1001 Albums Summary

Standouts: Somebody to Love, Embryonic Journey, Go to Her, Come Back Baby I've always wanted to listen to a Jefferson Airplane album (or their spinoff bands, like Jefferson Starship and Hot Tuna), so this is a fun start to the 1001 albums challenge. The mixing and mastering on this album is excellent; love the use of panning and soundstage. This album captures a variety of quintessentially 60's sounds: folk guitar riffs and spoken lyrics, British invasion arrangements and guitar effects, Beach Boys-esque vocal harmonies, and even blues harmonica — while somehow remaining cohesive. With a sound so unique yet familiar, it's no wonder that Surrealistic Pillow pioneered psychedelic rock and maintains cultural significance almost 60 years after its release.

Standouts: Sir Duke, I Wish, Summer Soft, Isn't She Lovely, Black Man, As Admittedly, I found the first few songs of "Songs in the Key of Life" a bit drab. I wondered if I was too uncultured to understand its genius, if I didn't enjoy Stevie Wonder's music as much as I thought, if the next 2 hours would be largely unmemorable besides iconic tracks like "Sir Duke." I'm glad to report that my first impression was very, very wrong. The rest of the album was mesmerizing. I didn't even care to analyze lyrics or consider their (lack of) thematic cohesiveness. I just enjoyed the sounds and the feelings that followed. Stevie Wonder is a virtuoso of rhythm, melody, arrangement, and composition — all which is readily apparent on hearing "Songs in the Key of Life." Ultimately, it's not only Wonder's musical talent, but also his inventiveness and attention to detail, that makes this album impeccable. I love the wide application of synths: the varied "voices" and their use as melodic and percussive elements. But synths are far from the only standout instrument in this album. In fact, this album's array of lush instrumentation could easily become overwhelming in the wrong hands... but Wonder has the hands of a maestro. He seamlessly mixes acoustic and electronic instruments, crisp and oscillating textures, standard and complex time signatures. Review #2 might be a bit early for a 5-star rating, but I don't know if I'll find many albums more deserving.

This album is the sonic manifestation of psychosis. Some strokes of brilliance, but mostly incoherent chaos. Probably what it feels like to be addicted to hard drugs, which is very interesting conceptually and kind of genius in how that state of mind is captured in music. Ultimately not really my taste, but cool Warhol album cover and spacey/reverby vocal recording.