Problem one has to do with the production of the album. It's really odd to me that, for all of the amazing sounds and tone quality that Jimi wrangled from his guitar in putting this album together, the other aspects of the album are so haphazardly treated in terms of how they sound. Guitar aside, these are very lo-fi production values for a 1967 album, especially in terms of how the drums sound; poor Mitch Mitchell doesn't consistently get the quality in the mix that he deserves given his terrific playing on here. Furthermore, there's also a rather bizarre tendency to have, on one track, a sound that isn't very fitting for that particular track, but would sound fine on another track. The best example of this comes from the lovely The Wind Cries Mary, which has a very full, very bass-heavy sound that sounds fine, but could just as easily benefit from a lighter sound, which sucks given that the pounding I Don't Live Today would have had even more impact than otherwise had it been granted such a full bass sound. Of all the immortal albums from 1967, this probably the one that most needs somebody to go back in time and beat the producer upside the head.

In terms of song-based problems, I have to say that, even after listening to this album many, many times over the years, the closing title track just isn't something I enjoy that much. There are a lot of really cool backwards production effects, yes, and it works as a symbolic statement of late 60's culture, but it also strikes me as dated in a way that no other song on here is, and the lack of anything resembling a cohesive melody doesn't help much either. It just irritates me, I guess.

Well, so much for negatives. As for positives ... there are just too many to name. Regardless of what I may say in the introduction about Jimi's songwriting in general, this album has TONS of great riffs and melodies, all brought out splendidly by Jimi's total mastery of himself and his guitar. The sounds that eminate out of his axe defy all description, probably because at this point in his career, he was using the studio primarily as a showcase for the possibilities of the electric guitar. And we should all be grateful, because that's what he did best!

I tell you, the first ten songs on this album rule so unbelievably that I probably cannot do them any justice. I used to kinda dislike the infamous Foxey Lady, given that its main riff is sufficiently simple as to be considered sorta stupid, but I got over myself over time. There are so many great tricks going on in this song, and Jimi's vocal delivery is so seductive, that it ends up sounding almost like Black Sabbath with sex appeal, and that's a neat trick. Purple Haze introduced Jimi to the world and brought the musical establishment to its knees - as well it should have. With its fabulous, menacing riff, augmented by whispering voices and mad soloing, it fully deserves to still be Jimi's most famous number. Well, at least it would, if it weren't for another, less-known song, the fantastic Love or Confusion. From the amazing melody to the spooky echo on the vocals to all of the crackling feedback to Jimi's vicious sliding up and down the fret board (I especially love the tricks he employs whenever he finishes saying "Love or Confusion") to the insane soloing, this song will blow your mind completely away.

Sheesh, this is the album that has Jimi's cover of Hey Joe on it! Jimi almost completely reinvents this song, turning a herky-jerky uptempo, relatively normal 60's rock song into a slow-but-steady blues-pop shuffle climaxing with "I took a gun, and I SHOT HER" and some nice solos for good measure. And Fire is here! Let's see, a solid-but-simple main riff, a strong-but-poppy vocal performance, some great sissyish backing vocals, and Jimi going nuts. Yup, sounds like a classic to me. As do a couple of songs that are relatively forgotten but that are just as great (if not greater), the amazing Manic Depression and I Don't Live Today. They're not optimally produced, but they're such great pieces of up-tempo, poppy hard rock that I can mostly forgive them that one flaw.

Even the 'softer' songs are jaw-dropping. Wind Cries Mary, though overrated, is a wonderful ballad (interesting lyrics, too), while May This be Love creates a pretty, mellow atmosphere, with its nice melody and (as always) clever guitar work and interesting drumming. My favorite of these, though, is the most overtly psychedelic number of the bunch - Third Stone from the Sun. The melodies within are some of Jimi's finest, and they slide into each other virtually effortlessly. Meanwhile, there are plenty of spooky sound effects and voiceovers in the background, yet more terrific solos, and ... you know, the usual. That whole Jimi vibe.

In short, to say this is a classic is to not say enough. It's a nearly perfect cross of the directness that characterized 60's pop rock to that point with the power and sheer oomph that would characterize hard rock in general over the next few years (ie the "classic rock" era), and when you throw in the great guitar sounds, a bunch of wild and terrific singing, and simply fabulous songwriting, it's hard for me to see this as anything but Jimi's best, and as arguably the best debut of all time.

