The Jefferson Airplane's recordings are curiously overlooked today; the sound (and some of the lyrical concerns) may seem a bit dated, but the tension between Marty Balin's romantic love songs, Grace Slick's upfront weirdness, Paul Kantner's counter-culture anthems and the incredible musicianship of Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Cassady and Spencer Dryden made for some wonderfully vibrant, creative music. This, however, is not the place to learn your JA. The running time is extremely short and there's only eight songs on offer; even at the price it's not great value. Try finding the Fulton Avenue compilation, or at a pinch The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane (although that one misses quite a few essential items). If you'd rather jump straight in, try to find the box set JA Loves You. All of these are a better introduction to the Airplane's music. I'd give the music five stars and the compilation one; so I've given the package three stars.
This is such a great album by Jefferson Airplane and has many of their greatest hits on it. Makes me think of the good ole days when listening to it.
I actually don't have this CD - but have all of their studio albums and most of their live recordings. Just wanted to note in response to other reviewers that 1) "Volunteers" was anything but "patriotic" - Marty Balin wrote it while sitting in a window of their house at 2400 Fulton St. next to Golden Gate Park and watching all the hippies doing drugs and partying in the street below - in fact the band was sued when it tried to call that album "Volunteers of America" by the (presumably patriotic) organization of the same name; 2) LOVE the "White Rabbit" deconstruction; and 3) yes, yes, try to get 2400 Fulton (tho I think it's out of print?) or JA Loves You. or for starters on the studio albums, of which there were precious few, start with "Surrealistic Pillow" (that's got "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" on it, too - just a great snapshot of the "electric folk" aspect of their music, which is where they started).
