JIMI HENDRIX — Are You Experienced (Jimi Hendrix Experience) (review)

JIMI HENDRIX — Are You Experienced (Jimi Hendrix Experience) album cover Album · 1967 · Jazz Related Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Sean Trane
Difficult to find a more influential album than JHE's debut, but in 67, these abounded. Found by ex-Animals Chas Chandler and brought back to the UK, it wasn't long before the swinging London was buzzing all over this newcomer. They hired two local musicians, bassist Noel Redding and the excellent drummer Mitch Mitchell and the JHE was born. Their first album took the planet by storm and today still is an unavoidable classic, where there isn't a single weak track or filler. This album received different track list and artwork, depending on which side of the Atlantic you bought.

Although most of the album is made of shorter tracks that aimed at commercial success, many of these were still quite progressive, mainly because of Jimi's outstanding guitar playing techniques. Tracks like Foxy Lady, Fire, the stupendous Hey Joe and Wind Cries Mary were filled with unusual sounds, but hit the spot on the single-buying public. More adventurous tracks like the title track (with its reversed tape beat), the riff-laden Purple Haze or the excellent (and longer) Third Stone From The Sun (this track talking of Earth could be played at both 33 and 45 RPM, and you'd get a very different track with new Space-vocals)

Recent reissues of this album have come with a bunch of bonus tracks of great added value for the disc. Indeed all the non-album tracks of the era have been added and believe me, this is good news, even if only Stone Free is fairly well known. Groundbreaking, certainly. Progressive, in a sense. "Prog", maybe not; but excellent? Certainly. Enough to warrant an excellent rating.
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