And hey! There are bonus tracks, a number of which were actually included on the original release but left off nowadays in favor of the more famous singles (Purple Haze etc.). My favorite is Stone Free, a solid, straight-forward rocker, but the others aren't weak either. 51'st Anniversary is underrated and decent, Highway Chile has a great guitar line popping up every so often (with Jimi rapping over the top of the bass and drums), and the others all have their own good traits. What are they? Get the album and find out for yourself!

The thing that bugs me the most about this album is just how little of it has ever jumped out at me. This is Jimi's "vibe" album, his own version of Blonde on Blonde or Exile on Main Street, amazing albums where the individual songs aren't as striking as the whole, but those albums each had a few songs that knocked me flat the first time or so. Here, though, it's essentially Little Wing and a bunch of supporting tracks to my ears, and that's not really a positive. It's so even quality-wise (except, again, for Little Wing) that it really drives me nuts, and while I could see automatically considering Axis as Jimi's best work just because of the even-ness, even-ness = greatness to me only when the even is, well, great. When it's just "good," that's a whole other matter.

Cripes, I'm rewriting the original review of this (four and a half years after the original review) because I didn't feel like the original did a good job of explaining what songs I liked and didn't like in the original, and I'm still struggling to think of something differentiating to say about most of these songs. Little Wing is, of course, pure genius, a gentle little psychedelic ballad that grows into one hell of a mighty guitar solo in an effortless way that puts to shame all of the "monster ballads" that would ever be written afterwards. Castles Made of Sand is a nice sequel to Wind Cries Mary, Spanish Castle Magic sounds like it could have more or less fit in with the harder numbers on RUX, and If 6 Was 9 is so bloody ugly that it can't help but stand out. Oh, ok, the opening EXP is an amusing sonic experiment, featuring Mitch interviewing Jimi Hendrix playing Paul Caruso (?) on the topic of the existence of flying saucers.

Otherwise, there are three tracks on here where I can honestly say that the part that stood out the most to me were the backing vocals (Wait Until Tomorrow, Ain't No Telling, You Got Me Floatin') and the Redding-penned She's So Fine actually ends up being my second favorite on here, as it's one of the few pop songs on here to actually bother to have some hooks that I can remember. Oh, and I remember that the closing Bold as Love has always bugged me as seemingly awfully stupid.

There are other songs on here, but while I don't mind them, they certainly don't stick out for me. And that, really, is the problem. The truth is, if the album didn't hold together as well as it does, this album would probably get a low 7, which would lead to me getting flamed from here to the end of eternity. As is, the fact that this endless parade of samey, decent songs happens to have a neat vibe going for it, and that the production is pretty phenomenal, is enough to make me be a bit less of a hardass. But only a bit. As is, considering this one of the best albums ever is just one of those things I will never be able to understand.

As you likely know, this is a double album, and while this gives Hendrix a chance to stretch out and display his strengths, this also means that there are more opportunities for Jimi's weaknesses to display themselves. Strangely enough, they more or less tend to cluster in one general area on this album; among the album sides of all of the great double albums I've yet heard, side two of Electric Ladyland makes a good stab at being the one I like the least. The highlights of this side are pretty decent; Redding's poppy Little Miss Strange is a fun excursion into late-60's psychedelic go-go, and the band's cover of the generic soul rocker Come On (Let the Good Times Roll) is fun while it's on. The other three tracks here, however, bother me more than a bit. I have no idea what Jimi was trying to accomplish with Long Hot Summer Night, which has gotta be one of the most awkward attempts at crossing psychedelia with soul and funk-rock I can imagine, but whatever it was I don't think he succeeded. Gypsy Eyes grew on me a bit, as I learned to tolerate the weird guitar line with which Jimi sings in unison from time to time, but beyond that aspect of it I'm still not inclined to say I like the track. And then there's Burning of the Midnight Lamp, which I keep being told is a fan favorite, but which is based around a weird harpsichord-like guitar sound in the introduction that I've never been able to stop hating, and the rest of the track doesn't lift the song up in my eyes either.

