Black History Music Pt. 3
In celebration of Black History Month, the Ear
Candy Update intends to celebrate landmark recordings by black artists that
have shaped the collective consciousness, mentality, and sense of cool the
world over. Next, The Jimi Hendrix Experience's "Are you Experienced."
There was nothing like this in 1967 and there's nothing like it now. With their debut recording, The Jimi Hendrix Experience completely restructured the rock and roll playbook. The album is a science-fiction expressionist exhibit painted in blistering electricity and sonic feedback experiments. It’s distorted and brilliantly, brutally loud. It may very well not be from this world – probably somewhere from beyond the planet Lovetron or the Cassiopeia constellation.
Genius could be described as the ability to go from A to D without the B or C. If that is indeed the case, Jimi started at D and went to Q without anything in the middle. He made quantum leaps with studio possibilities, toying with custom-made effects pedals like the Octavia, delays, overdubs, distortion fuzz, and a host of other tricks no one, literally no one, had ever thought to use in conjunction simultaneously. The band pushed far beyond the limitations of four-track recording, literally forcing audio engineers to invent new processes and equipment to handle the vastness of Jimi’s vision. This would ultimately push Hendrix to build his own studio, Electric Ladyland, in Greenwich Village three years later.
The album altered the syntax of popular music, owing as much to the Blues as it does pop, rock, psychedelic funk, and improvised jazz. It is the sound of a volcanic mind erupting and cooling and then building anew atop the obsidian, towering higher and higher. It moves freely from frenzied instrumental explosions and tender, poetic compositions and without irony.
Jimi’s entire catalog, from The Experience to the Band of Gypsys, still stands because no one can replicate what he did. This, however, is what I refer to as a Six-Star Record. It’s required, and an essential text in the popular music canon.
Genius could be described as the ability to go from A to D without the B or C. If that is indeed the case, Jimi started at D and went to Q without anything in the middle. He made quantum leaps with studio possibilities, toying with custom-made effects pedals like the Octavia, delays, overdubs, distortion fuzz, and a host of other tricks no one, literally no one, had ever thought to use in conjunction simultaneously. The band pushed far beyond the limitations of four-track recording, literally forcing audio engineers to invent new processes and equipment to handle the vastness of Jimi’s vision. This would ultimately push Hendrix to build his own studio, Electric Ladyland, in Greenwich Village three years later.
The album altered the syntax of popular music, owing as much to the Blues as it does pop, rock, psychedelic funk, and improvised jazz. It is the sound of a volcanic mind erupting and cooling and then building anew atop the obsidian, towering higher and higher. It moves freely from frenzied instrumental explosions and tender, poetic compositions and without irony.
Jimi’s entire catalog, from The Experience to the Band of Gypsys, still stands because no one can replicate what he did. This, however, is what I refer to as a Six-Star Record. It’s required, and an essential text in the popular music canon.
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