Jefferson Airplane — The Worst of Jefferson Airplane

This one, too, came from that epic, life-changing garage sale that summer of 1979, after my freshman year. My first summer living away from my hometown; in fact, I would never go back home to live, but I didn’t know that then. I told the story of how I ended up in a lovely, airy apartment on the outskirts of campus back when I wrote about “Here We Are Again.” I was just a short-term subletter, helping make up for the loss of a roommate for the summer. The two women living there were pleasant and friendly enough, but we were never friends, and looking at it from the other side, I cannot imagine how annoying an 18-year-old idiot must have been to a pair of older female grad students.

“The Worst of Jefferson Airplane” — in a rather fancy cover

I worked on the weekly summer college paper, The Summer Orange, from Monday through Thursday morning; after we got the papers delivered around campus, I was free for three days. I was free to drink and carouse – I frequently got together with the other staff, and we particularly favored hanging out at the DeWitt Ground Round, which featured live bands including beloved local favorites “Next of Kin.” Their lead singer, Karen Savoca, continued to sing in Syracuse for years and produced some beautiful albums that are still available. I was free to write – other than my newspaper colleagues, I didn’t have any friends in town that summer, so much of my time was spent pounding out drivel on my Coronomatic at the dining room table of the apartment. I was free to ride my bike, to try to play guitar, to read, to listen to records.

To listen quietly, that is, because my housemates were not into me and certainly not into my music. They were both deeply devoted to very mellow music – there was a huge amount of Joni Mitchell going on – and my excursions into psychedelia and rhythm and blues were not appreciated. Tolerated, not appreciated. Again: I do not blame them. My god, who would have wanted to live with an obnoxious freshman idiot who had a lot of time on his hands? I’m sure I was insufferable.

And this album was surely part of why I was insufferable. I couldn’t stop playing it.

This collection came from 1970, when the band was all but over. It was a bit hard to believe that they had gotten away with the cheeky, ironic title (you could make a true worst of album, but you’d be mostly restricted to their final two albums). I had really only known “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love,” and recognized them for their greatness but didn’t really understand what made them great. Then I heard the songs on this album, like “Martha” and “Lather,” the raucus live version of “Plastic Fantastic Lover,” the great “Embryonic Journey.” There are three tracks from Volunteers, three from Crown of Creation, and four! from Surrealistic Pillow. You couldn’t ask for a better survey of the incredible range they possessed.

The back cover. This wasn’t even the beginning of my fascination with Nipper.
Worst of track listing
Worst of track listing
Beautifully detailed Nipper in the gatefold
Beautifully detailed Nipper in the gatefold
Reproduction of an early RCA Victor sleeve
Reproduction of an early RCA Victor sleeve
Reproduction of an early RCA Victor sleeve
Reproduction of an early RCA Victor sleeve
The texture on the album cover, quite unlike any other
The texture on the album cover, quite unlike any other

2 thoughts on “Jefferson Airplane — The Worst of Jefferson Airplane

  1. Hey stranger! Just tumbled to this web project a couple months back and have enjoyed keeping up. It’s a winner!

    “Worst Of” was my first Airplane album experience (I knew “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love” from radio) . . . though I already knew Jorma from his “Quah” album (I was turned on to that one by a hip summer camp counselor in the early ’70s), and I knew and liked the Starship, then at some point (info was hard, pre-Internet!), I realized that the Airplane = Starship + Jorma (+Jack), and felt I needed to know more. I listened to “Worst Of” at Nassau Community College’s record library when I lived near there in early high school days, ’76ish or so. It was one of those albums that fascinated me, and I kept returning to it, but I felt like I was missing something, somehow, and I wasn’t quite sure what it was. I just knew that there was something there that interested me, and that I wanted to know more about.

    A couple of years later, I nabbed the “Flight Log” double-LP compilation, and THAT was the one that made it click for me . . . much of “Worst Of” was there, but the extra album’s worth of Airplane-adjacent material (and the extra couple of years of listening maturity) worked for me at that point and that time in ways that “Worst Of” didn’t, quite. I went back and acquired and explored all of the original Airplane albums in the months that followed, and liked them all, even the last two.

    “Volunteers,” these days, is my fave and most regularly spun of the bunch, but I like mixing in odds and ends from most all of them in my regular household playlist . . .

    1. Hey, good to hear from you! I had only just realized you were still on the web (I think I equated “no social media” with “off the web,” mistakenly) when I saw a post on Chuck Miller’s site. I’m about to post about those last two which, if they were anyone else’s albums I would probably like a lot more. But for me it’s always been a tie between Volunteers and Bless Its Pointed Little Head. I recently got the complete Woodstock set and am now wondering what I was thinking when I discarded by copy of Woodstock Two. Hmmm…..

      Glad you’ve enjoyed it! I know from past and present my tastes are way more pop than yours. So I get to appreciate your writing, without necessarily having any idea what you’re writing about. So it goes.

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