Love or Jimi Hendrix Experience?

[naughty boy]

[clive gash]

Hounding sure ain’t what it used to be.

[naughty boy]

[Diamond Dog]

I really like "Forever Changes" and parts of Da Capo and Four Sail but.... I played Electric Ladyland from start to finish on Sunday just gone. Besides side two (which is much weaker up until "Burning Of The Midnight Lamp") the rest is incendiary. Absolutely blew me away - again. Considering it is 50 years old this year, that really shouldn't happen. But it did and it did because, at his best, no single performer ever deserved the title of 'genius' more than Jimi Hendrix - in my view, of course. The scary thing is I think I still prefer "Are You Experienced" in many ways - there's a pop sensibility and naivety that is strikingly brilliant. But both albums leave "Forever Changes" in their wake.

It has to be JHE. Has to be.

[soundchaser]

I really like "Forever Changes" and parts of Da Capo and Four Sail but.... I played Electric Ladyland from start to finish on Sunday just gone. Besides side two (which is much weaker up until "Burning Of The Midnight Lamp") the rest is incendiary. Absolutely blew me away - again. Considering it is 50 years old this year, that really shouldn't happen. But it did and it did because, at his best, no single performer ever deserved the title of 'genius' more than Jimi Hendrix - in my view, of course. The scary thing is I think I still prefer "Are You Experienced" in many ways - there's a pop sensibility and naivety that is strikingly brilliant. But both albums leave "Forever Changes" in their wake.

It has to be JHE. Has to be.

Great post! I’m with you all the way on this.

Electric Ladyland may only be 3 side’s perfect, but fucking hell, what music.

[sloopjohnc]

As an aside, I was listening to an interview with Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer and curator, and he was talking about how Hendrix would say something like, "We need more red," which meant distortion.

On the same radio station later that day, they talked about people who have synesthesia, where they hear sounds as colors - more people have it than I thought. Sounded exactly like what Kramer was describing with Hendrix.

[The Modernist]

ah the erudite Tobes adds his thoughts!

Oh come on, your suggestion warranted the roasting it deserved.

Love were a great band and I love all those songs, but to me they're brushed aside emphatically by Jimi, especially on Electric Ladyland. Don't get me wrong, EL is, like all double albums of the period, a flawed thing, but it's the sheer vision and emotion of around 6 songs that makes it the unwieldy but brilliant beast it is.

Our position on Love on BCB is undoubtedly coloured by the revival of the band with the Orchestra around 2003 when the board itself was born. Imagine if Hendrix was still alive and resurrected the Experience?

Speaking for myself that's not the case at all. I never saw them live. They just have more songs I really love, there are quite a number of very ordinary JHE songs that he never gets called out on because everyone is so focused on his genius ( and I think he was a genius btw).

[pcqgod]

Speaking of Love...

Rhino will celebrate the acclaimed album's golden anniversary with an extensive 4CD/DVD/LP collection housed in a beautifully illustrated 12 x 12 hardbound book that features a newly written essay and track-by-track notes by music historian Ted Olsen. FOREVER CHANGES: 50th ANNIVERSARY EDITION will be available on April 6 for $99.98.

The set features a few firsts for the album, including the CD-debut of a remastered version made by its original co-producer and engineer Bruce Botnick, as well as the first-ever release of the mono version on CD. Also included are alternate mixes of the album, as well as a selection of rare and unreleased singles and studio outtakes. Botnick's stereo remaster of the original album also makes its vinyl debut on the LP included with this set. It was cut from high resolution digital audio by celebrated audio engineer Bernie Grundman.

The DVD that accompanies the anniversary collection includes a 24/96 stereo mix of the album version of the original album remastered by Botnick. Also featured is "Your Mind And We Belong Together," a rare promotional video directed by Elektra producer Mark Abramson that was originally released in 1968.

Recorded during the Summer of Love in Hollywood, CA, Forever Changes is the group's most fully realized studio effort, featuring Arthur Lee (vocals, guitar), Johnny Echols (lead guitar), Bryan MacLean (rhythm guitar, vocals), Ken Forssi (bass) and Michael Stuart (drums, percussion). The original album introduced classics like "Andmoreagain," "Red Telephone," "A House Is Not A Motel" and "Alone Again Or."

FOREVER CHANGES: 50th ANNIVERSARY EDITION boasts more than a dozen rarities, including single versions of "Alone Again Or" and "A House Is Not A Motel" that are available now for the first time since 1967. Two other recordings on the set have never been released: the backing track for "Live And Let Live" and an outtake backing track for "Wonder People (I Do Wonder)."

https://www.rhino.com/product/forever-c ... ry-edition