VIA BLOGCRITICS, I see that Creedence Clearwater Revival’s works have been remastered (“brilliantly”) and I’m going to have to go order the whole set now.

John Fogerty rules, but with Creedence the whole was more than the sum of the parts. I think they’re the greatest — and most thoroughly American — American rock and roll band.

UPDATE: Reader Joel Nickelson writes:

I would add that for people of my age group (late 20’s and early 30’s) who grew up on punk and independent rock in the 1980’s, Creedence resonated like no other band of their era. If there was a common denominator that various isolated punks across the country could understand, that would be Creedence. Not Bruce, not Dylan, not even the Velvet Underground who always seemed too influential to uncynically embrace. For a while there it seemed we might have had our own Creedence in The Minutemen were not for the death of

D. Boon in the mid 80’s.

A final note: Creedence is most certainly the finest driving music there is. There is some techno from Detroit that comes close for me as well, but techno irritates too many people for that to be a commonly accepted sentiment. Well, that’s their loss.

I agree on all counts.