10 Best Hard Rock Albums Of The 1960's
2. Are You Experienced - Jimi Hendrix Experience
If you wanted to be the best of the best at guitar, more often than not you had to gravitate towards the blues. Every single popular act from The Rolling Stones to Cream always traced their lineage back to Delta Blues acts like John Lee Hooker and BB King. Once a boy named Hendrix arrived on the scene though, the entire guitar community shifted.
No one had seen or heard anything like Hendrix before, whose magnetic stage performances in psychedelic threads left most guitarists weeping in the crowd. When Hendrix finally got into the studio, he cut a debut for the ages in Are You Experienced. From the start, Hendrix's guitar comes roaring in to wipe out the previous guitarists before him. The way Hendrix mixed genres of soul, rock, and blues together made for some of the most timeless tracks of the era from "Fire" to "Manic Depression." Even on some of his cover tunes like "Hey Joe," Hendrix's conviction gives the song such an omnipresence that it feels like it existed since the dawn of time.
Whereas you could spot the influences that every other guitarist had, Jimi Hendrix felt like his own unique entity of guitar greatness. Though many would try to copy his style, the tracks Hendrix laid down on Are You Experienced are practically untouchable.