999, 813: Jimi Hendrix -Valleys of Neptune

The late Jimi Hendrix has proven to be far more prolific than the living Jimi Hendrix. Every few years, a new album of "amazing unreleased tracks" comes out. And with each release of these amazing unreleased tracks, I start to wonder, was Jimi Hendrix just a dude who took a whole bunch of drugs and dicked around on his guitar? In fact, I'm starting to wonder if these amazing unreleased tracks weren't actually performed by a musical parodist who was trying to make fun of Jimi Hendrix. To my ears, "Valleys of Neptune," the title track from the "new" Jimi Hendrix album, sounds like it might be the work of Jammee Handrax, the "Ruttles" to Jimi's "Beatles," if that makes any sense.

"Valleys of Neptune" contains a bunch of drugged out lyrics about space and colors, and a good amount of psychedelic guitar noodling. Hendrix is sort of singing out of tune, which I guess is harder to notice on some of his classic songs, which I think contain more background vocals and catchy melodies that you sing along with, so maybe you can't tell that what he's doing is suggesting a melody more than singing one. The band sloppily grooves behind him and the last third of the song is just him playing some spacey suspended chords and going "rise on baby riiiiiiise on baby," which is exactly what someone doing a Jimi Hendrix parody would sing, over and over, in exactly the same manner the real one does here.

The weirdest part about this new song is that the chord changes and tempo during the verse sounded strangely familiar to me. I kept hearing something else other than "blue green space fly water baby baby" or whatever it is Jimi is singing. Then it hit me: what I really wanted to hear was "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" by the Spin Doctors. For some reason the outtakes of "the greatest rock and roller of all time" sound like demo tracks for a mildly entertaining early 90's jam band. So congratulations, Estate of Jimi Hendrix. You've dug so deep into your breadwinner's catalog that you managed to do something the Spin Doctors never managed to do over the course of their entire career: release a song that makes the Spin Doctors sound totally awesome.