Jefferson Airplane Loves You [Box set]

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
It's hard to remember in light of the monstrosities that were the various incarnations of Starship, but there was a period during the late '60s when the Jefferson Airplane was one of American rock's finest groups. Indeed, no one, including San Francisco fellow travelers the Grateful Dead, better captured the psychedelic hippie-dippy revolutionary spirit of the day. This three-CD box set presents all the material from those glory days. Unfortunately, even though the band made great records, it wasn't always the best live group of the era, which is why many of the 22 previously unreleased performances found here are disappointing. These live versions and alternate takes often pale beside the familiar versions; "Volunteers," "Plastic Fantastic Lover," and "It's No Secret" are three of the worst offenders. Loves You is great for completists, but others are advised to check out The Worst of the Jefferson Airplane or the original albums for the "real" hit versions of some of this stuff. --Bill Holdship

Album Details
Triple Box of all the Hits and More.

Tracks:

I Specialize In Love
Go To Her
Bringing Me Down
Let Me In
Chauffer Blues
Great Society: Free Advice
Somebody To Love
Today
Embryonic Journey
White Rabbit
Come Back Baby
Other Side Of This Life
Runnin' 'Round This World
She Has Funny Cars
High Flyin' Bird
Tobacco Road
Let's Get Together
White Rabbit
Comin' Back To Me
Won't You Try/Saturday Afternoon

Tracks:

The Ballad Of You And Me And Pooneil
Things Are Better In The East
Watch Her Ride
Two Heads
Martha
Don't Let Me Down
Crown Of Creation
Lather
In Time
House At Pooneil Corners
Ribump Ba Bap Dum Dum
Would You Like A Snack?
3/5 Mile In 10 Seconds
It's No Secret
Plastic Fantastic Lover
Uncle Sam Blues
Wooden Ships
Volunteers

Tracks:

We Can Be Together
Turn My Life Down
Good Shepherd
Hey Fredrick
Emergency
When The Earth Moves Again
Pretty As You Feel
Law Man
Feel So Good
Twilight Double Leader
Aerie (Gang Of Eagles)
Trial By Fire
Dress Rap/You Wear Your Dress Too Short

Amazon.com

It's hard to remember in light of the monstrosities that were the various incarnations of Starship, but there was a period during the late '60s when the Jefferson Airplane was one of American rock's finest groups. Indeed, no one, including San Francisco fellow travelers the Grateful Dead, better captured the psychedelic hippie-dippy revolutionary spirit of the day. This three-CD box set presents all the material from those glory days. Unfortunately, even though the band made great records, it wasn't always the best live group of the era, which is why many of the 22 previously unreleased performances found here are disappointing. These live versions and alternate takes often pale beside the familiar versions; "Volunteers," "Plastic Fantastic Lover," and "It's No Secret" are three of the worst offenders. Loves You is great for completists, but others are advised to check out The Worst of the Jefferson Airplane or the original albums for the "real" hit versions of some of this stuff. --Bill Holdship

Album Details

Triple Box of all the Hits and More.

Customer Reviews:

Worth every penny especially for the different recordings........2006-07-20

I bought this box set not exactly expecting much since I already own every JA album as well as numberous "greatest hits" albums and compilations. THIS SET ROCKS! Especially interesting to me are the completely different recordings made just for the quadraphonic edition of Volunteers. These are NOT remixes of the originals and provide a whole new feel to the songs. Yes, they were remixed from the quad recordings, but are totally different takes. I actually prefer JA LOVES YOU to 2400 Fulton Street and consider it one of the gems of my entire collection.

Sixties Psychedelia & Songsmithery.......2006-07-06

If you are looking for a representative, portable overview of Jefferson Airplane, this collection ain't it. Buy the remastered "Essential Jefferson Airplane" collection instead or even the sonically inferior "2400 Fulton Street". If you already know the band well, this is for you. It's crammed full of sloppy excesses, historical snippets & rarities - like "I Specialize in Love," "Go To Her," "Runnin' Round This World," the elongated feedbacky live "Ballad of You & Me & Pooneil." I have their full catalog on vinyl, cassette, CDs. But when I want to settle in for an afternoon of San Francisco psychedelia, I choose this collection to relive the many times I saw them live in my youth. Back in the day, the Airplane stood alone - inventive improvisational jams that lasted just long enough (Kaukonen, Cassady, Dryden)and stellar other-worldly harmonies (Balin, Kantner, Slick.) Grace Slick was the original rrrriot grrrl. Women vocalists are all in her debt. No victimized "my man done left me" BS for her!

