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There’s no denying that “Crosstown Traffic,” the haunting cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower,” and “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” are stone cold brilliant. Only a fool would write off Electric Ladyland as a complete loss. Smash Hits coheres, as does 1967’s Are You Experienced, which is more than can be said for the shambolic Electric Ladyland, which one critic called “the fullest realization of Jimi’s far-reaching ambitions,” but which I find both uneven and diffuse-in short, less a case of far-reaching than overreaching, and overreaching at its worst. I never listened to any Jimi Hendrix LP stoned except 1969’s Smash Hits, which I liked because whomever it was that cherry-picked its tunes made certain they were both (1) catchy and (2) short. Let the critics, all 20 million of them, fawn and gush! Let one Peter Doggett proclaim Electric Ladyland the greatest rock album of all time! Me, I’ve always found the guitar legend’s 1968 double LP to be less a rewarding experience than an overlong and sometimes grueling, listen. But otherwise? The two of us are all by our lonesome on this one. The famously eccentric rock critic Chuck Eddy agrees with me, I think. Is it me? I repeat, is it me? Am I the only person on the planet who thinks the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Electric Ladyland is grossly overrated? Well, almost. Remembering Mitch Mitchell, born on this day in 1946.