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Released: February 1967

Rating: 4.400 (average of 10 ratings)

Genre: psychedelic rock

Quotable: “a groundbreaking piece of folk-rock-based psychedelia” – Bruce Eder, All Music Guide

Album 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

Sales (in millions):

sales in U.S. only 0.5
sales in U.K. only - estimated --
sales in all of Europe as determined by IFPI – click here to go to their site. --
sales worldwide - estimated 0.5

Peak:

peak on U.S. Billboard album chart 3
peak on U.K. album chart --

Singles/Hit Songs:

  • Somebody to Love (4/1/67) #5 US. Airplay: 2 million
  • White Rabbit (6/24/67) #8 US

Notes: This album has been reissued countless times, but the one to get is the “2003 reissue (on the BMG Heritage label)…including the mono single versions of ‘White Rabbit’ and ‘Somebody to Love,’ along with the related bonus tracks ‘Come Back Baby,’ ‘In the Morning,’ ‘J.P.P. McStep B. Blues,’ and ‘Go to Her,’ which have previously been scattered around various anthologies and other expanded editions…And there's an uncredited ‘hidden’ bonus cut, an instrumental of ‘D.C.B.A. – 25.’” BE

Awards:

Rated one of the top 1000 albums of all time by Dave’s Music Database. Click to learn more. One of Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Albums of All Time

Surrealistic Pillow
Jefferson Airplane
Review:
“The second album by Jefferson Airplane, Surrealistic Pillow was a groundbreaking piece of folk-rock-based psychedelia, and it hit – literally – like a shot heard round the world; where the later efforts from bands like the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and especially, the Charlatans, were initially not too much more than cult successes, Surrealistic Pillow rode the pop charts for most of 1967, soaring into that rarefied Top Five region occupied by the likes of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and so on, to which few American rock acts apart from the Byrds had been able to lay claim since 1964.” BE

“Decades later the album still comes off as strong as any of those artists’ best work. From the Top Ten singles White Rabbit and Somebody to Love to the sublime Embryonic Journey, the sensibilities are fierce, the material manages to be both melodic and complex (and it rocks, too), and the performances, sparked by new member Grace Slick on most of the lead vocals, are inspired, helped along by Jerry Garcia (serving as spiritual and musical advisor and sometimes guitarist).” BE

“Every song is a perfectly cut diamond, too perfect in the eyes of the bandmembers, who felt that following the direction of producer Rick Jarrard and working within three- and four-minute running times, and delivering carefully sung accompaniments and succinct solos, resulted in a record that didn’t represent their real sound. Regardless, they did wonderful things with the music within that framework.” BE

“The songwriting was spread around between Marty Balin, Slick, Paul Kantner, and Jorma Kaukonen, and Slick and Balin (who never had a prettier song than Today, which he’d actually written for Tony Bennett) shared the vocals; the whole album was resplendent in a happy balance of all of these creative elements, before excessive experimentation (musical and chemical) began affecting the band's ability to do a straightforward song. The group never made a better album, and few artists from the era ever did.” BE

Review Source(s):

Last updated February 15, 2010.