JEFFERSON AIRPLANE - SURREALISTIC PILLOW Price: €14.99 Format: Compact Disc Availability: Immediate Dispatch

From the opening, hard-edged chords of "She Has Funny Cars", it is apparent that SURREALISTIC PILLOW, Jefferson Airplane's sophomore effort, is a far more spiky beast than the band's debut. The public must have felt that as well--the album became not only San Francisco's soundtrack to the Summer Of Love, but all of America's. It spawned two Top-10 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 percussionist Spencer Dryden could make the music shake with heretofore unseen 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.