The Best Band of The Psycedelic Era.
5
By R.ScottM
Grace Slick and Marty Balin had the best voices of their time or todays. Grace had power and a sense of when and how to use it, and Marty Balin: sang Miracles,maybe the greatest song ever... what more can you say? It may be one of the 10 best songs ever recorded. The Airplane, not Starship, got back together several years ago, and I saw them in St. Louis at the Fox Theater. I took my teenage son, who is now 34, who plays guitar, well, and has been lead singer with several bands that were well received in St. Louis. He was blown away by the band and by Grace and Marty. Grace and Marty were as good as ever and the rest of the band, including Paul Kantner were rockin'. Back to this album, I was in the Air Force when the album came out and I immediately bought it and played it over and over in a barracks with no walls, and no one ever complained. I played it loud! It is as good a compilation as was ever recorded! It holds up, and the number of great songs on it is unbelievable!
Wow, "First Reviewer", huh?
5
By rsmith3813
Kind of a shame really; Jefferson Airplane is probably one of my favorite bands that features Grace Slick, and this is probably one of, if not the, best Jefferson Airplane compilations available.
What sets this compilation apart from others like it, such as 'The Worst of Jefferson Airplane', is the fact that is searches deep into the band's history and salvages for its absolute best from all of its history. As you would expect, most of the songs on the album are from 'Surrealistic Pillow', Jefferson Airplane's most defining album, from the super-hits "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit" to a live version of the lesser-known "3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds." It also features some of the best lesser-known singles and album tracks in the the band's history, such as the non-album single "Mexico" and the forgotten "Have You Seen the Saucers?"
It lacks "Today", one of the best songs on 'Surrealistic Pillow', and "Bringing Me Down", an essential single from 'Takes Off', but with those two songs in addition to these "essential" songs, and you have pretty much everything a casual hardcore fan of Jefferson Airplane needs. Needless to say, this is one of the few "Essential" compilations that actually lives up to its name.
