No. 370: Volunteers

Band: Jefferson Airplane
Album: Volunteers
Why Rolling Stone gets it right: One of the most ardently ant-war records, "Volunteers" was Jefferson Airplane's only other album of note. It helped reinforced the Woodstock generation's ideology while still keeping their collective interest.
Why Rolling Stone gets it wrong: Jefferson Airplane stinks and this type of folk rock kind of stinks.
Best song: The band's version of "Wooden Ships" isn't bad.
Worst song: "Turn My Life Down" kind of stinks.
Is it awesome?: Nah.

It's hard to decide how much the anti-war movement was influenced by the music surrounding it or if it was vice versa. The large scale of the movement certainly was the place that bands like Jefferson Airplane took their influence from. But, how much was the anti-war movement spread through the airwaves and hifis in the way of bands like the Airplane?

Certainly, punk rock in the '80s was both influenced by and actually influenced the punk underground of that decade. I'd say that the kids were more important in the implementation of said movement, while the bands were much more just angry. While they were important, Black Flag, Minor Threat were more looks at teenage angst than overarching movement people like Jefferson Airplane. It's an odd thought, though. Were people getting charged about the anti-war movement because of Jefferson Airplane? Who knows...

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Nevertheless, the album isn't very good. Grace Slick's voice loses its novelty after a couple of songs. The first song, "We Can Be Together," was one of the first popular songs to use the word "fuck" in it and it was played on TV once, uncensored on The Dick Cavett Show on August 19, 1969, and the performance is recorded the first and only time the word "fuck" has been recorded on television. The title track is a great song and one of the ones played at Woodstock.

Overall, it's not a particular great album, just more Boomer love for a decent band with a few OK songs.

No. 146: Surrealistic Pillow

Band: Jefferson Airplane
Album: Surrealistic Pillow
Why Rolling Stone gets it right: The Airplane were one of the preeminent bands of the "Summer Of Love" largely because of this album. The two songs you probably know from the record -- "Somebody To Love" and "White Rabbit" -- have been played countless times on the various 60s retrospective TV specials.
Why Rolling Stone gets it wrong: Outside of a two-ish year period, the Airplane mean nothing to no one.
Best song: Well, duh. The two songs you know.
Worst song: "3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds" isn't very good.
Is it awesome?: I don't think so.



The Jefferson Airplane went through two big changes between the band's first and second albums. The more minor change was the replacement of original drummer Skip Spence by Spencer Dryden. Spence -- known as a songwriter -- only had a hand in writing three songs from the band's debut and barely helped create the band's sound.

The larger change, of course, was the replacement of the band's female singer. The band's first singer, Signe Toly Anderson, left the band soon after Spence did, so the band poached Grace Slick from a band called The Great Society. Slick, a college graduate and former model, was just about what the band needed; A smart, powerful, sexy voice for the "Summer of Love."

And thus came the Jefferson Airplane (and, to some extent, Jefferson Starship) we've come to know. And "Surrealistic Pillow" is the Jefferson Airplane we all know. Save for "Volunteers," every song you know by the Airplane is on here. Of course, Slick's two great songs are here. "Embryonic Journey," Jorma Kaukonen's acoustic guitar piece featured on the final episode of "Friends," is on here (thank you, Wikipedia!). "Today," the band's hippie ballad, is here. "She Has Funny Cars," a bluesy riff about conformity and hypocrisy, is on here.

Listening to it again, I'm just not totally impressed. Like Moby Grape, I think the Airplane is a band buoyed as much by boomers' memories as anything. It's as not as though "Surrealistic Pillow" doesn't deserve to be on this list; It does. It's probably a 400-500 type album. But, at 146? I don't think so.