Jimi Hendrix- Axis Bold as love

Axis Bold as Love

This is, without any question, late-1960s production values. In this day and age, there was none of the multi-tracking that Queen later applied to Bohemian Rhapsody--instead of having 96 tracks to work with, people of this day had only recently been blessed with more than one. So on tracks such as "You Got Me Floating," the "mind-blowing studio effects" can seem gloriously like canned goods. And the auditory and lyrical fashion of the times ring out as garishly as Hendrix's clothing fashions did. But God, is it pure. I mean, this is a pure communication, from the artists to the audiences they were trying to reach.
Every artist is calculating, because they're all trying to affect people. But Hendrix was never calculating in a careless, phoned-in sort of way. He wanted to go deep. Here, he does. "If Six Was Nine" is the best example of this, I suppose. It recalls the Doors' "The End," or "When the Music's Over," in the way it draws you in for a think, and illustrates it with all these musical flourishes. The guitar can't be critiqued, because it's all been said; the incredible, wiry Mitch Mitchell gives the same sort of staccato, strobe-effect snare blasts that the Doors' John Densmore did; and Noel Redding's bass cannonballs marvelously into the pool, like Hurley from Lost belly-flopping from a high-dive. The songs bridge the gap between the first album's 2:50 pop, and Electric Ladyland's experiments. If you only get one Hendrix album, this should be it!