Not only does this movie consist of dozens of rare videos and pictures, interviews with those closest to Hendrix, and a very interesting stories on how Jimi created some of the unique sounds heard on this legendary album. If you are a Jimi Hendrix fan, you must see this movie.
3 Reviews
better to rent than buy, depends on the fan
Quinoa198420 August 2005
There is something that is a little un-easy about watching many of the Classic Albums series of making-of album DVDs (others I've seen are from the like of Grateful Dead to Judas Priest, but there are many). It goes along with other music documentaries as well (usually made for video), when they use some archive footage to show clips of the band or artist playing the song, and it's shown very briefly and not all the way through. Especially on a documentary for an album as groundbreaking as Electric Ladyland. It's on one hand engrossing to see the different parts of the songs analyzed and talked about in detail (you even see the engineer taking apart the songs on the tracks in the studio). But then when they cut to a live performance, it's barely for twenty seconds, give or take. It's understandable that the story of the album- and the band at the time- is told on more detail, yet hearing only pieces of the songs, usually in the background behind the interviews, isn't enough. For completely historical reasons it is a must see; you rarely get to see so many people involved talking about the process of it, the style behind it, the circumstances, etc. And for the story like with Electric Ladyland, the Experience's third and last complete studio album, I couldn't turn it off. But there might be things involving the handing of presenting the material to someone who's never heard the album before that might be off-putting.
Horrendous Sound Quality Ruins What Should Have Been A Great DVD
ferbs5428 November 2007
In a recent issue of "Mojo" magazine, Jimi Hendrix' 3rd album, "Electric Ladyland," was not only selected as one of the Top 40 psychedelic records of all time, but received the exalted #1 spot. ("Sgt. Pepper's," by the way, came in at #5.) A longtime personal favorite, Hendrix' most ambitious recording has been blowing aging hippies' minds for almost four decades now. This DVD in the "Classic Albums" series, to its great credit, attempts to analyze each and every song of Jimi's landmark album, and in furtherance of that goal, includes interviews with the record's engineer, Hendrix' manager and many of the participating musicians (Noel Redding, Mitch Mitchell, Dave Mason, Buddy Miles, Jack Casady, Steve Winwood, etc.). Unfortunately, the sound quality of this DVD is horrendous, and half the conversations are drowned out by what is supposed to be BACKGROUND music. I watched this DVD twice and still missed half the dialogue! Doesn't anybody quality control these things before they're released? What a shame that these doubtless fascinating stories have been rendered unlistenable by a careless production! On a side note, when I recently purchased the CD of "Electric Ladyland," to replace my superworn vinyl, the young cashier at the record store asked me, "Who's Jimi Hendrix?" When I told her that he was a very popular guitarist in the '60s and had even played at the original Woodstock, she blithely asked,"What's Woodstock?" I just sighed, picked up my precious CD and walked out.
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