Jimi Hendrix: Electric Ladyland (1968)

Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland

Track Listing:

1.	And the Gods made love	01:21
2.	Have you ever been to Electric Ladyland?	02:11
3.	Crosstown Traffic	02:25
4.	Voodoo Chile	15:00
5.	Little Miss Strange	02:52
6.	Long Hot Summer Night	03:27
7.	Come On	04:09
8.	Gypsy Eyes	03:43
9.	Burning of the Midnight Lamp	03:39
10.	Rainy Day, Dream Away	03:42
11.	1983	13:39
12.	Moon, Turn the Tides	01:02
13.	Still Raining, Still Dreaming	04:25
14.	House Burning Down	04:33
15.	All Along the Watchtower	04:01
16.	Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)	05:12

Rating: 5 Stars

Over the last few months I've been reviewing Klaus Schulze's albums. Today someone asked me if I ever review albums by anyone else. My answer was No, although I added that it's possible I might write a few words about other albums next year. Now I've changed my mind, and I'll make an exception by writing a few words about "Electric Ladyland". It's the third and final studio album recorded by Jimi Hendrix before his tragic death at the age of 27. There have been countless live albums released posthumously, some of them official, some of them bootlegs.

There was a special event today, organised by Playtime Album Sessions. The 50th anniversary remastered edition of "Electric Ladyland" was played in full in Delphi Cinema in Stuttgart. I received an invitation last week, but I didn't know if I wanted to go. I was told that the remastered version was in Dolby Surround Sound, not the original Stereo. That horrified me. That sounded like an awful corruption of a perfectly recorded album. I was reassured that the album would be faithful to Jimi Hendrix's original vision, because it had been remastered by Eddie Kramer, the recording engineer who worked with Jimi 50 years ago. I still wasn't convinced. Then I was reminded that Jimi had let his guitar solos be panned from left to right in stereo, so today he would want the sound to spin around the listener. That's correct. I'm aware that his guitar solos were bounced from channel to channel, which is psychedelic rather than a natural sound. So I went.

It was a relatively small audience. There were about 40 people in the room. That's about as  many as can be expected. Today people have forgotten how to listen to music. Instead of sitting and listening to an album from beginning to end, people use their computers or their MP3 players to shuffle the tracks into a random order. Music is used for background purposes, rather than an all-encompassing experience. Worse still, people watch music videos rather than enjoying the music in its own right.

I remember when I was young. I used to buy LP's, often from shops miles away from my home. While sitting on the bus I would examine the artwork on the cover and read all the notes. Back home I would take the big black disc out and place it carefully on my turntable, not wanting to accidentally scratch it. If the song lyrics were printed on the cover I'd read them as the record played. Having to turn it over halfway through was an annoyance I took for granted. A few years later it was a small silver disc, but the experience was just as intense, and I didn't have to turn it over.

At home I used to lie on my bed when listening to my albums, but music wasn't always a solitary experience. I had friends with similar tastes. We used to visit one another with our newest albums in our arms. We would sit together and listen, usually saying nothing until the whole album came to an end.

That's something that the young people of today have never experienced. They've never learnt how to enjoy music. I'm happy to say that almost everyone at today's event was young, i.e. under 30. The lights went out, and we listened in the dark. It was almost dark, anyway. The bright green Exit signs annoyed me, so I closed my eyes. Nobody moved. Everyone was listening in silence. So there are still people who know how to listen to music.

As for the matter of the Surround Sound, I was pleasantly surprised. The remastering was subtle. The vocals were in front of me, while the instruments were on the left and the right. Mostly. In some tracks the guitar's higher notes were on the right, while the lower notes were in front of me, next to the voice. This gave the impression that two different guitars were being played. This didn't disturb me. On the contrary, it was a well-rounded sound. At other times the guitar was rotating in a semi-circle, rather than merely left to right.

It was an overwhelming experience. It was music as it's meant to be enjoyed.