Search - Jefferson Airplane :: Gold Collection

All these reviews csoncern an different JA product

Gregory Starr | 03/05/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Somebody screwed up. The discs to be reviewed are the Gold Collection, another compiliation of JA sixties songs though covering the same ground as 5 or 6 other compilations.



All of the reviews are about the JA studio reunion album from 1989. The reviewers are also all quite wrong about it. The album is good."

Absurdly under-rated classic

fungo | Toronto, ON CA | 12/08/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Why is it, when bands do get together after a long hiatus, fans automatically expect them to pick up not just where they left off, but smack in the middle of whatever was supposed to have been their peak period? Ridiculous!



Had JA actually stayed together for the intervening seventeen-odd years, instead of breaking up, THIS album is what they would have sounded like. As the eponymous title clearly implies, this IS "Jefferson Airplane" - the Airplane of 1989, NOT 1969. That other Airplane was gone for good, as early as 1970. So what? The greatest bands are the ones that grow, progress, transform. And in this (alas, final) transformation, JA emerged as a the gleaming, truly unified studio band that they'd never been before.



And delivered just one gorgeous album, crackling with one superb song after another. "Planes"... "Solidarity"... "Madeleine Street"... excellent compositions, delivered by musicians not just at the height of their powers, but armed with a hard-won maturity. The centerpiece, of course, is the beautifully nostalgic "Summer of Love," in itself a massive hint that THAT was THEN - a time that lived on, indeed, but only in memory. It's not that Airplane COULDN'T have delivered a "Crown of Creation II" meltdown in 1989 - it's that they had other things to say, more appropriate to that time.



"Surrealistic Pillow" and "Jefferson Airplane" are like bookends to the career of one of the greatest of all rock bands. Almost opposite, yet equally brilliant in their own separate ways. This may be the Airplane coming in for a landing, but it's a perfect three-point touchdown at a beautiful destination."

Horrid

John S. Guttmann | Bethesda, Md USA | 07/02/2010

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I am a big fan of the Airplane. All I can say is that this album was a major disappointment in 1989. Listening to it again now, it sounds even worse to my ears. It is horrid. I never liked Starship after the first album or two but amazingly, pretty much anything that band did tops this one. The live shows were good but they should have left it at that."