Consumer Guide Album

Jefferson Airplane: The Essential Jefferson Airplane [RCA/Legacy, 2005]
Jefferson Airplane was a San Francisco folk-rock band that in its hit-making phase comprised two clandestinely showbiz vocalists (Grace Slick and Marty Balin), a snazzy enough lead guitarist who never did anything else with his life (Paul Kantner), a clunky drummer on a scene rife with them, and Hot Tuna. Rock and Roll Hall of Famers still busy symbolizing the Summer of Love almost four decades later, they released this two-CD compilation in honor of the BMG-Sony merger, and it's not bad. The Airplane wrote some good tunes even if they oversang and overarranged them. And while they could get pretty ridiculous--anyone for "Have You Seen the Saucers?"--they adapted better than many competing ex-folkies to the psychedelic space jam that was the Haight-Ashbury ballrooms' enduring footnote to musical history. [Blender: 3]