Jefferson Airplane's first album with vocalist Grace Slick and drummer Spencer Dryden, 1967's Surrealistic Pillow bowed as the first psychedelic-rock breakout from the potent San Francisco scene, climbing to No.3 and boasting two Top 10 singles. By bringing the then-unpolluted counterculture to the attention of the mainstream, the landmark recording eradicated boundaries and opened up creative vistas for a parade of likeminded artists that followed.

Allegedly given its name by Jerry Garcia, who remarked that the music was as surrealistic as a pillow, the Airplane's sophomore effort remains renowned for its inimitable combination of collective symmetry, concise melodic frameworks, and razor-edged assertiveness. Reflecting the atmosphere of the period, the sextet spread the songwriting duties among all the members. Slick and Marty Balin share lead vocal duties. Jorma Kaukonen and Paul Kantner come into their own as guitarists. The family affair even extended to Garcia, who plays on several tracks and by nearly all accounts, served as the record's arranger and spiritual guide. Never again would the Airplane convey so much in such a straightforward fashion.

Surrealistic Pillow folds acid-rock experimentalism into folk-derived constructs with a blend of mysteriousness, assuredness, darkness, beauty, and romanticism that mirrored the very traits Slick possessed. Her authoritative, clarion-call voice leaps out from the explosive, fractal-pulsating smash "Somebody to Love" like a truthful challenge that cannot be ignored. Similarly, Slick's measured deliveries and Alice In Wonderland-inspired lyrics give the bolero-based "White Rabbit" its hallucinogenic power while simultaneously bringing drug references into mainstream culture.