The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane

The Jefferson Airplane has always been one of my very favorite rock bands of the non-blues — playing, white, American variety, and it has always been my contention that they were perhaps fated to advance what has come to be called rock into yet-unexplored areas in much the same way as the Beatles and Cream have done. This unexplored region, my reasoning went, would involve a kind of broad expansion of the notion of tonality (an area in which rock has done some amazing things), a further development of polyrhythmics in the rhythm section, and of course, more of those tone-cluster vocal harmonies that the combined forces of Balin, Slick, and Kantner were getting so good at.
I ain’t so sure anymore.
The doubts started coming in when Spencer Dryden left his slot as drummer. All the more regrettable was the fact that his reasoning (he was sick of touring, he needed a rest) was so sound. Dryden was one of the very best drummers rock had ever had, so there go the polyrhythms. On the basis of what’s come forth so far (namely, the single of “Mexico