1. ...And the Gods Made Love
2. Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)
3. Crosstown Traffic
4. Voodoo Chile*
5. Little Miss Strange
6. Long Hot Summer Night
7. Come On (Part 1)
8. Gypsy Eyes
9. Burning of the Midnight Lamp
10. Rainy Day, Dream Away
11. 1983... (A Mermaid I Should Turn to Be)
12. Moon, Turn the Tides... Gently, Gently Away
13. Still Raining, Still Dreaming
14. House Burning Down
15. All Along the Watchtower*
16. Voodoo Child (Slight Return)*
A-
It's inevitable that every great band at some point releases a self-indulgent double album. Sometimes this works out OK (Pink Floyd, The Clash, Smashing Pumpkins), and sometimes not so much (Yes, Led Zeppelin, Outkast). Thankfully, Electric Ladyland skews a bit higher on the bell curve. Unfortunately, while there are some truly brilliant songs here - songs that stand amongst the greatest achievements of popular music, I'd say - there are also a lot of... well, not "stinkers" exactly, but songs that aren't particularly good.
A good example of the problems with this album is "Gypsy Eyes". Apparently this song took about forty takes to accomplish. But, honestly, aside from a cool riff it's basically disposable. Why would anyone waste several days trying to nail such a pointless song?
This album is also pretty poorly structured. I realise the double album was a novelty at this point, but opening with a weird sound effects pastiche, segueing into a ballad, then slamming into puerile rocker "Crosstown Traffic" and closing side one with the (admittedly brilliant) lengthy blues jam "Voodoo Chile" just shows a complete lack of understanding of how to structure an album. Although this album was originally released in a format designed for automatic record changers, so I guess the whole thing would have flowed smoothly. But what am I saying? I listened to this on Spotify. It does no flow smoothly.
Ultimately, this is a killer single disc album expanded to double album status because Hendrix couldn't let go of his babies. It's also much muddier in sound than Axis, which was a beautifully produced album, and doesn't contain anything as lyrical and beautiful as "Castles Made of Sand", "The Wind Cries Mary", or "Little Wing".
But enough griping. This is still a pretty good album. I have to give it a high rating if only for the final two tracks. "All Along the Watchtower" and "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" are two of the most astonishing pieces of music ever recorded - the former an astonishing rocker, the later a bluesy explosion of primal awesomeness that sees Hendrix wringing every possible variation out of one of the greatest riffs ever devised.
I also quite like "Come On", which shows Hendrix absolutely nailing a high energy blues number, and "Little Miss Strange", which takes one of Noel Redding's disposable pop numbers and drapes it with Hendrix's wonderful lead guitar work.
In the end, I guess this is a party album. It makes sense less as a cohesive set of songs than as a lengthy soundtrack to stoned debauchery. I have a fever and I'm a bit tipsy, so I got it more this time than the other times I've listened to it, but really this is very much a stoner album. Not much will change my view that it would have worked better as a single album, but I don't really care since this is my blog and I can say what I want.
No comments:
Post a Comment