Fortunately, aside from the kick-off to side four (House Burning Down, which I guess is trying to be anthemic but just can't measure up to the real anthems of this album), the other "normal"-length tracks on here are fine, and some of them rate among The Experience's finest work. There's a terrific sonic experiment kicking off the album (... And The Gods Made Love), followed by a pretty 'soul' number with good singing from Jimi (Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)) and a really great Axis-style rocker in Crosstown Traffic. The last side also contains two of the all-time classics in Jimi's cover of Dylan's All Along the Watchtower, and the original Voodoo Chile (Slight Return). The former contains some absolutely breathtaking solos that pretty much invented the genre of arena-rockesque soloing, and while I ultimately prefer Dylan's original (it's folk mysticism for crying loud! How can I not love folk mysticsm??!!), this cover deserves all of the air-play it gets. And the latter is just jaw-dropping, containing one of the greatest riffs of all time and possibly Jimi's finest moment of guitar-playing ever. Seriously. He really sounds like he's making massive overdubs, but apparently that's him playing just one guitar and creating all of that noise while soloing and riffing. Wow. Wow.

The crux of the album, however, lies in the longer numbers. First of all, and I know this may shock you, but I flat-out ADORE Voodoo Chile, and yes, I mean the 14-minute live-in-the-studio jam. Jack Cassidy's bass and Steve Winwood's organ keep things rumbling along in an absolutely fierce and menacing fashion, while Jimi's demonic soloing and mystical lyrics give it an edge and a vibe never felt since. If you are tempted to dismiss it as just another blues jam, and to discount it on the grounds that Jimi has played better solos in other places and that he isn't even soloing during most of this, I beg you to reconsider. This is undoubtedly the moodiest and most atmospheric lengthy blues jam I've ever heard, and I would go so far as to say that it's almost certainly one of the three most history-defining recorded blues jams done during the era of rock music. After hearing this once, the fact is that I simply cannot imagine my collection without it, and that definitely says something.

And, of course, we have the terrific Rainy Day suite. The intro is amusing and catchy (with more clever guitar work, particularly in the parts where he plays his guitar through a filter that makes it sound like two separate guitar sounds having a conversation with each other), and the main melody during the 1983 ... portion is absolutely beautiful. The effect created by the whole is simply stunning - as Jimi's vocals begin to breakup near the end of the musical part of 1983 before entering the sound collage (which is hands-down one of the best atmospheric sound collages I've come across; only the midsection of Echoes by Pink Floyd immediately comes to mind as better, and even it is largely going for the same "underwater" feel, though in a darker way ), I feel myself approaching musical Nirvana. And then it reverts back to the great plaintive melody, before closing with that bouncy, jazzy melody that started the whole thing. This is the sort of thing that makes me understand why people place Jimi on such a lofty pedestal, even when much of the rest of the time he does things that make fidget.

It's not just the musical numbers by themselves that make the album so glorious, though. The production is just unbelievable, as Hendrix cross-fades and uses stereo panning like mad, sending guitar back and forth between your speakers in a totally unpredictable and entertaining manner. And, of course, the effectiveness of the feedback goes without saying.

It's not an easy album to get into. But if you are willing to take a chance on it (and you should, since it's a double album condensed into one CD), you will be richly rewarded. For better and worse, this tells you more about Hendrix than Experience or Axis ever could, and that should be enough.

Anyways, I feel somewhat funny about giving this such a high grade, because the majority of the concert bores the crap out of me. Message to Love sounds terrific, with some good soloing, but the rest of the stuff is either by-the-numbers (Foxey Lady) or just excruciatingly long and wanky (Hear My Train a Comin', Jam Back at the House). And this boredom mostly lasts for an entire hour.

Ah, but who cares? The last half hour rules mightily - I would have easily paid the same amount for just that chunk that I paid for the entire double CD. We first get the ultimate version of Voodoo Child (Slight Return), with Jimi taking the 'three-guitars-in-one' effect to whole new levels. Then it moves into Jimi maiming the Star Spangled Anthem, which you've probably heard a million times, followed by a great Purple Haze. And then you get Woodstock Improvisation, with Hendrix ... well, being Hendrix. These guitar parts are nuts!! They're fast beyond belief, and since they're riff-based rather than solo-based, they never, ever get boring. And finally, things slow down with the calming effects of Villanova Junction. It's very soothing, and a wonderful way to cap everything off. And then, of course, Jimi ends things with the obligatory Hey Joe - you know that he would be bored with it, especially after such an extended lightning storm, but it still sounds just fine.

So, anyways, as long as you realize that the whole point of the album exists in only about a third of the hour-and-a-half running time, you should be plenty happy with this purchase.

