Disco de Jefferson Airplane: “Worst of Jefferson Airplane”

I won't pretend to be an expert on Jefferson Airplane, undeniably one of the seminal musical groups and influences of the 1960s. I bought this album many years ago in order to get two fantastic songs: Somebody to Love and White Rabbit. At the time, Jefferson Airplane meant Grace Slick to me, so this compilation album of songs from the group's first six album releases provided me with quite a lesson in musical history. It also provided me with a number of great songs that display the true talent and depth of the group's music. I haven't run out to begin collecting the original albums themselves as of yet, but The Worst of Jefferson Airplane is certainly no stranger to my CD player still today.

The first two tracks, It's No Secret and Blues From an Airplane, are from the group's first album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off (September 1966). Kantner and Balin of course co-founded the group, but Grace Slick was not even yet a member, so these two songs have a different feel to them than the succeeding tracks. Musical maturity was achieved in remarkably short order by February 1967, which saw the release of the album Surrealistic Pillow. This album features two standouts tracks that will be played on radio stations from now until the end of time: the edgy, hard-driving Somebody to Love and the psychedelic masterpiece White Rabbit. Grace Slick made an instant splash with these two timeless tracks (the second of which she wrote herself), but this album showed that Jefferson Airplane was far more talented and diverse than its new female vocalist. The song Today, a Balin-Kantner creation, is really quite a beautiful love song that retains a vibrant 1960s spirit, while Embryonic Journey is a short but rich instrumental that further complements the group's heavier rocking strengths. A few months after the end of the Summer of Love, in December 1967, Jefferson Airplane released the album After Bathing at Baxter's. Two somewhat mellow pieces from the pen of Kantner, Martha and The Ballad of You & Me & Pooneil, are included for our musical enjoyment here.

Crown of Creation was released in September 1968. The title track is perhaps more a product of its time than most Jefferson Airplane tracks because I just can't really connect with this song. The short instrumental Crushingura also remains a mystery to me personally. Then there is Lather, featuring Grace Slick on lead vocals. I love Lather; it seems to betoken the start of the inevitable transition of the young generation of the 1960s to the future, encapsulated most brilliantly in the lines wherein Lather, on his 30th birthday, asks "Is it true that I'm no longer young?" and an almost mournful Slick laments that "I should have told him no, you're not old." On the day I turned 30, I set aside a special moment to listen to this song in an almost reverential way. Of course, the band was by no means going soft, as proven on Plastic Fantastic Lover, the sole track included here from the February 1969 live album Bless Its Pointed Little Head. The passage of time does seem to bear influence on the sixth album sampled on this collection. From November 1969's Volunteers, we are treated to what can be equated to a slow gospel song in Good Shepherd. We Can Be Together, the longest song on the album by far, seems to mark a change in vision on the part of the 60s generation looking the 1970s right in the eye; proud of what they have done, they make the point that everyone should stop fighting and come together to make the world a better place. No one who hears the track Volunteers can doubt their determination to pursue this goal.

All in all, The Worst of Jefferson Airplane makes for an excellent introduction to one of the 1960's most important musical groups. I cannot say whether it truly represents the ideas and sounds from the group's formative years because I am not acquainted with the entire scope of their work at the time, but I do know that this is a compilation album that not only harnesses some great music from a golden era in rock and roll, it also seems to convey at least a little bit of the optimism and ideals of the generation of young people who came of age during that dramatic era in American history.

The Worst Of The Jefferson Airplane has finally been given the digital overhaul. Well, for one the `sonics' are much more

in place and the material defintely jumps out at you as opposed to the earlier RCA CD version. One thing of an important note

is the expanded art work gracing this new remastered CD and the new updated additional liner notes that reflect on each JA

album these 15 tunes are culled from. All in all I feel pretty much satisfied with this new version and I think the fans will be

cool with it also. "Plastic Fantastic Lover," "White Rabbit," "Volunteers," & "Somebody To Love" are classics that will be in

spirit forever and on Classic Rock radio still in the years to come and you can finally hear them in primo form here on this CD.

One bit of info for the younger fans just becoming aware of this band either through passed down albums from friends or

family members...If you really want a good dose of the band (the first band to get signed to a record deal from the `60s San

Francisco Rock scene) well this 15 tune collection is defintely the one to `get on board' with!

I've listened to this CD (as an album and a cassette) probably more than 1,000 times. Besides the "hits", "Blues from an Airplane", "Today", "We Can Be Together" are classics. I rank this album with Abbey Road, Are You Experienced?, Dark Side of the Moon, etc. The layering of acoustic and electric guitars with super harmonies give me chills time after time - this is what ears and rock music are for.

This is a compilation that actually sounds like an album instead of a bunch of singles. I knew I liked the Airplane from what I had heard from the radio and friends and bought this CD a few years ago. Since then I've been slowly amassing the six albums that formed the basis for this one, and now I've got them, and they're all gems. But my interest wouldn't have been piqued to get them without this compilation. What more can you want from a Best-Of disc, even one with a cheeky title? Now I've just got to sell my version of WORST OF so that someone else can make the same journey.

It had been a long time since I heard this album. Always makes me feel great, and brings back some incredible memories!