471. Jefferson Airplane, "Surrealistic Pillow"

 


Long, long before the Jefferson Airplane some how mutated into just "Starship" and produced the widely-reviled "We Built this City," they produced this actually rather enjoyable album with at least two certifiably incredible rock songs, "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love."  In fact, I will put up that moment in "Somebody to Love" when Grace Slick gets to the middle of the first line of the verse ("When the truth is found...") and there's that big B -> E chord change against almost any moment in rock.  It's huge.  And her vocals on "White Rabbit" are absolutely electric.  Man, what a voice.

Like most albums released in the late 60's, there are some duds here too.  "My Best Friend" has a real Up With People vibe and "3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds" sounds like generic hippy music and not in a great way.  But overall a solid album!

One crazy Grace Slick story longtime Bay Areans may remember is when her house in Mill Valley burned down and a couple of firefighters got in trouble for stealing her shit from the the smoking rubble! Damn, that is cold.  

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