What About Me
View on Discogs
View on Wikipedia
Album Summary
What About Me stands as Quicksilver Messenger Service's fifth studio album, dropped in September 1970 on the storied Capitol Records label — and baby, this record tells the story of a band in beautiful, restless motion. Produced by David Rubinson alongside the band themselves, these sessions caught the San Francisco psychedelic pioneers at a genuine crossroads, feeling their way through a shifting musical landscape with the kind of seasoned craftsmanship that only comes from years of living on that cutting edge. The recording reflects a group that had earned their stripes in the Haight-Ashbury fire and were now reaching for something a little more sculpted, a little more intentional — without ever losing that West Coast soul that made them something special in the first place.
Reception
- What About Me climbed to number 32 on the Billboard 200, a respectable showing that nonetheless signaled the gradual commercial drift the band was navigating in the post-psychedelic marketplace.
- Critical reception at the time was a mixed bag — reviewers tipped their hats to the undeniable musicianship on display while quietly mourning the wilder, more untamed spirit of the band's earlier work.
- The album did not produce a breakout single that crossed over to mainstream radio in a significant or lasting way.
Significance
- What About Me is a genuine artifact of that pivotal 1970 moment when the San Francisco psychedelic dream was evolving — sometimes gracefully, sometimes painfully — into harder, more structured rock forms, and Quicksilver was right there in the thick of that transformation.
- The album showcases the band leaning into tighter, more composed song arrangements across tracks like 'Subway' and 'Spindrifter,' a marked departure from the sprawling improvisational odysseys that had defined their live reputation and earlier recordings.
- As a document of Quicksilver Messenger Service's artistic maturation, What About Me captures a band straddling two eras — the idealism of late-1960s psychedelia and the grittier, more grounded rock sensibility that would come to define the early 1970s.
Tracklist
-
A1 What About Me 118
6:41
-
A2 Local Color 107
2:58
-
A3 Baby Baby 90
4:37
-
A4 Won't Kill Me 101
2:29
-
A5 Long Haired Lady 93
5:47
-
B1 Subway 96
4:25
-
B2 Spindrifter 71
4:32
-
B3 Good Old Rock And Roll 87
2:30
-
B4 All In My Mind 132
3:40
-
B5 Call On Me 95
7:30
Artist Details
Quicksilver Messenger Service was one of the crown jewels of the San Francisco psychedelic rock scene, forming in 1965 right there in the Bay Area alongside fellow travelers like Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, weaving together blues, folk, and long, exploratory guitar jams that could take a listener on a journey halfway to the cosmos and back. Built around the searing, fluid guitar work of John Cipollina and Gary Duncan, they became a cornerstone of the Haight-Ashbury counterculture movement, with their 1969 album Happy Trails capturing that live, free-flowing spirit better than almost anything else from that era. Though they never quite broke through to the mainstream fame of some of their contemporaries, the true heads always knew that Quicksilver was the real deal — a band that embodied the restless, searching soul of the late sixties like few others could.
