677 Jefferson Airplane - Crown of Creation (1968)

 677 Jefferson Airplane - Crown of Creation (1968)

Studio Album - Psychedelic Rock



About the Act:

In 1985 the band Starship released the single "We Built This City". 31 years later, GQ magazine declared it to be "the most detested song in human history". This was, of course, before Baby Shark appeared.

Starship, had quite a high turnover of members, but they formed in 1984, kind of from the ashes of the band Jefferson Starship. They have had four studio albums, and significantly retained the main singer from Jefferson Starship, Grace Slick, for the first two of those albums. It was she who sang "We Built This City".  She was also the main singer for the previous band, Jefferson Starship.

Winding backwards, Jefferson Starship were formed in 1974, and existed for 11 year, releasing 7 studio albums in that time. Confusingly, they reformed in 1992, and so there are currently two bands, one called "Starship" and one called "Jefferson Starship". Well actually, the former are now called "Starship featuring Mickey Thomas". Since their re-convention, Jefferson Starship have released three more studio albums.  Once again, there has been quite a bit of movement of members.

As if this were not confusing enough, we can wind back even further, because Jefferson Starship were born out of the ashes of a band called Jefferson Airplane. This band was formed in 1965 in San Francisco, and were a pivotal band in the burgeoning Hippie/Psychedelic movement. It is fair to say that they were hugely influential, their breakthrough single being "White Rabbit". This band name also had quite a number of members, and as if to deliberately muddy the waters, have had reunions in 1989 and 1996. By my reckoning, this means that in 1996 all three incarnations were active, Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and Starship Featuring Mickey Thomas.   Oh, Jefferson Airplane had eight studio albums in their main stint and another in 1989 (helpfully called "Jefferson Airplane" in case there was any confusion.

One abiding person through some of the incarnations was/is the iconic voice of Grace Slick. Another, was one of the driving forces, Paul Kantner, guitarist.

About the Album:

This was their fourth studio album, and sold pretty well.

My History with this Album:

None

Review:

I have listened to this all the way through 3 times and feel like I could have more listens to get to the depths of it. It's psychedelic rock, with mostly slow songs, a hint-of space-dust and an overall heavy but ethereal feeling. Some of the harmonic approaches presage Heavy Metal (about a year early) and there are leanings to the progressive at times. One track is a soundscape of sounds, reminiscent of Pink Floyd around this time. Musically I found it quite appealing, and especially enjoyed the rock jam feels at times, but occasionally it feels a bit ponderous. However, the music is really the least of the three elements.

The second element is Grace Slick's vocal. On this album she is distinctive and expressive. She has less use of her distinctive vibrato than on some albums, which is good, I think. I wouldn't want to lose it altogether, but it can be overdone.

And the third element is the words. Ladies and Gentlemen, I assume at the time that this was pretty darn subversive and counter-cultural. There's an intensity and sometimes darkness to the songs, and although the words are mostly easy to hear, they are not always easy to understand.  In some ways I think the following lyrics sum up the album (about their opposition to normalcy):

In loyalty to their kind,
 They cannot tolerate our minds
 In loyalty to our kind
 We cannot tolerate their obstruction

My favourite song is Triad which is proposing arguments for a three-way relationship. Lather is also followable and good, although disturbing at times.

The whole album creates a persuasive hippie bubble, that challenges society. Of course, it challenges along particular lines which were popular at the time, and I don't necessarily agree with their thoughts (in fact mostly don't) but I think asking these questions and challenging the norms is a healthy thing for art to be engaged in.

In some ways I don't really know why this album has particularly drawn me in, but I was impressed. 

8.5/10


Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/2xVKQMP0eudZlSnJwVhhPu

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL489CF8AAF869DFD9

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_of_Creation



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