Are You Experienced
Are You Experienced is the debut studio album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, released in May 1967. The album was an immediate critical and commercial success, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time. It features Jimi Hendrix's innovative approach to songwriting and electric guitar playing, which soon established a new direction in psychedelic and rock music as a whole.
This article is about the album. For the song, see Are You Experienced? (song). For the novel, see Are You Experienced? (novel).Are You Experienced
May 12, 1967
October 23, 1966 – April 4, 1967
De Lane Lea, CBS, & Olympic, London
- 38:34 (UK)
- 39:29 (US)
After struggling to earn a living on the R&B circuit as a backing guitarist, Hendrix signed a management and production contract in 1966 with former Animals member Chas Chandler and ex-Animals manager Michael Jeffery. Chandler brought Hendrix to London and recruited members for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, a band designed to showcase the guitarist's talents. In late October, after having been rejected by Decca Records, the Experience signed with Track, a new label formed by the Who's managers Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp. Are You Experienced and its preceding singles were recorded over a five-month period from late October 1966 through early April 1967. The album was completed in 16 recording sessions at three London locations: De Lane Lea Studios, CBS Studios, and Olympic Studios.
Released in the UK on May 12, 1967, Are You Experienced spent 33 weeks on the British charts, peaking at number two. The album was issued in the US on August 23 by Reprise Records, where it reached number five on the US Billboard Top LPs chart, remaining on the chart for 106 weeks, 76 of those in the Top 40. The album also spent 70 weeks on the US Billboard Hot R&B LPs chart, where it peaked at number 10. The US version contained some of Hendrix's best known songs, including the Experience's first three singles, which, though omitted from the British edition of the LP, were top ten hits in the UK: "Purple Haze", "Hey Joe", and "The Wind Cries Mary". Hendrix was unhappy with the cover artwork for the UK edition, and solicited photographer Karl Ferris to create a more "psychedelic" cover for the US release.
In the decades since its release, Are You Experienced has continued to receive acclaim. It was voted number 63 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums in 2000.[1] Rolling Stone ranked Are You Experienced 30th on its 2020 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In 2010, the magazine placed four songs from the US version of the album on their list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time": "Purple Haze" (17), "Foxy Lady" (153), "Hey Joe" (201), and "The Wind Cries Mary" (379). In 2005, the album was one of 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Writer and archivist Reuben Jackson of the Smithsonian Institution wrote: "it's still a landmark recording because it is of the rock, R&B, blues ... musical tradition. It altered the syntax of the music ... in a way I compare to James Joyce's Ulysses."[2]
Album cover[edit]
Chris Stamp designed the cover of the UK version of Are You Experienced, which featured a picture of Hendrix, Mitchell, and Redding by Bruce Fleming.[123] The image shows Hendrix wearing a long dark cape while standing over Mitchell and Redding, striking what Egan described as a "Dracula-esque pose".[123] Chandler contacted Fleming based on the photographer's previous work with the Hollies, the Dave Clark Five, and the Animals. The photo shoot took place in February after Fleming had attended several recording sessions and Experience gigs. Chandler made a point of requesting that the band member's faces be clearly visible in the photograph; Fleming explained: "[Album covers] got much more esoteric as time went on, but to establish the artist we had to get their faces across so the kids would recognize them."[124] He took monochrome and color shots of the band; Track selected an image from the latter group.[125] Fleming had indicated which picture he preferred they use, marking the shot with a cross, but after the album's release he realized that they had selected another, less desirable image. According to Fleming, the shot that he chose was "more sinister; more interesting".[126] Stamp hired graphic artist Alan Aldridge to design the sleeve's psychedelic lettering.[125] Track inexplicably put only the album's title on the cover, omitting the band's name; Polydor issued the release throughout Europe with Hendrix's name printed at the top in matching font. The cover art's combination of dull green and brown tones, juxtaposed with the jocular nature of the subject's pose, created a weak overall visual impression; Stamp commented: "It's not a great cover at all. Hopefully, we made up for that in all the other covers."[127]
