YMMV / Bitches Brew

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• Awesome Music: This is one of the most acclaimed albums in any genre, not just jazz or fusion.
• Broken Base: This is an album that really polarized jazz fans at the time of its release. It still remains polarizing - if you're a jazz purist or don't like dark music, you'll probably hate this record - but like his other fusion work, it's also become Vindicated by History and has far more admirers than detractors.
• Epic Riff: The title track. The languid, plodding riff is played on the bass for 18 minutes of its 27-minute duration, and the shrill trumpet echo happens at least 5 times during the song.
  • And the keyboard riff that Bookends the song (and appears in its middle), too. A few other songs are also candidates, but the two main riffs in the title track are the standouts.
• Gateway Series: The album introduced a lot of hippies to jazz. Despite the controversy over the album, it still often pops up on lists of albums for new jazz fans to listen to, along with Kind of Blue, another album which is considered Davis' masterpiece. Though Kind of Blue, along with Sketches of Spain, In a Silent Way, and A Tribute to Jack Johnson might be better places for some listeners to start, depending on their background and musical interests. Bitches Brew is a pretty dark album, especially by the standards of 1960s jazz.
• Nightmare Fuel: The whole album, especially the first disc, has an unsettling, borderline nightmarish atmosphere, as though there's something slightly out of place. It might border on a Brown Note, as some listeners have reported experiencing literal nightmares after falling asleep to the album. The second disc is less nightmarish, though still far from light material. The two major studio works that preceded and followed this (In a Silent Way and A Tribute to Jack Johnson) are Lighter and Softer by comparison.
• Vindicated by History: Like most of his fusion work, it was controversial on release, but it's become one of his most popular and acclaimed recordings - perhaps the most popular and acclaimed besides Kind of Blue.

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