It is not that John Fogerty’s Wrote A Song For Everyone is the worst album ever made. It isn’t. And it isn’t that anybody really cares that John Fogerty is a world class asshole –so are many people, what’s hate got to do with it?
It is that enough is enough and Fogerty is destroying his past by mining it. I’ll tell you what it’s like: say you had a girlfriend and you were deeply in love with her but she left you for another guy and you are still upset so you remember the good times, maybe a specific moment over and over and over again. After awhile, the memory loses its magic.
That is true of music.
And it is especially true of this exercise in nihilism. Fogerty is joined by Foo Fighters, Brad Paisley, Miranda Lambert, on and on. But there is no reason for it and the songs become kinda annoying. In theory, Jennifer Hudson and Allen Touissant join Fogerty on “Proud Mary” –woah, right? Woah, no. Hudson isn’t Tina (or Presley) and there is nothing much left to do to this song but cover. And though nobody expected much from My Morning Jacket, why shouldn’t Alan Jackson have provided some thrills on “Have You Ever Seen the Rain”. It would seem impossible to make “Who’ll Stop the Rain” any more bombastic than it already is but Bob Seger manages with room to spare. This is really overblown, really moldy stuff, you can scrape the dross off with a knife.
I am completely bemused by David Fricke’s 5 star review in Rolling Stone and decided to give it a full review just in case they had a point. Or at least were pointing to something we wanted to see but it never sets fire, it just overcooks everything we’ve know before and while the Brad Paisley duet on the latterday (relatively speaking of course) “Hot Rod Heart” includes the sort of solo we now know Brad doesn’t sweat much but AT LEAST I AM NOT RUSHING TO HIT NEXT.
Wrote a Song For Everyone is like one of those tribute albums that are never ever as good as they would look to be, even when McCartney is covering Buddy Holly they suck, and even when Fogerty is covering Fogerty this is a terrible money grubbing little exercise.
In an album of worst songs, “Blue Bayou” might be the bottom of the barrel. I mean, it could seriously be the worst song ever, an endless boring boogie to nowhere. No, wait, anything with Grohl is gonna be terrible, right?
I have no problem with what a man does to make a living, but that doesn’t mean I have to even vaguely admire this overwrought just plain bad covers of some really great songs.