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Surrealistic Pillow

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Jefferson Airplane

 
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Surrealistic Pillow
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Avg: 4.0 (199 ratings)

Four decades later, still the very model of classic psychedelic rock

  • We Say...

    Review by Michaelangelo Matos

    They may have turned into everything wrong with the rich-hippie ethos even before evolving into various spacecraft, but when Jefferson Airplane stepped into the greater public eye with this album, they became the ultimate draw for kids discovering the San Francisco acid-rock ethos — and for good reason. More than four decades after it was waxed, Surrealistic Pillow still carries the immediacy of its times: it sounds even now like a new thing coming around the corner, spiky folk-rock juiced by propulsive interplay, both instrumental and vocal, an unstinting eye for adventure, and an almost offhanded anti-authoritarian sensibility that the group itself eventually started taking too seriously. It's the very model of classic psychedelic rock.

    You could remove the two iconic hit singles from Surrealistic Pillow and still have a first-rate album (albeit a short one). "She Has Funny Cars" opens things with an ominous touch, Grace Slick gliding coolly over and then in passionate tandem with Marty Balin while his bass guides us into the dark. Balin and Paul Kantner co-wrote the gentle "Today," a West Coast match for the Velvet Underground's "I'll Be Your Mirror." "How Do You Feel" is acid-folk with frost at the edges. Still, those hits tower for a reason: "Somebody to Love" will endure as long as free love remains a fantasy, but "White Rabbit" remains the Airplane's masterpiece: all build, all anticipation, the Bolero beat opening the scene before the abrupt crescendo rises and cuts.

  • They Say...

    Review by Bruce Eder, All Music Guide

    Until the release of this disc in the summer of 2003, the CD history of Surrealistic Pillow had been a study in confusion and frustration. The original 1980s CD was an abomination, the mid-'90s high-priced audiophile version an improvement (offering both the stereo and mono mixes of the album), the 2000 European reissue a slight improvement over that, and the 2001 remastering a sharper and louder version of the stereo/mono mixes. And then came this 2003 remastering, which skips the mono mixed version of the album but offers superior fidelity on the stereo mix, with better balance and a more solid center (especially for the voices) between the two stereo channels than any prior version. It's still not perfect, betraying some slight distortion, but it hits this listener as at least the equal of the 2001 version, with the added bonus of a quartet of chronologically related single sides: the superb Jorma Kaukonen-authored slow blues "In the Morning" (worth the price of the new disc), featuring John Hammond, (allegedly) Jerry Garcia, and future Steppenwolf keyboard wizard Goldy McJohn; founding member Skip Spence's more folky and spirited "J.P.P. McStep B. Blues" (which would have been a great B-side, but lay in the vaults until 1974's Early Flight); the slashing, guitar-driven rocker "Go to Her" in its harder, more developed second version -- the Paul Kantner co-authored song had been in the band's repertoire from the beginning, and gets its more powerful of two treatments here, with a killer solo verse by Grace Slick and great ensemble singing; and Kaukonen's searing psychedelic rearrangement of Lightnin' Hopkins' "Come Back Baby," a late-winter 1967 track sandwiched midway between this album and the sessions for After Bathing at Baxter's. Also included are the mono single mixes of "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit," which aren't all that special, though they are different from the stereo album mixes. There is also a hidden bonus track appended, after an extended pause, to the latter song -- an instrumental track to Paul Kantner's "D.C.B.A. - 25," included for no apparent reason except to throw listeners a bone from the original multi-track studio tapes. The overall effect is to make Kaukonen stand out a bit more in center stage and, coupled with the very thorough annotation, makes the 2003 version an absolutely essential acquisition.

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