Jefferson+airplane

This is a refreshingly straightforward, no-nonsense historical overview of Jefferson Airplane that, while not quite a documentary, sticks (unlike so many similar projects) to what the fans really want to see: complete archive clips of the band at its peak in 1966-1970 (as well as "Embryonic Journey" from their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in the 1990s), linked by interviews with bandmembers…

Its smirky title notwithstanding, The Worst of Jefferson Airplane provides a fine recap of the band's first six albums. Released in 1970 shortly before Marty Balin's initial departure from the band, the album marked not only the end of the decade but, unwittingly, the end of the group's most stable phase in terms of membership. The track selections are evenly divided among the first-generation albums; only the live Bless Its Pointed Little Head is represented by a single entry…

The seminal San Francisco psychedelic band in the heyday of such things, Jefferson Airplane were sassy, political, and generally engaging. The band then morphed into Jefferson Starship, which was a whole other thing, a more polished band aiming at the pop charts. Eventually Jefferson Starship became just Starship, although the sound stayed aimed at the charts. This two-disc set combines the best tracks from all of these incarnations, which is a good thing if one is a fan of all of the approaches here, but not such a good thing if, like many, one prefers one version of the band to the other two.

Jefferson Airplane had the good fortune (or maybe the ill fortune) of arriving on the pop scene at the end of the 1960s when rock was just beginning to flex its political and artistic side, and being based in hippie-central San Francisco, the band went from being a ragged folk-rock group to being an experimental one, and all the shackles were thrown off in the studio, which is probably why, of all the San Francisco groups of the era, they have perhaps the most uneven catalog. This four-disc, 44-track box set collects the group's key sides, from the early hits "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" to the defiantly rebellious "Volunteers" and the graceful "Won't You Try/Saturday Afternoon." When all was said and done, the group's legacy seems pretty much locked into the '60s ethos and doesn't translate all that well into the 21st century, but the hazy nostalgia factor of those times makes this band appear to be more than maybe it actually was. Most of what the Airplane did is here, including six live tracks, so a listen should prove the case one way or the other.

Controversial at the time, delayed because of fights with the record company over lyrical content and the original title (Volunteers of America), Volunteers was a powerful release that neatly closed out and wrapped up the '60s. Here, the Jefferson Airplane presents itself in full revolutionary rhetoric, issuing a call to "tear down the walls" and "get it on together." "We Can Be Together" and "Volunteers" bookend the album, offering musical variations on the same chord progression and lyrical variations on the same theme…