Jefferson Airplane 2400 Fulton Street - The CD Collection

This 2-CD collection - named after their house in San Francisco - is a compilation of tracks spanning their career and includes 11 tracks not included on other releases. It is not exactly chronological, for some odd reason, but does have some of their best material.

I don't really understand the way it jumps around, but it begins with a section called Beginnings with a couple of numbers from Takes Off, moves on to Surrealistic Pillow (logically) but then jumps back to Takes Off for a couple more tracks and then adds the folky "JPP McStep B Blues" from the previous comp Early Flight.

For the Psychedelia section we get "Plastic Fantastic Lover" and then a few selections from After Bathing At Baxter's (their third LP) including the bizarrely titled "The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil" and the sound collage "A Small Package of Value Will Come To You, Shortly". From there the comp bounces all over, with cuts from SP ("Go Ask Alice"), ABAB  (the amazing harmony-driven "Won't You Try/Saturday Afternoon"), Crown of Creation (the unusual drama of "Lather") , Bless It's Pointed Little Head (Donovan's "Fat Angel" given their fuzz'n'harmony arrangement) and back with the fantastically fuzz-drenched "The Last Wall of the Castle" (ABAB) and Grace's "Greasy Heart" (COC).

CD 2's Revolution portion consists of songs from Volunteers, COC (the fine title track), ABAB (the Mid-Eastern-ish "Rejoyce"), Woodstock (Volunteers"), single cuts ("Mexico" and "Have You Seen the Saucers?") and "Eat Starch Mom" from Long John Silver. Airplane Parts is comprised of Bark's "Pretty as You Feel" and "Third Week in the Chelsea" along with more songs from the other albums already represented, such as one of my faves, their cover of David Crosby's ode to a menage-a-trois, "Triad", which has a different feel with Grace singing it. The whole sheebang concludes with their psychedelic Levis commercial!

Overall, a good comp, with plenty of their important material represented. I think this might be discontinued, but if its still around it is worthwhile if you're looking for a JA comp.