Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, Starship - The Essential Jefferson Airplane / Jefferson Starship / Starship (2012)

The seminal San Francisco psychedelic band in the heyday of such things, Jefferson Airplane were sassy, political, and generally engaging. The band then morphed into Jefferson Starship, which was a whole other thing, a more polished band aiming at the pop charts. Eventually Jefferson Starship became just Starship, although the sound stayed aimed at the charts. This two-disc set combines the best tracks from all of these incarnations, which is a good thing if one is a fan of all of the approaches here, but not such a good thing if, like many, one prefers one version of the band to the other two. Either way, it's nice to have a survey of the Jefferson family tree in one spot, and songs (no matter which version of this outfit did them) like "Somebody to Love," "White Rabbit," "Volunteers," "Ride the Tiger," the beautiful "Miracles," "Count on Me," and the love-it-then-hate-it-sometimes "We Built This City" (it's a matter of where you are when you hear it) are all staples on rock oldies stations and they deserve to be. So there's a lot of good stuff here, even if it sounds like it's from three different bands -- it's how the story went.