Whenever a new technology makes its way into music—such as autotune, synthesizers, samplers, or drum machines—it’s often accompanied by a chorus of naysayers saying things like, “you’d never see a REAL musician like Jimi Hendrix using that crap.”
They’re really betraying their own ignorance there, as Hendrix had absolutely no qualms about utilizing whatever new technology he could get his hands on. This is most demonstrated on the last album he made before his death, the massive double album Electric Ladyland. While the Experience had plenty of psychedelic elements on their two previous albums, Electric Ladlyand dives headlong into studio weirdness and compositional surrealness, offering an album that is as rewarding as it is imposing.
Words like “pioneer” and “genius” and “groundbreaking” are thrown around far more than they probably deserve.