My Life Was Meant to Fall Apart Some Day: the Jefferson Airplane Albums Poll

hey clemenza,
you're a very well-tempered and balanced person. your talents are wasted here. have a good day.

will have to go vote Volunteers slightly above Surrealistic Pillow

didn't feel like throwing in the 80's reunion album? No reason to as it won't garner a single vote

this is surrealistic pillow, obv; but I also like crown of creation. and nothing else, tbh

Bless Its Pointed Little Head may be my overall favorite and definitely represents the band as I wish I could have seen them. But Surrealistic Pillow amongst the studio albums.

didn't feel like throwing in the 80's reunion album? No reason to as it won't garner a single vote

PLANES...SENSUAL AIRCRAFT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0gnnVcOLNc

Related:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Qz3sAO0ps

I've got a lot to say, but first let me ask you: other than some earlier "dirty blues" or sex comedy record, is "Lather" the first recorded lyric to use "came" sans double entendre to explicitly mean ejaculated?

Volunteers (which has my favorite Grace, Marty and Jorma songs) over Surrealistic Pillow (which has my favorite Kantner song).

I've got a lot to say, but first let me ask you: other than some earlier "dirty blues" or sex comedy record, is "Lather" the first recorded lyric to use "came" sans double entendre to explicitly mean ejaculated?

― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, April 1, 2026 3:03 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

So the lyric is "And Lather came foam from his tongue" and you're saying that this is explicitly about a penis emitting ejaculate?

sorry i guess i had to just dive right in

up against the wall, motherfuckers

^^

xxxp the verb "came" being used to mean "ejaculated" there.

also shout out to the Airplane esp Marty Balin for being the only real ones at Altamont wrt the Angels

I doubt anyone will vote for it but I think some of the pre-Grace stuff gets slept on a bit, e.g. I love the version of High Flyin' Bird on Early Flight

I've posted a lot over various threads about how big a fan I am and for how long, so will probably repeat myself...I loved "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" off the radio as a kid, and a few years later, The Worst of Jefferson Airplane was one of the first half-dozen albums I bought when I re-launched my record collection in high school. Jefferson Starship was pretty big at the time, but their first incarnation seemed a big forgotten, and for as long as I've been a listener, friends just never seemed as interested in them as they were in many other famous '60s bands. They've been one of my four or five favourite bands for 50 years now.

I own everything above except for Winterland. (xpost) I love the first pre-Grace LP, and may vote for that; if not, probably Baxter's. I think all the studio albums through Volunteers are good-to-great--Crown of Creation is probably my least favourite. Early Flight has "Mexico" and "Runnin' Round This World," both up there with their greatest songs.

My Starship opinion is very conventional: really like "Miracles" and "With Your Love," think their famously horrible '80s stuff is horrible. Hot Tuna's "Sea Child," Jorma's "Genesis," Grace and Paul's "When I Was a Boy I Watched the Wolves," they're all great.

(Austin: I can quickly round up many dissenters, but appreciate that--hope all is well.)

That Get Smart clip is great! (My first thought was "They were on the show?")

agreed that Early Flight and Takes Off are great, esp if you only know the canonical five albums

Signe Anderson and Paul Kantner dying on the same day (Jan. 28, 2016) has to be this century's most incredible musical coincidence.

I really liked that theoretical 1970 Airplane album that some blogger put together, that has "Mexico" and "Have You Seen the Saucers?" and other period-appropriate songs - which is linked to in the regular JA thread. It's as strong as most actual JA albums.

yes! "Another Missile Is Flying" - great stuff

w/r/t clemenza's OP, yeah "The Worst Of" was one of the first records I really really dug in early high school, pretty sure I checked it out from the library originally

just threw on Volunteers, that stinging lead guitar, so fucking amazing, proto-television

esp on Good Shepherd, rules so much

Not in this poll, but the version of "Good Shepherd" on Sweeping Up the Spotlight rules.

Barbara otm re: "We Can Be Together"

https://i.postimg.cc/8zd1MC7n/Screenshot-20260401-142204.png

(xp)Should have said "rules as well," especially since you already used that verb.

xp pretty sure the 8-track mix is the very different quad mix? I could be wrong tho

you can find those mixes on the old JA 90's box set

Volunteers just over Pillow.

I despise "Wooden Ships," always skip that track, so Barbara not entirely OTM imo.

so the little berries made you sick? (sorry)

sick as a dog

Re Worst Of: Flight Log gets "Come Up the Years" (fantastic, indefensible), "Won't You Try/Saturday Afternoon," and "Genesis," but it misses "Embryonic Journey," "Martha," "We Can Be Together" (huge), and other key songs, still misses "Mexico," and overall I'd take the first compilation.

The thread title is probably my favourite JA lyric, from the first song on their first album. Also in the running: "Owsley and Charlie, twins of the trade/Come to the poet's room/Talking about the problems of belief/And yes, it'll be back soon." (Which is actually "Talking about the problems of the leaf..."--that's a special subset of mondegreens, a clemenza, named by me after me, when you like your misheard lyric better than the real one.)