Hendrix disliked the UK cover of Are You Experienced, so arrangements were made for a photo shoot with graphic designer Karl Ferris.[128] Hendrix wanted "something psychedelic", so he requested Ferris because he appreciated the photographer's sleeve-work on the Hollies' June 1967 release Evolution. During a meeting with the band, Ferris told Hendrix that he wanted to hear more of their music from which to draw inspiration. They accommodated his request by allowing him to attend several sessions for their second album, Axis: Bold as Love.[129] Ferris brought home tapes from the sessions, which along with Are You Experienced he listened to intently.[129] His first impression of the music was that it was "so far out that it seemed to come from outer space", which inspired him to develop a backstory about a "group travelling through space in a Biosphere on their way to bring their unworldly space music to earth."[129] With this concept in mind, he took color photographs of the band at Kew Gardens in London, using a fisheye lens which was then popular in Mod sub-culture.[130] Ferris used what Egan described as "an infrared technique of his own invention which combined color reversal with heat signature", further enhancing the exotic nature of the image.[130] Ferris was an experienced fashion photographer, and his interest in the finer details of his covers led him to choose the band's wardrobe. After seeing Hendrix with his hair combed away from the scalp, Ferris requested that he wear it that way during the photo shoot. Hendrix's girlfriend, Kathy Etchingham, trimmed his hair to improve its symmetry, forming an afro that became the basis of a homogenized Experience image.[130] Redding and Mitchell liked Hendrix's new hairstyle, so Ferris hired a hairdresser to style their hair in a similar fashion. After purchasing clothing for Redding and Mitchell at the boutiques on King's Road—Hendrix wore clothes from his wardrobe, including a psychedelic jacket with a pair of eyes printed on the front which had been given to him by a fan—the Experience travelled to Kew Gardens. In an effort to focus on Hendrix's hands, Ferris shot the band at a low angle.[130] The daylight faded soon after their arrival at the garden, so they returned the following day for a second shoot, which was not needed; the image selected for the US cover of Are You Experienced was the first shot taken the previous day.[131] Ferris chose the cover's yellow background and its surreal lettering, and he intended for a textured gatefold jacket that Reprise, as a cost-saving measure, did not approve.[132][nb 12]
Are You Experienced was an immediate commercial success, selling more than one million copies within seven months of its release.[156] Reviewing the album in 1967, Melody Maker praised its artistic integrity and the Experience's varied use of tempo.[157] NME's Keith Altham said it is "a brave effort by Hendrix to produce a musical form which is original and exciting".[158] However, not all contemporary writers gave the LP a favorable review; in November 1967, Rolling Stone's Jon Landau wrote that although he considered Hendrix a "great guitarist and a brilliant arranger", he disapproved of his singing and songwriting.[159] He criticized the quality of the material and described the lyrics as inane: "Above all this record is unrelentingly violent, and lyrically, inartistically violent at that."[159]
Many music critics have since named Are You Experienced as one of the greatest debut albums in rock music and of all time.[2] According to Associated Press writer Hillel Italie, it was among the notable debuts in a year that marked rock music's transition into the album era.[160] Journalist Ritchie Unterberger described it as "one of the definitive albums of the psychedelic era",[147] while author Chris Smith said the release was "a landmark in a summer of landmark albums".[161] Noe Goldwasser, the founding editor of Guitar World magazine, called it "a veritable textbook of what a musician can do with his instrument" and "the measure by which everything ... in rock and roll has been compared since."[162] According to music journalist Charles Shaar Murray, the album "completely changed notions of what a guitar could sound like, or indeed, what music could sound like",[163] while The Miami Herald credited Are You Experienced with introducing acid rock, classic rock, and the guitar aesthetic of heavy metal.[164] Critic Robert Christgau called it a "bombshell debut" in his review for Blender and said its songs were innovative for how they utilized three-minute pop structures as a medium for Hendrix's unprecedentedly heavy and turbulent guitar and loud, powerful hooks, which greatly appealed to young listeners.[165]
Rolling Stone includes the album and several songs on various "best of" lists, such as:
Additionally, Mojo magazine listed Are You Experienced as the greatest guitar album of all time in 2013.[170] In 2005, Are You Experienced was one of 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry, which selects recordings annually that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[171] The album was also included in "A Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings—published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981)[172]—and in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[173]
Jimi Hendrix Experience[183]
Additional personnel