You know, I don't hate Funk or Soul or the like per se. Innervisions by Stevie Wonder is currently one of my 100 favorite albums (and since I have 803 albums at the time of this writing, that's not that trivial), and the only reason I wouldn't yet rank Talking Book or Songs in the Key of Life up there too is that, due to my laziness, I haven't given them enough careful listens to justify such positions. But damn, Superstition is cool. And so is Living for the City, and so on. And hey, I like it when a band that doesn't necessarily usually do funk does it well - the Stones' song Fingerprint File is one of my five favorite tracks by them.

I do not, however, see any more compelling need to enjoy "generic funk" than I do "generic rock" or "generic prog" or whatever you want. Lots of people extol this as some brilliant genre boundary-warping meld of rock, funk, soul, r&b and whatever. They gush about how Jimi had finally gone back to his black roots (which, by association, means that his time with the white rhythm section of The Experience was somehow a mistake - in that case, AYE and Ladyland are two of the greatest "mistake" albums ever conceived by mortal man), that here he uses all sorts of cool effects pedals as tools to rock up funk and funk up rock or whatever.

I don't hear that at all - what I hear is the world's most original guitarist, one of the most incredible sonic pioneers of the 20th century, constrained by standard rules and riffage of funk and soul (well, with one exception). I hear two ultra-generic funk tracks not even written by Hendrix, but by drummer Buddy Miles, that don't have any cool riffs or interesting melodies. Unlike, say, almost anything on Innervisions. I hear Buddy "singing" a lot and making a total ass of himself. I hear Jimi doing a tepid version of Power of Soul (a better, but still not amazing studio version can be found on South Saturn Delta), and a rendition of Message to Love that doesn't come CLOSE to the jaw-dropping introduction to Woodstock.

On the other hand, I also hear Jimi churning out an incredible anti-war moody rocker in Machine Gun. I must say, for whatever complaints I might have about the rest of the album, I can't and won't find fault with this track, not even with the length which could be a disadvantage but manages to give an extra sense of power to the track. The riffage that imitates, well, a machine gun, is one of the coolest "simple" ideas Hendrix ever came up with, one that sets the war mood better than any lyrics ever could. The solos are also incredibly, unbelievably cool, both in how much passion and emotion they convey in depicting the horrors of battle, and in the way that they manage to impress enough on a technical level that they actually manage to leap well over the excrutiatingly high bar Jimi set for himself with his Experience work. And dig all those neatass effects near the end!!!

Beyond that, though, I'm not sure I'll ever, ever listen to these tracks (barring Machine Gun, obviously) again. Too bad Jimi couldn't have lived longer - rumor had it that, in addition to considering an alliance with ELP, he was going to start dabbling in jazz fusion, and I can only imagine how cool THAT would have been. And besides, he might have been able to release a good live album in his lifetime, instead of this.

Some of the songs are quite nice, of course. Freedom is a rockin' anthem that's ten bazillion times better than Paul McCartney's song of the same name, and a fabulous way to kick off the set (energetic guitar licks in a semi-bluesy setting! yay!). Angel is a gorgeous ballad that almost singlehandedly lifts the album's rating a whole point. And then there's Room Full of Mirrors, mind-boggling in its trippiness, a piece which could have fit in well on Ladyland.

But then there's the rest, which doesn't wow me at all. Now don't get me wrong, it's all well-played, and if you simply want every last demonstration of Jimi's talent, you need to hear them. But well-played is a GIVEN with Jimi! Fact of the matter is that, when it comes to purely technical features, Jimi has set the standards so high for himself that in order to impress me anymore, he has to positively WOW me. And that just doesn't happen over the rest of the album. The blues numbers don't suck me in like Voodoo Chile did, and no amount of decent-but-uninspired blues soloing is gonna make up for that. The rockers all rock decently, but next to Purple Haze, they're nothing, and you know it. And so on and so forth. NOTHING on here is really bad when you put everything together, but truly "great" tracks are tough to come by.

In short, if you're a Jimi fanatic, it'll behoove you to get this. You'll probably be impressed by and appreciate Jimi's change of direction into mystical blues, and you're more than welcome to be that way. As for me, though, I kinda miss the wild-ass guitar hero ...

