4. Jimi Hendrix - First Rays Of The New Rising Sun
Hendrix was an infamously fidgety artist who had a tendency to start working on many different things at once without ever really completing them. That's why there were so many leftover songs for the record label to choose from when they decided to cull together another collection of songs for his first posthumous album, The Cry of Love. And though that album gave us some classic Jimi tunes (most notably "Freedom" and "Angel"), there was still something lacking. More than 25 years later, audio engineer Eddie Kramer, with the help of Jimi's estate and the musician's own notes he'd left behind, sought to correct The Cry of Love's (relatively minor) missteps. The resulting compilation is a thorough look into the spark and soul Jimi still had to offer before his untimely death, that valiantly recreated the oft-lamented "fourth album" Jimi never got to deliver. On those terms, First Rays is a must-have for any diehard Hendrix fan, because it really is the "essential" posthumous collection. And it's still refreshing, even all these years later, to listen to a man as profound as Jimi explore new musical territory, like the barstool stomp of "My Friend" and the damn near punk-ish "Astro Man." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12oLOU0ACAU
