Artist: JEFFERSON AIRPLANE
Album: SURREALISTIC PILLOW REMASTERED (CD)

Year: 1967/ 2003
Media type: CD

From the opening, hard-edged chords of "She Has Funny Cars," it's apparent that SURREALISTIC PILLOW, Jefferson Airplane's sophomore effort, is a far more spiky beast than the band's debut. It became not only San Francisco's soundtrack to the Summer Of Love, but all of America's. It spawned two Top Ten classics ("Somebody To Love" and "White Rabbit") and established the Airplane as one of the main pop voices of the cultural revolution.

Some of the newfound dynamism can be attributed to personnel changes. Singer-keyboardist Grace Slick, who joined the Airplane following a stint in the mildly successful Great Society, had a unique artistic gleam her predecessor, Signe Anderson, never possessed--both of the aforementioned hits were songs she'd written for her former band. And new drummer Spencer Dryden could make the music shake with heretofore-unheard polyrhythms, or walk a straight line with militaristic precision. SURREALISTIC PILLOW's other strengths lay in the band's boldly diverse sound. Effortlessly gliding from twisted Motown (the electrified "3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds"), to Dylanesque rock (Balin's "Plastic Fantastic Lover") to an acoustic, psychedelic bluegrass instrumental (Kaukonen's "Embryonic Journey"), the Airplane proved themselves able to at once interpret the cultural tide and make it radio-friendly.

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 singl

Originally released in 1967, this RCA/BMG Heritage remastered reissue adds 6 bonus tracks 'In The Morning', 'J.P.P. Me Stop B. Blues', 'Go To Her', 'Come Back Baby', 'Somebody To Love' (mono single version) & 'White Rabbit' (mono single version). This groundbreaking piece of folk-rock-based psychedelia includes a 12-page booklet with extensive liner notes, detailed track listing & rare photos. Voted one of Rolling Stone's Essential 200 albums. 2003.

TRACKLIST:

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 Y ou 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 - (mono, single version)
17. White Rabbit - (mono, single version)