10 Rock Music Debuts That Changed The Game

Every single great rock song that has come out in the past 50 years tends to go back to having a great guitar riff. Though there are exceptions with people like Little Richard, the origins of great rock and roll is taking that six stringed instrument and making it scream for a few minutes at a time. Most of the early '60s definitely had the energy behind the guitar, but you could hear a soul speaking through it whenever Jimi Hendrix picked up his Fender Stratocaster.

From the first seconds of Are You Experienced, Jimi is trying to kick down the doors of perception in your mind, with songs like Foxy Lady and Purple Haze setting up the Summer of Love perfectly. Before everyone just calls something like this hippy idealism, there's a lot more Jimi has to unpack on this record, bringing together funk and hard rock on a song like Manic Depression before channeling Bob Dylan by way of Curtis Mayfield on the song The Wind Cries Mary.

Although most of Britain was still rooted in the blues tradition at this point, it took Jimi to really do justice to people like BB King and Muddy Waters, transforming songs like Red House into some of the most fiery performances to ever come out of the hard rock scene. The '60s were on the verge of getting a lot more psychedelic, and by using just one guitar, Jimi opened up doors that not even guitarists like Eric Clapton were able to open on their own.