As of today I am on holiday! My first official act (my second if you count that rum and coke last night) will be to do one of my favourite things – write a music review.
Disc 1928 is…Are you Experienced
Artist: The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Year of Release: 1967
What’s up with the Cover? Trippy convex mirror action. This reminds me of Thin Lizzy’s first album (reviewed back at Disc 1251) although with people in fancy clothes instead of cars.
It also reminds me of the mirror on the blind corner of my parking lot to let you know if any cars are coming before you pull out.
Good for both the art world and the real world - all hail the flexibility of the convex mirror! But I digress…
How I Came To Know It: Everyone knows the songs off this iconic record, although I didn’t buy it until it was re-released about 15 years ago in a fancy new CD package. That’s how it was in the golden age of CDs, where the wise were out buying records at garage sales for $5 and the unwise were still collecting tapes and hoping for a comeback.
How It Stacks Up: I have three Jimi Hendrix studio albums, which is – sadly – all of them. Of those three, “Are You Experienced” is the best. There are people who may dispute that, but those people are wrong.
As this is the final Jimi review for my collection, here’s a full accounting*
- Are You Experienced: 5
stars (reviewed right here)
- Axis: Bold as
Love: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 1638)
- Electric Ladyland: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 766)
*If you go and look at these reviews, you’ll see that I stubbornly put “Axis” in third, but if it is 4 stars, and Ladyland is 3, then that just makes no sense whatsoever. The Odyssey is a fluid experience, dear reader, and the final determination of how a record stacks up is at the end of each journey, so despite the err…er…’discrepancy’, the list above is the definitive one.
Ratings: 5 stars, but only because my ranking system only goes to 5.
“Are You Experienced” is one of the greatest records ever made. It reinvents what can be done with rock and roll, fearlessly blending genres sounds, and melodic structures, all the while showcasing some of the finest performances ever recorded in a studio. This is what perfect sounds like, and it sounds good.
Where do you start with one of the most iconic records ever recorded? Well, for starters, you probably know half these songs already from hearing them in a hundred places. When one of those hits comes on (“Purple Haze”, “Hey, Joe”, “Foxey Lady”) you never think “oh, no – not this one”. You might be at a diner, you might be at a pub, or you might be watching a movie that has (wisely) grabbed one of these for the soundtrack, but wherever you are, you will not blithely move along. You will stop, take notice, and think once again, ‘wow – great song’.
We’ll get into the “deep” cuts in a second, but let’s start with these songs. “Purple Haze” launches the record (at least the North American release as well as the blended/extended CD version that I am reviewing here). That opening guitar riff is as famous as “Smoke on the Water” and a lot more interesting. Jimi could’ve just let that be the song and it would still be a classic, but nope – he switches it into second killer riff (a third if you count that two note intro tag) and then morphs into a crazy psychedelic solo.
He does all of this in two minutes and fifty seconds. In under three minutes, Hendrix reinvents rock and roll, shows off on the guitar and makes every human for fifty years after look across the table at their lunch companion and sing “Purple haze!” with their best sneer.
At the other end of the spectrum you get “Hey Joe,” where Hendrix shows off his deep literacy with the blues in all its forms. The list of “man kills his woman” blues songs is long and illustrious, and yet this is the best of them. As is the case on a few of the songs on “Are You Experienced”, “Hey Joe” fades out with the musicians still going off. Usually this is the sign of a melody that doesn’t know to resolve but with Jimi, all is forgiven. The song is too awesome to know how or where to end and besides – if you heard the whole extended riff your brain would probably explode in ecstasy. That fade out isn’t a cop out– it’s a safety feature.
As for “Foxey Lady” believe it or not, it didn’t even originally chart above 67. But when I put it in the “three big hits” section earlier you didn’t question it for a second, did you? That’s how great it is. The third top ten hit is actually “The Wind Cries Mary” which is fucking awesome, but I’m running of space here and we need to move along.
Every listen to this record brings me a new joy and new favourite song. This time I enjoyed the warm bath of Jimi’s slow jam “May This Be Love” and the discordant glory of “Manic Depression”. The structure of this song bounces high and low and skips the connective tissue in between, making it a deeply evocative depiction of the subject matter. This approach would make a lesser song unlistenable, but instead it pulls you into discomfort and makes you like it.
“Manic Depression” is also one of many songs showcasing the record’s drummer, Mitch Mitchell. Mitchell’s drumming on this song (and this record) is as great an individual performance as you will hear on any record. Blending jazz and rock and hitting beats that don’t just fill space with interesting flourishes, but rewrite ways you can keep the beat. There aren’t many musicians that can go toe to toe with Hendrix’s guitar. Mitchell not only holds his own, he’s a big part of what makes the record great.
OK, we’re almost done with all this fanboy action (for which I am unapologetic), but on a personal note, it was very cool while I was grooving through the meandering but masterful “3rd Stone from the Sun” to hear Jimi use the expression “superior cackling hen”. This is the title of one of my favourite early nineties albums by the Bourbon Tabernacle Choir. (Disc 320). Yet one more brick in the road of inspiration this record has laid down for generations of musicians that have followed.
The iconoclast in me wanted to throw shade on this record – it’s my nature. Maybe the extended 17 track version was too much, or one of the songs was over-indulgent. Sadly, there were no gaps in the “Are You Experienced” excellence.
They forgot to punctuate the title? That’s all I got.
Best tracks: all tracks
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