JOURNEY - THE BEST OF JEFFERSON AIRPLANE

As a one CD only package, Journey is surely Jefferson Airplane´s best ever compilation. It has over 71 minutes of music when most of others willgive you much less. Of course the 3 CD box set Loves You has more songs, but it is also quite expensive and hard to find. Journey on the other hand is a very fair representative of the band´s work through their career, including at least one cut from each of their studio albums.

The selection was quite inspired, including all their hits and most popular songs but not only that. Many non single tracks of equal importance are here like the rare High Flyin´Bird, their excellent cover of CSN & Y Triad, a blistering live version of Have You Seen The Saucers plus their fantastic version of Wooden Ships. Their most radical and experimental tracks are not here, of course, but that was to be expected anyway. Even so the CD still shows how unique, subtle and skillfully they were.

The booklet is simple but very effective: includes two very good pictures of the classic line up and a cronology of the band´s career up to their demise in 1974. It also has a list of the songs with the writing credits. Fortunatly no mention is made of their ill fated reunion in 1989 and no songs from that album are here (which, by the way, are not missed at all).

Jefferson Airplane was one of the most important and creative bands to emerge in the 60´s and played an essential role to spread the popularity of a more complex music to the mainstream market. They were outstanding musicians, singers and songwriters and it´s a pity that much of their contribution to prog music is so overlooked. If you want to have a good introduction to this group without having to buy all their essential albums, this is the CD to get. I really wish all the best of CDs were so well crafted and chosen, respecting the band´s work.