Jimi Hendrix Experience-Smash Hits (1969)


 

Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience

Title: Smash Hits

Label: Reprise

Format: LP

Cat #: MSK 2276

Year of Release: 1969

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US early '80's Columbia House reissue

Listed Condition: VG+/G+

Sell Date: 12/10/20

Sell Price: $6.99

Discogs Last Sold: 10/19/20 $8.75 VG+/VG+

Low: $2.00

Median: $9.38

High: $29.99 10/14/20 M/NM in original shrink never opened or played

Current low price: $2.00 G/G+, $7.00 VG/VG+

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 15

Have/Want: 2576/73

Where Sold:  Opa Locka, FL

Time it took to sell: 4 years

Where and When Bought: Columbia House 1982

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A

Sad To See It Go: No

This singles collection released in Jimi's lifetime is a classic for sure, but I always felt it duplicated Are You Experienced? a bit much.  My first Hendrix album was a 50 cent copy of Axis: Bold As Love which I traded a copy of A Hard Day's Night then rebought for $1.99 before I even got Smash Hits.  I think I paid $1.99 also for Are You Experienced? and $6 for Electric Ladyland around the time the record club gods serviced me with a box that contained this album when I was in late elementary school-early '82 6th grade is my guess. I also had a beat to shit copy of the Monterey Festival split album with Otis Redding that I got in a $5 box of records.    So much movin' and shakin' and wheelin' and dealin' for these clearly below mint Hendrix records!

I always remember Hendrix as deceased.  My earliest knowledge of Hendrix was 1975 (age 5 for me) when my dad's issue of Guitar Player came in the mail with a Hendrix flexidisc.  His greatness and living status were explained and internalized, but somehow the core records were not particularly accessible to me until I bought them used in later childhood.  The Worcester Public Library had no Hendrix.  More likely they were taken out, trashed and stolen by the mid-70's.

So yeah, all these song length tracks are perfect 60's rock, reaching a canon status beyond review.  I would give the nod to Are You Experienced? being the A+ album and my initial bias of it being duplicitous,  ignoring that this was where you could get "Red House" and single edits.   Since this release is untampered by Alan Douglas or the Family/Estate,  you could consider this a "real" retrospective along the lines of the Beatles Red & Blue or the Stones Hot Rocks or Dylan's Greatest Hits I & II vs something put out in the CD era.  

There is half a century of revisionist history to suss out since Smash Hits was released.  No matter how you slice 'em and dice 'em the songs themselves remain indisputably classic. They are all "hits" even if only the definitive reworking of Dylan's "All Along The Watchtower" cracked the Billboard Top 40 (peaking at 20).  Are You Experienced? dominated with top 5 longevity being the #1 album of 1967  without ever reaching the pole position on the weekly chart.  In 1969 you could make an argument that the title "Smash Hits" is a bit of revisionist history regarding singles,  although the album charts clearly confirmed hit status.  

These are hits of a different nature.


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