It's very very very hard to give out specific compaints or praises beyond that. My favorite tracks on here, for reasons you can probably guess, are the ones that provide a sense of diversity to the album, whether in style or mood or whatever. The opening Hear My Train A'Comin' is my favorite on here, not because it's necessarily heads and shoulders above everything else, but because Jimi's acoustic playing style here is so "wrong" and yet so incredibly interesting that I can't help but perk up my ears to it. I'm also a fan of Jelly 292, which is electric blues based around an amusing riff and has more invention in the guitar sounds (which, of course, is my main fascination with Jimi) than anything else on the album.

Some of the tracks aren't really different in their approach, but win me over nonetheless because of the sheer ferocity of the effort. In particular, I'm looking at Voodoo Chile Blues - I'm as much of a fan of the original menacing "plodding" jam on Electric as anybody, but what this version may slightly lose to the original in atmosphere is made up for by the way he's UNLEASHED somewhere around the 3:45 mark and just plays the liviing daylights out of his guitar for what seems like a blissful eternity (even though it's only about a minute. Sigh). Then again, he does a bunch of cool subtle things from then on in the track, before popping back out in full, so I'm not gonna complain.

The rest is the rest is the rest. All of the pieces are enjoyable individually, but as they get strung together the album starts to just turn into background noise. It's good background noise, though. If you reeeeeeeally dig the Blues, or if you reeeeally love Hendrix, be sure to get this.

Among other curiousities you will find here are an instrumental version of Little Wing (though you would never know or even guess that from listening to it), an All Along the Watchtower with a different mix, and an early version of the pretty ballad Angel, which would show up on Cry of Love and later First Rays of the New Rising Sun. Throw in studio versions of Message to the Universe/Message to Love (a highlight on Woodstock) and the soul number Power of Soul, which I don't really love but don't hate either, and you have an interesting collection for any Hendrix fan.

I've saved the best parts for last, though. Have you ever heard Here He Comes (Lover Man)? Well, you should. If you need a description, it's basically ... well ... Hendrix playing as only Hendrix could. That riff and the way he plays it, with all sorts of firey noises and solos jumping from his fingers, absolutely knocks me flat everytime I hear it. The album is worth purchasing for that track alone.

A second major highlight is the menacing instrumental Midnight. It has a pounding, clever riff, kept going by Redding's bass, great soloing on the part of Jimi, and never once gets boring in its five-minute entirety. Chalk this up as another number that I wish had made it onto Ladyland. And finally, there's a good cover of Dylan's Drifter's Escape, from John Wesley Harding. I might even prefer it to All Along the Watchtower, mainly because, in addition to the mad riffage and clever soloing, Jimi actually does a good job of taking on Bob's vocal intonations, thus preserving the essence of the original.

So, yeah. If you have a desperate need for more Hendrix, this is probably your best bet.

For the casual fan, there are tons of alternate recordings of all of the band's hits - different enough to make them worth hearing, but not different to the point that they won't be recognized. Of course, throwing on three different takes of Hey Joe was a bit much. Then again, the second is prefaced by a fascinating display of the moderator's idiocy (listen to the interview A Brand New Sound carefully, and you'll know what I mean), while the third stops midway through as the band rips into an instrumental version of Cream's Sunshine of Your Love. Neat! Even some of the lesser-known album tracks made it on (Little Miss Lover, Stone Free, Wait Until Tomorrow), and they mostly sound terrific.

For the Jimi historian/fanatic, these sessions contain numbers that can't be found on any other official release. For starters, there are three solid instrumental renditions of the bluesy Driving South, as well as a number that shows the origins of Voodoo Chile (Catfish Blues), and a fantastic version of Killing Floor. The best parts, though are completely unexpected. First, we have a cover of Hound Dog (yes, that Hound Dog) with Mitch and Noel contributing 'puppy' noises in the background. It's hilarious!! And, of course, we have the infamous Day Tripper cover. Jimi warms up with the opening guitar lines of I Want to Tell You, and then we get that fabulous riff with Mitch and Noel singing the majority of the vocals, and then Jimi just goes nuts. Man, it's just not fair to hand him such an awesome riff and allow him to do whatever he wants with it. This track just sounds spectacular, in case you haven't guessed.

All in all, this is your best bet for live Hendrix, if that's your sort of thing. And it should be - whatever qualms one might have with his songwriting, the Jimi Hendrix Experience was a fantastic group when it came to arranging and performing, and as such was an awesome live band. Seek it out; it's expensive, but it's worth it.