Jimi Hendrix Experience Album Review: Electric Ladyland

 

This is a review of the Jimi Hendrix Experience's Electric Ladyland, originally released in 1968 in the US and spent two weeks at number one Jimmy's untimely death in 1970. He also makes this the last official record he would release in his lifetime and also the only experience album where he has full production credits. Of course, this album also contains his transformative cover of Bob Dylan's All Along the Watchtower, a version of the track that is so popular that it pretty much eclipses the original. This record also sports a peppy cover of Earl King's command, "Let the Good Times Roll". But none of that is as important as the big and bold presentation that Jimmy and Mitch Mitchell went for on this record as Electric Ladyland is a double album loaded with lengthy jams, wild solos, surreal effects, and unorthodox mixes to make the first to Hendrix Experience LP sound almost conventional by comparison. Not to mention all the great guest musicians on this LP. Steve Wynnwood's organ playing on Voodoo Child really helps make the track as well as Axis and Are You Experienced are loaded with aggressive, hard trippy blues-rock.

But Electric Ladyland shows the potential for the genre fusions. When you pull out all the boundaries and try to craft a record that is more of an experience than it is just a mere collection of tracks. By that, Electric Ladyland is also one of the most formative and significant double albums in rock history. To it be the wall physical graffiti, as well as the Who's Tommy to the punch, and aesthetically was more cohesive than the Beatles White Album, which dropped the same year as well as Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde. Electric Ladyland is also a tribute to its format as this is a double album with four sides of vinyl, each of which has its own little vibe and sequence.

Side A:

The first four tracks of this record on site are some of the most acid-drenched. There's the slow and reversed tape intro on "The Gods Made Love", which is followed by the woozy and extravagant ballad "Have you ever been to Electric Ladyland?" A track that sounds like floating on your back down a red carpet that's unfurling from the center of a giant flower inside that flower is LSD SEC spots, calling you in slowly. All the instrumentation on this track is so watery and phased out which is then contrasted by the overwhelming and aggressive Crosstown traffic who's chaotic mix and powerhouse lead guitars and a weird panning I just can't get enough of. The track is as disorienting as the violent and sexual and outlandish traffic metaphors that Jimmy packs his lyrics with but the cherry on top of Side A is the 15 Minute blues jam "Buddhu Child" that I mentioned earlier, which contains the kind of mesmerizing orgasmic magic that can only be captured in a jam. The heavy blues-rock passages on this thing are incredible. Mitch Mitchell's fills across the track are consistently explosive. The droney Oregon jam the band breaks into fluidly and the last leg is amazing. In fact, I think this track says more about why Hendrix was great than the ocean of ink that has been spilled about his greatness over the decades. Because he was just a once-in-a-lifetime talent that was great not just because of his technical ability, but also his melodic sensibilities and most importantly, his ability to express himself through his instrument. I think Jimi Hendrix serves as a reminder that musicianship is not simply about pulling off tricks or doing fancy shit but learning to play something as if it's an extension of yourself regardless of what that thing is. So simply put, that's really what made Hendrix special not just his life story and his songwriting ability, his voice but his almost spiritual connection to the guitar. In a nutshell, that's side A of this LP.

Side B:

Then there's side B which is a bit punchier and loaded with some of the most straightforward and rockin 'cuts on the entire record. There are no readings of Little Miss strange which sure isn't technically a Hendrix-written song but the track is packed with his very distinct guitar soloing and harmonies which serve as a very colorful and versatile addition to the song. Then there's "Long Hot Summer Night" which is one of the most swaggered and unique tracks on the project. It contains these wild and weird brash opening licks, bright piano embellishments as well as these eerie phased-out vocal harmonies that sound like a couple of ghosts singing their way through the track. The song is groovy and tuneful, but simultaneously the performance feels like everything is just on the verge of collapsing until the cover I mentioned earlier is given new life with a faster pace and more aggressive performance and style. This track is more proof of how much of a machine Hendrix was because his untamed riffs and solos across the track are something to behold; he just does not stop.

Meanwhile, "Gypsy" has some of the most out-of-control and chaotic guitar work on the entire record. It's also incredible how Hendrix was able to push boundaries of what conventional guitar playing was and coming together with something that sounded so great, so visceral, so colorful, but also quite odd. Then SEIP coasts out with the sparkly and enchanting burning of the "Midnight Lamp" which features this mountainous finish of booming drums and angelic group vocals, sight guitars, it's just gargantuan, then flowing into sight. See we have pretty much a reset going on. There are the dueling, sax, and guitar leads of rainy daydream away, the spoken word and vocal lines on the track pretty much a painted picture of getting high and relaxing while it's raining outside and I guess slowly falling into a dream state. The whole thing ends up being a chill and kind of funny setup for the following "1983" which is literally this lengthy blues psych-prog jam, about a beat being a merman and you know like chillin 'in Atlantis. The track also functions in multiple phases until the intro kicks off with these briny reverb-drenched guitar leads. From that point, there's a fiery build and then a very quiet and contemplative middle passage which is more about the exploration of this open space than it is about any kind of clear and concise composition going on. Then there's the cinematic and explosive final leg loaded with badass solos and Jimmy's singing once again about being in Atlantis Moon turn the tides right after this track, is pretty much a one-minute noise interlude to calm things down.

David Redfern/Redferns

Side C and D:

The side C essentially becomes like this little three-track dream sequence on the LP following the side D. Which is like a big fat bow that kind of ties the whole record up. You have callbacks at this point on the LP. Like on the song "Still Raining Still dreaming'', which brings back the same groovy and bluesy musical motifs of rainy daydream away. But now, Jimmy and company are jamming on these ribs and jamming on these licks harder even more aggressively. Jimmy's guitars are turned up to a deafening volume. When he's hitting some of those high-pitched chords and harmonies it gets very shrill. This side also closes with a reprise of "Voodoo Child". So you have those same kinds of licks and motifs riffing on once again, but more aggressively, more volume guitars are just ear-blasting. Side D also contains a fresh original house burning down which is packed with more thunderous drums and guitars. It's really just proof that Jimmy, Mitch, and Knoll wanted to go out with a bang on this side of the record to really max out Electric Ladyland's final moments but there's also something kind of shadowy and surreal about the way the rhythm section on this track kind of veers in and out of view, even sober I feel like I'm listening to this track. At the start of this review, I mentioned the cover of All Along The WatcAlower that also pops up in side D and it's such a masterful version of the song from Jimmy's vocals to the rhythm section to how epic his guitar sounds on this track, how he ornately paints melodies around this Bob Dylan song it's really just incredible even for me is like a hardcore Dylan fan. But years on I do have to acknowledge it. It is an amazing cover, and Jimmy really transforms it into his own song, which I think is about the best thing anyone can do with a cover. That's pretty much Site D of Electric Ladyland, and that's the record as a whole. An incredible record, Classic record. Once again, one of the most significant double albums and Rock Albums of All Time, totally unfiltered and uninhibited proof of Jimmy's artistic greatness. And if you're a fan of this record, I urge you to put it on and rock with it one more time.