Jimi Hendrix

Jimi's third and final album with the Experience, Electric Ladyland, is arguably his most experimental and ambitious LP to date. Awash in psychedelic studio wizardry, but still rooted in deep blues, it features key jams such as "Voodoo Chile," "All Along The Watchtower," and "Crosstown Traffic." Undeniably classic.

Being a bit fed up with music as "reactive noise" ("God man, the world's a drag, let's play
loud and drown it out"), I was sort of set not to dig this LP, but I had to. Hendrix is a good
musician and his science fiction concepts surmount noise. There isn't really a concept (no
Sgt. Pepper trips here) -- instead there's a unity, an energy flow. The LP opens with an
electronic track using tape loops and phasing (think of "Itchy Coo Park" by the S... More >

"It wasn't just slopped together; every little thing you hear there means something," [Perry 11] said Hendrix of his two-LP masterwork. And though it isn't perfect, perfection wasn't the idea. No previous rock album flowed like this, and while jazz albums often support as many contrasting sonic moods, Louis Armstrong himself didn't match Hendrix's appetite for sound effects and general silliness. His spaced-out spirituality is the fullest musicalization of "psychedelic" ever accomplished. (Grade - *****)