Jimi Hendrix wasn’t shy about expressing his love or distaste for his fellow musicians. Given his stature in the rock community, we really can’t blame him for looking down his nose from time to time. Not even the Beatles were safe from Hendrix’s resolute opinion. Learn why Hendrix disliked one Beatles album in particular, below.
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The Beatles Album Jimi Hendrix Disliked
Even a band like the Beatles is subject to a bad review or two. Hendrix delivered a cutting review of The White Album soon after its release, pointing to the work as evidence of the group’s wavering talent.
Of course, The Beatles (affectionately known as The White Album) is largely considered one of the group’s best works. Nevertheless, Hendrix went against the grain (as he so often did) and expressed his distaste for the record’s sonic direction. While several previous Beatles albums focused on reinvention, Hendrix felt this one was played safe.
“People are starting to get a little more hep to music nowadays,” Hendrix once said. “I think the Beatles are going toward the past a little more. [The White Album is] an inventory of the past 10 years, rock music you know. There’s a lot of people waiting for something else to happen now, anyway.
“That’s not saying anything bad about a person at all,” he continued. “It’s just the scenes some people go through.”
His opinion on The White Album was a stark departure from his usual praise of the Beatles. Like many artists in his generation, Hendrix held the Fab Four in high esteem. On one occasion, he played a rendition of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” to great appeal. Even the Beatles expressed their gratitude for the nod.
“To think that that album had meant so much to him as to actually do it by the Sunday night, three days after the release,” Paul McCartney once said. “He must have been so into it, because normally it might take a day for rehearsal and then you might wonder whether you’d put it in, but he just opened with it.”
Though his love of the Beatles might have wavered a bit, Hendrix’s career will always be intertwined with the Beatles–as it is with anyone in rock music. Regardless of your opinion on the famed group, no one can deny how boundless their inspiration is.
(Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
