Ignition

AMG Review of Ignition

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

Ignition is RCA's repackaging, in box set form, of Jefferson Airplane's first four albums, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, Surrealistic Pillow, After Bathing at Baxter's, and Crown of Creation. Jefferson Airplane Takes Off and After Bathing at Baxter's are presented in their 1996 upgrades, with Jefferson Airplane Takes Off featuring both the stereo and mono versions of the album. (Although there was a mono version of After Bathing at Baxter's, RCA did not include it on the upgrade, no doubt because the album was too long to fit both versions on a single CD.) Crown of Creation is presented in its 1998 upgrade. Surrealistic Pillow, which also was upgraded in 1996, is presented in a new upgrading; like the previous one, this one features both the stereo and mono versions of the album. All four albums include liner notes by Jefferson Airplane biographer Jeff Tamarkin. To listen to the four albums together is to hear Jefferson Airplane's development from an electrified folk group into a psychedelic rock band, with all that implies. Founder Marty Balin dominates the first disc with his frequently erotic love songs (the lyrics of which were in some cases censored, with the censored versions, oddly, turning up here). By the time of Surrealistic Pillow, with the crucial addition of Grace Slick, Jefferson Airplane has become more of a musical collective and begun to rock harder, though Balin's pop-folk style is still the most prominent. The sprawling After Bathing at Baxter's finds the psychedelic impulse taking over in stretched-out arrangements, experimentation, and increasingly absurd lyrics, while Crown of Creation splits the difference, retaining the band's imaginative edge within tighter song structures. The only thing wrong with the set is its arbitrary cut-off. The Jefferson Airplane story continued after this; maybe that will be the subject of another box.