Jefferson Airplane
Surrealistic Pillow - RCA 1967
Tracks: 1. She Has Funny Cars / 2. Somebody to Love / 3. My Best Friend / 4. Today / 5. Comin' Back to Me / 6. 3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds / 7. D.C.B.A. -25 / 8. How Do You Feel / 9. Embryonic Journey / 10. White Rabbit / 11. Plastic Fantastic Lover / 12. In the Morning [*] / 13. J.P.P. McStep B. Blues [*] / 14. Go to Her [Version Two][*] / 15. Come Back Baby [*] / 16. Somebody to Love [Single][*] / 17. White Rabbit [Single][*]
Comments:
"Surrealistic Pillow" was Jefferson Airplane's second album, and the first to feature Grace Slick. Slick brought to the band two outstanding songs from her earlier carreer, "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit!". These two songs along with "My Best Friend", "DCBA-25", "How Do You Feel" and "Plastic Fantastic Lover" make it the most consistent J.A. album, and in my opinion the one that has aged the best.
Some later J.A. albums like "Volunteers" somehow suffer from sounding like the band was taking themselves too seriously at the time. Most songs are catchy pop/rock tunes; still with room for musical experiments, indicating that this was a band that did not want to stay within the limited frame of doing 2-3 minute pop songs.
It's one of the few J.A. albums ( if not the only one ) where all tracks are still worthwhile listening to here almost 4 decades later.
The songs are written by all band-members (except Cassidy) in various combinations with lead singer Marty Balin as the main contributor.
Among the fine bonus tracks Skip Spece's "J.P.P. McStep B. Blues" was the biggest positive surprise for me; like "My Best Friend" almost folk-music.
Back to Band pages
