Aoxomoxoa is the third studio album by the Grateful Dead.<ref>[http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=4007670 "Grateful Dead – Aoxomoxoa Images"], Discogs. Retrieved February 7, 2015.</ref> It was one of the first rock albums to be recorded using 16-track technology. The title is a meaningless palindrome, usually pronounced .Rolling Stone, upon reviewing the album, mentioned that "no other music sustains a lifestyle so delicate and loving and lifelike". The album was certified gold by the RIAA on May 13, 1997. In 1991 Rolling Stone selected Aoxomoxoa as having the eighth best album cover of all time. It was voted number 674 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000). Background and development The album was a series of firsts for the band. It is the first album the band recorded entirely in or near their original hometown of San Francisco (at Pacific Recording Studio in nearby San Mateo, and at the similarly named Pacific High Recording Studio in San Francisco proper). It is the only studio release to include pianist Tom Constanten as an official member (he had contributed to the previous album and played live with the band from November 1968 to January 1970). It was also the first to have lyricist Robert Hunter as a full-time contributor to the band, thus cementing the Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter songwriting partnership that endured for the rest of the band's existence. It was also the first time the band would showcase acoustic arrangements (as on "Mountains of the Moon", "Rosemary", and "Dupree's Diamond Blues"), which would become the focus of the next two studio albums. Some of the songs on Aoxomoxoa were played live briefly and then dropped. Only "China Cat Sunflower" became a set staple through the band's career, with "Dupree's Diamond Blues" somewhat less so. "St. Stephen" was played until 1971, revived in 1976 and 1977 and played a handful of times after that. Likewise, "Cosmic Charlie" was played a few times again in 1976. Recording The album was recorded twice. The initial version, with the working title Earthquake Country (a Bay Area reference), was abandoned when Ampex manufactured and released the first 16-track multitrack recording machine (model number MM-1000). Offering 16 discrete tracks for recording and playback, it doubled the number of tracks that had been available when they recorded Anthem of the Sun, the previous year. Consequently, the band spent eight months in the studio, off-and-on, not only recording