Jefferson Airplane - 'Jefferson Airplane Loves You' (RCA) 3-CD.......2006-06-02

An absolute must-have 3-CD box set that covers the Airplane's period before they had become Jefferson Starship.Total of 51 tracks that EVEN the 'deep album cuts' that I vaguely happen to remember is just as good if not better than the more familiar.Face it,so few bands can actually match up to these San Francisco psychedelic merchants.Tunes that I enjoyed more than I had expected were "Great Society","White Rabbit","Tobacco Road","Let's Get Together","Crown Of Creation","3/5 Mile In 10 Seconds","Volunteers","We Can Be Together","When The Earth Moves Again" and JUST too many to list here.Comes with an oblong full color booklet.Most highly recommended.

Learning experience for this '80s kid.......2004-03-04

Growing up in the 80s, my exposure to this group was mostly in the forms of Jefferson Starship and Starship, producers of some of the cheesiest music ever to hit my eardrums. I totally loathed their soft-rock pop songs growing up. "Built this city on rock and roll" my ass!

One day I'm watching VH-1 and on comes Behind the Music: Jefferson Airplane. I was shocked to hear about all the good acid rock they produced, and I was stunned to discover how many of the songs I loved they were responsible for. After watching that special and finding out how many of the original members hated Starship almost as much as I did, I decided to give this box set a try.

I must say, it was a great purchase. Lots of great acid rock, straightahead blues, experimental music, and wonderful singing by Grace Slick and Marty Balin. The booklet gives a good history of the band and is a good read. A lot of the hits appear in live form though, so if you want to hear studio versions you'll have to get a "Best Of" or the original albums.

40% Previously Released Material; 60% Fantastic New Stuff.......2000-11-10

Nearly every track on this 3 CD collection is fantastic. Unfornuately, almost half of it is previously released material and is already available on other CD's. This type of boxset makes no sense. Any big fan of the group would already have the released material and doesn't need it repeated. Any casual fan would just want the greatest hits and wouldn't be interested in the live or extended mixes. The previously released material contains all the hits, plus some lesser played material. It is the record company's way of expanding the material to 3 discs and bloating the price. There is a studio version and live version of White Rabbit. Is it really necessary to have two different versions of an already overplayed song?

The boxset is in chronological order. It starts out with a solo track by Marty Balin, and a track (Free Advice) from Grace Slick's first band, The Great Society. Free Advice isn't a very good song and it isn't typical of the Great Society. If you like the psychodelic aspects of the Jefferon Airplane, you should seek out the Great Society. Both White Rabbit and Somebody to Love were originally done by the Great Society. Their two albums are now available on a single CD.

There is a lot of excellent previously unreleased live material. When this boxset was released in 1992, it was something special. Since then, a number of other Jefferson Airplane live CD's have been released. Although the music comes from different concerts, alot of is very similar. But, there are still a few unique live tracks that are fantastic, such as "You Where Your Dresses Too Short".

One of the best tracks is an extended studio version of "Feel So Good". It is similar to the live version of 30 Seconds Over Winterland, but better, tighter and less noisy. There have always been two truths about a Jefferson Airplane/Starship concert: They always start on time and they always play LOUD.

Another reason to buy the boxset is the inclusion of the Volunteers ablum quadraphonic remix. Quad was introduced in the late sixties and was supposed to replace stereo. It actually had four channels, and a quad hifi system would have four speakers. The record companies remixed some of the top selling albums for this format (Sanatana's Abraxas also came in Quad). Affects would be added to take advantage of the quad sound. On some of the songs, there isn't much different between the stereo and quad versions. Some songs have significant changes. "Hey Frederick" was been completely remixed, extended by more than a minute and is absolutely fantastic.

So, should you buy this boxset? If you like the Jefferson Airplane, beyond the hits, and you don't already own everything, this is the perfect boxset to get. If you already have some stuff, then you might want to get the live CD's (like Fillmore) first. If you already have everything else, than you are going to buy this no matter what I say. If you are a casual fan, get The Worst of the Jefferson Airplane. Don't bother with 2400 Fulton Street. You would be paying for a double CD and a number of songs you don't really want.

The music on this boxset rates 5 stars. I give it 4 only because much of it is previously released material. The Boxset also comes with a very nice booklet.

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