by a great band like Cream or the Yardbirds. He’s a technically talented guitarist, but this is mostly an assemblage of warmed over covers. Also, Eric Clapton has shown himself to be a garbage human being over the years. 2.5⭐️

Eric Clapton. Great tunes. Great album.

I don't really see it. I try to separate the art from the artist. With Clapton I find that particularly hard to do given that he's a racist appropriating the blues. That probably clouds my judgement, but even trying to be objective about it, I don't see what is interesting about this slow smooth way he presents the blues. Some of the rockier Clapton stuff I can see some appeal to - not this for me.

some great tunes, really smooth and layed back

nah, no thanks

Decent album but nothing exciting. It was nice to hear bluesy Clapton but nothing really stuck out. I know I Shot the Sheriff more from Bob Marley but the Clapton version deserves some merit. And the Hand Jive song was fine but other than that I liked Get Ready.

Other than ISTS, this is a fairly boring blues cover album

génial, vraiment mais j'ai rien à dire à part qu'il est trop fort

C'est sympathique sans etre transcendant je trouve

Racist little fuck

It's a pretty boring album by an excellent guitar player. And mostly covers, including the arguably most recognisable song, I Shot the Sheriff.

It's OK, prefer Cream. I always thought Clapton was a bit overrated

This guy is a singing, guitar-playing charisma-void. Taking any great musical idea and just burning it to the ground in a slow, torturing process. Please don’t make me listen to Eric Clapton. I beg you.

Solid blues album. Excellent guitar work. One of Clapton's better albums IMO.

I like the opener “Motherless Children” fine. The rest is kind of inert and sleepy. He’s obviously a great guitar player, but I don’t find the covers to be transformative or the originals particularly good, and his singing voice is sometimes less than serviceable. There’s just no juice in his vocals. It was a relief to hear Yvonne Elliman on “Get Ready”.

Just all right. Favorite track: Let it Grow

Returning to music after an addiction to heroine sounds like a hard work. Specially, when you've been one of the most influential guitar players in rock and roll. 461 Ocean Boulevard marked that symbolic return for Eric Clapton after spending three years of his life detoxing and rebuilding himself, and he managed to come back in the highest spot ever. Released shortly after RSO Records published the single "I Shot the Sheriff", this massive turnaround putted him almost 4 months after in the #1 spot at Billboard 200 at the United States, seeing also a Platinum record by the RIAA. Clapton started working on the record after spending 3 years just watching TV and initially, he worked on a farm to seek some help, listening to a massive variety of music and also, old blues records. "Slowhand" was absolutely worried about the critics and how this album was gonna be commercialy received and he insisted on working with George Terry and Yvonne Elliman as guitar and vocal guest. During the sessions, Clapton used his iconic Fender Stratocaster named Blackie, as for the guitar Slide and acoustic songs, he used Gibson and Martin. The strong deep blue feeling can be noticed at the very first moment in the opener "Motherless Children" and coined with amazing versions like "Willie and the Hand Jive", the already mentioned "I Shot the Sheriff" (Originally by Bob Marley) including a beautiful rendition to Robert Johnson with a version of Steady Rollin' Man this record it's something you don't wanna miss out if you wanna experience how it feels to make a response to drug addiction and even death and still manage to survive the thrill.

First Listen; 3; Having listened to a good deal more music, including blues, R&B, and rock that both preceded and followed this, this albums is technically proficient but otherwise not super interesting. It is still good, as technically proficient for Clapton is a very high bar, and the songs really are fun, groovy, and enjoyable. Favorite Track: Steady Rollin' Man

While more accustomed to Eric Clapton's masterful playing in ensembles such as the Bluesbreakers, Derek and the Dominoes, or Cream, his solo career is a testament of his composition ability which ends up consolidating a very enjoyable record. 8/10 [KEEP]

Album 309. 461 Ocean Boulevard — Eric Clapton (1974) So many blues recently, I've already overdosed Absolutely good and solid album. Very comfortable to listen to 3/5 Liked: — Motherless Children — I Shot The Sheriff — Mainline Florida

This was alright. Great guitar but the album feels like it’s all over the place. I don’t know what I was expecting but this felt like songs from so many different genres and they don’t feel like they work together. Like it was 10 tracks from 10 different albums slapped together.

Somehow the only solo Eric Clapton record on this list but we have shit like The Teardrop Explodes

Looked up Let It Grow to see if it was related to the Lorax

Disappointingly mediocre

Racists get wrecked.

Won't become my favourite Clapton album but still great to listen to.

Arguably not great, but fairly standard.

I've heard Eric Clapton through the endless radio play but never sat through an album. This was a fun listen all the way through. No dogs, the tracks that don't get more play should.

Always heard about how great of a guitarist eric clapton was but didnt really get into his music. Honestly this is such a vibey guitar performance, the riffs are catchy and the songs all have constant movement. Really enjoyed listening to it and might revisit it on vinyl if i can find it. Fav song: I shot the sheriff

Very tricky one. I always knew there was something up with Eric Clapton but left digging into it until this album listen. Brings separate the artist from the art to the forefront. In the context of the music this is incredible. It has its place in history. He's a brilliant guitar player, composer, singer, soul for days. I'm always a little thrown with covers and his of Marley is a disservice, but if it brought one more fan to the source so be it. It sounds like there's a big BUT coming. There's little to nothing original in music. It's all made, rarely credited, off the backs of those that came before which doesn't discriminate based on the amount of melanin. Album is a 4. Person doesn't rate.

Nope.

Very good

i really enjoyed Eric Clapton's version if "I Shot The Sheriff". overall, the album didn't really click with me. i'm not even sure what was missing. it didn't seem to head somewhere, meandering around...

I've arguably gotten more Eric Clapton lately than one normally needs. This was Clapton's post-heroin album, so was he able to conjure up some inspiration after the recent sobriety? Tough to say honestly. "I Shot the Sheriff" is the highlight here, but even then it's still a bit of a hollow cover of the famous Bob Marley song. In fact, 70% of this album is full of these covers. Just wasn't super entertained I guess.

Almost o.k. Mainly just because of "Motherless Children" and "I Shot The Sheriff" I give it the weak three stars. 2,5

OK deep breath. Clearly Clapton is an incredible guitarist, and many people I know regard him as a godlike genius. But I can't feel it. His songs and delivery leave me cold. There, I said it.