New Music Review

Jimi Hendrix
Valleys of Neptune
Experience Hendrix/Legacy
CD

If you're anything like me (which is to say that your an aging, somewhat pretentious, overly analytical music snob), then you probably have a different attitude towards classic rock than the average person. You probably grew up with it, embraced it, outgrew it while holding on to some small portion of it, and then coming back to it again at some point. After careful consideration, I've decided that there are a total of five categories that all classic rock acts fall into. Bands are categorized differently by different people, but I think the following covers all of the bases.

Category 1 - Loved it Then/Love it Now. This is the stuff you cut your teeth on and continue to listen to for your whole life. For me, the Stones belong here, as do The Who, The Beatles, The Kinks, Bob Dylan and a handful of others. Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath are on the cusp, if not in; I still *love* both bands, and am not sick of them, per se, but I don't really listen to either voluntarily unless it happens to come on the radio.

Category 2 - Loved it Then/Still Appreciate it Now, but Sick of it. This grouping is for the bands that you adored growing up, but then one day you just woke up and decided they didn't have unlimited replay-ability, and you tire of it. The wrinkle with this category is that you don't really hold anything against the band, and probably would go see them if you had the opportunity. Led Zeppelin is probably the biggest example of a Cat 2 band for me. A lot of people would have them in Category 1, which is fine, but the list of Zeppelin songs that don't get turned off when they come on my car stereo is a very short one. But if they reformed and did a full tour, I would be all over it. I still think they're a fabulous band, I just got sick of hearing it constantly. The Doors are another band that I would classify as Cat 2. Cream probably belongs here for me as well. You would probably find a lot of less celebrated bands like Bad Company here. Again, this will vary by person, but I think you will find a lot of commonality.

Category 3 - Didn't Care for it Then/Dig it Now. This is probably more applicable to college rock than classic rock, but these are the bands you ignored or dismissed the first time around, and then you later realize you like or possibly even love them. For me, I would put The Faces here, because they didn't get much radio play growing up, and I didn't discover them until later. I guess The J. Geils Band belongs here too. I thought they were okay growing up, but I knew them as the top-40 band who did "Centerfold" (which is a fine song, to be fair), and didn't realize they were basically the greatest bar band of all time until much later. Steely Dan is a band who would fall into this category for a lot of people, though not me. I never cared for them.

Category 4 - Liked or Loved it Then/Ashamed to Admit it Now. Ah, the days of misspent youth. I will probably get drummed out of the amateur music critic's union for this, but I really loved The Grateful Dead at one point. I owned multiple Yes albums. I thought that Rush's 2112 was a masterpiece. I believe I've purchased the first Boston album on every format, excepting 8 Track, at least once. Everybody has these, and it's truly one of the things that makes each of us an individual. I think bands like Kansas, Styx, Foreigner, Journey, Jethro Tull, and Aerosmith are what wind up here for most people. Unfortunately, AOR radio still plays the shit out of this stuff, and there's no escaping it. The key to Cat 4 is that at least there is some nostalgic value to most of the bands in it. You may not like the music anymore, but it doesn't make you want to stab yourself in the ear drums with a steak knife. It may take you back to a place in time that you remember fondly, or at least you can laugh about how dreadful your musical taste was when you were younger.

Category 5 - Hated it Then/Hate it Now. Ah, the dreaded Cat 5. This is the music that just flat out sucks, and you hated it from the first time you heard it. Like all the other categories, this varies from person to person, but I think you'll see a lot of the same bands wind up on many people's shit-lists. For me, I think the artists who belong here are REO Speedwagon, Fleetwood Mac, Jackson Browne and Elton John. This category by itself probably merits a 2,000 word piece. I'd love to have some input about others' opinions about which bands belong in this cellar.

In my own estimation, Jimi Hendrix is probably a Category 2 artist, though that shouldn't be held against him. Are You Experienced, Electric Ladyland and Axis Bold as Love are all pretty heavy hitters that stand the test of time. What they don't withstand, unfortunately, is ubiquity. Classic rock radio stations ruined Hendrix for me, and the fact that he only turned out three studio albums is a big reason why. If he would have lived longer, and put out more material, perhaps it would have been more spread out (if the Stones had only released Exile, Sticky Fingers and Let it Bleed, I might have gotten sick of all that - okay, maybe not). For the last 15 or so years of my life, the only Hendrix I've ever been able to listen to is the Band of Gypsies stuff, because that never go airplay. At least that's how it's been until now.

Valleys of Neptune is by no means a complete album; it's just a bunch of stuff that's gone unreleased up until this point. Even still, a lot of it's not a huge departure from things you've heard before. There are alternate versions of Hendrix staples "Stone Free", "Fire" and "Red House", as well as an instrumental version of Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love", of which I've heard multiple live versions Jimi played over the years. If you take those out of the equation, then that leaves a total of eight songs that you can't possibly be sick of yet, and I think that's pretty decent.

The thing I like best about this album is that it's split up about evenly between recordings he made with The Experience (Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding) and Band of Gypsies (Buddy Miles and Billy Cox). Those are two very different animals, and I really came to enjoy the subtleties associated with each of them. The Experience has more of a straight-forward Rock n Roll feel to it, whereas Band of Gypsies is more free-form and experimental. Because of this split, I think I will come to enjoy this release more than I would an entire album worth of material with either band serving as the accompaniment.

The reason why many consider Jimi Hendrix to be the greatest guitar player of all time is because he probably was. Even if you don't agree with that statement, there's no way you could logically put him outside of the top 5, especially considering the era in which he came up. The reason why you're probably sick of his music is because he died too young, and his catalog is small. This is a welcome addition to it, and should at least be a nice refresher course in how much you enjoyed it when you first discovered rock music. If nothing else, it'll serve as yet another reminder of what might have been.