100 Greatest Albums of All Time

 83. Axis: Bold as Love, The Jimi Hendrix Experience Reprise, 1968

Jimi Hendrix’s first album remade rock & roll with guitar magic that no one had ever dreamed of; his second album had even more sorcery. It started with some musings on extraterrestrial life, then got really far out: jazzy drumming, funky balladry, liquid guitar solos, dragon fly heavy metal and the immortal stoner’s maxim from “If 6 Was 9”: “I’m the one who’s gonna have to die when it’s time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.” All over the album, Hendrix was inventing new ways to make the electric guitar roar, sing, talk, shriek, flutter and fly. And with the delicate “Little Wing,” he delivered one of rock’s most cryptic and bewitching love songs.