The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced

Track Records

May 12th, 1967.

An experience is an event or occurrence that leaves a mark on/memory in someone. Are You Experienced can be seen as a rather vague question. In fact, it adds further questions to the question - experienced in what?, for example. The question is vague and loose ended until the record is played. The question becomes crystal clear soon after. Hendrix and his surrounding team realized that what they had was special - an experience unto itself.

Released in 1967, amidst the psychedelic explosion, The Jimi Hendrix Experience produced an album that brought enough to the table to satiate a sense of splendor. A raw underbelly lay bubbling underneath for anyone willing to delve a little deeper.

Playing to and from the smoke-y, half-baked corners of the mind, the haze in which the Experience occurs is one of a psychedelic nature. The mid-to-late 60's music scene produced an array of compelling performers. From forward thinking visionaries to virtuoso musicians, the decade brought forth ideas and concepts still relevant on the contemporary scene. The Hendrix sound isn't complete without his explosive companion, Mitch Mitchell, on drums, and smooth operator of bass, Noel Redding. The Experience being just as essential to Hendrix as Hendrix was to himself.

It's funny how looking inwards always ends in some sort of existential output. Searching the minds maps for meaning isn't as easy to decipher as some would like to believe. We're complex creatures. Complex situations lead to complex questions, and nevertheless end in complex answers. Exploration - both inward and outward - is a key component to experience. Are You Experienced is a key component to many explorations on the musical landscape. To this day the question still remains the same, Are You Experienced?