Customer Reviews

Worst of Jefferson Airplane

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are so many re-packagings of Jefferson Airplane/Starship material out these days that any newcomer to their music must feel a little overwhelmed. If it helps, most of these compilations were way after the fact, "Worst of..." was the original "best of," released first on vinyl in the early 70s. I didn't buy it then because I had everything on it on other records (this being a bit before anybody thought to entice fans with "bonus tracks"). To me all the early Airplane albums were essential, and this package was at best, a good intro for the uninitiated.

But now since I haven't replaced every single vinyl LP with the CD version (have some, not all), this collection makes sense. In fact, it makes damn good sense. In terms of providing an overview of the Airplane's most creative period, this 15 track sampling is hard to beat. Two of the best tracks from the neo-folkie, pre-Grace "Jefferson Airplane Takes Off" open the album on a sweetly melancholic note, a little stiff and unformed yet. Then suddenly you're caught up in the aural whoosh of "Somebody to Love," that sharp almost genderless voice coming out of nowhere. Grace Slick makes a ferocious entry, into the song, into the band and into music history.

It scarcely lets up from there. I've often maintained that the great thing about the Airplane is that the sweetly sappy one was the guy (Marty Balin) and the edgy, neurotic one was the, uh, girl (and even in '67, "chick" scarcely applied to Grace Slick). "Worst of..." balances this odd yin and yang nicely. The shortest and most effective of Marty's "Surrealistic Pillow" ballads, "Today" is strategically placed between the two big Slick numbers (and of course, that would be "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit"). "Embryonic Journey," the celebrated acoustic instrumental from "Pillow" segues into Paul Kantner's lyrical "Martha," one of "After Bathing at Baxter's" gentler tracks.

And then we're off into the era of Kantner's ascendency. Kantner, who was in many ways the glue that held the Airplane/Starship together, was also the object of increasing critical abuse as the 60s wore into the 70s. Truth to tell, he did write a few clunkers in his day, but what's represented here is Kantner at his visionary best. The joyous "Pooneil" is childlike without being mawkish, and "Crown of Creation" made just the right political statement for late '68 (more mournful than didactic, actually, which may be why it holds up today--[other] concerns aside). Then Grace does a brooding slow tempo number ("Lather"), and Marty demonstrates his ability to rock out with the bouncy live version of "Plastic Fantastic Lover." Every band member gets his or her chance to shine, including guitarist Jorma Kaukonen's stately "Good Shepherd," which is lovely, a bit rootsy and prefigures his Hot Tuna and solo work nicely.

And it ends with "We Can Be Together" AND "Volunteers"--two songs that were meant to be played back to back (and often were in concert). If that doesn't close the record on a high note, and if you're not spazz-dancing in the aisles or in your living room by that point, well, I'll eat my bandana.

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.

This CD was an experience! For those who are not familiar with Jefferson Airplane with the exception of "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit", this is the album to get yourself acquainted with the group.

The CD starts off wonderfully with "It's No Secret", a great love song in rock format. "Blues From an Airplane" is excellent, also. Then "Somebody to Love" gives us the first familiar tune, which is still timeless. "Today" was a break from the rock for a slow, sensitive love song. It proves that J.A. has quite a wide range of talents. From there, "White Rabbit" gives us the second familiar Airplane tune to all.

Some other highlights of this CD are "Lather", which sounds like an Irish folk song at times, quite an enjoyable tune. "Good Shepherd" has some great riffs in the beginning, along with some insightful lyrics. "We Can Be Together" starts off well, but goes just a little too long. The end comes with "Volunteers", quite the anti-Vietnam tune. For a different kind of track, try "Chushingura", which is not a song, but rather a psychedelic set of sounds. Listening to this track while inebriated might be an experience!

This CD is recommended highly as a Best Of Jefferson Airplane, much more than the actual Best Of... CD, which was hard to listen to at times.

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!

Jefferson Airplane was the greatest of the late sixties San Francisco bands, of which there were many (hold your horses and read on, Dead fans). They developed over their brief career a deliberately loose, almost ramshackle sound that was integral to their appeal. It was emblematic of the "San Francisco sound" that they helped create, but no other band of that time and place produced such energetic unpredictability with such tight musicianship, or with such a strong sense of melody, harmony and drama. Sure, the Grateful Dead emerged from the same scene and mastered that tight looseness too, but it took them longer to get good at it, and they never came close to the Airplane on intra-band vocal interplay. The Dead, of course, established a much greater legacy over three decades, but if we're talking San Francisco bands of the Airplane's creative era (roughly 1966-1970), then the Airplane is the champ. Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady were among the very best lead guitar-bass combinations in the rock era (comparable to the fully mature Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh), and no other female rock singer ever equaled Grace Slick. She's in a league of her own, vocally, and she composed some of the most strikingly original songs of the rock era (think White Rabbit, Lather, Greasy Heart, Eskimo Blue Day, Mexico).

This collection includes a sampling of some the Airplane's best songs from their first five (and only consequential) studio albums, so of course it rates 5 stars. The only problem with it is that it's just not enough. There was so much great material they created, and too little of it is here. I recommend "2400 Fulton Street - An Anthology" as a much more comprehensive collection (2 CDs) of their best material. It lacks the "remastering" of this updated CD, but I'm not sure how consequential that is. Or you can eliminate all doubt by buying the remastered albums one by one. But if you're looking for about 45 minutes of great Airplane, you can't do better than this.

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 not one to get if you live next door to a hospital or an old folks' home. Somehow, whenever I put on the album (yes, kiddies, in vinyl), somehow the volume on my stereo cranks itself up. The Worst of covers selections from all of the Airplane's albums before they became Jefferson Starship. It contains the clasics Somebody to Love and White Rabbit from the Summer of Love as well as the anthem - Volunteers. This was Psychadelia at its best. I can't really remember hearing these tunes for the first time. As they say, if you remember the 60s you weren't there.... But they sure still sound good today. Get this collection and expand your horizons!

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.

The Worst of Jefferson Airplane is a great place to start if you're new to Airplane. If you like what you hear then you should definitely pick up the group's '67 - '69 albums. The Airplane features three great songwriters, three great vocalists and six great musicians. Their music is sometimes rocking, sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes beautiful, sometimes trippy, sometimes somber, always great.

The Worst of Jefferson Airplane is forty-six minutes and twenty-three seconds long and was released in November, 1970. The Worst of Jefferson Airplane reached #12 U.S. Billboard 200 Album Chart and went Platinum. This was Jefferson Airplane's first compilation album. The band was going trough inner and personal conflict at the time and Grace Slick was pregnant at the time so RCA decided to put out a compilation album. Also this would be the last album with then current line up. The Worst of Jefferson Airplane has only five charted songs; with two only reaching the top ten. Thia is great music to listen and I give the cassette an A+.

Program 1

It's No Secret
Somebody To Love
#5 U.S. Billboard Pop Singles
Today
Crown of Creation
#64 U.S. Billboard Pop Singles
Plastic Fantastic Lover
B Side to Somebody To Love
Martha
The Ballad of You & Me & Pooneil
#42 U.S. Billboard Pop Singles

Program 2

White Rabbit
#8 U.S. Billboard Pop Singles
Embryonic Journey
We Can Be Together
B Side to Volunteers
Chushingura
Blues from an Airplane
Lather
Good Shepherd
Volunteers
#65 U.S. Billboard Pop Singles