Volunteers
When it appeared with much fanfare in 1969,Volunteersseemed likely to stand as the definitive statement for a new vanguard in rock. For starters,Volunteersis a more militant statement ("Got a revolution!") than the contemporaneous releases by the Airplane's rivals in rock's upper echelon, like the Stones, for example ("You can't always get what you want"). It turned out, however, that theydidn'thave a revolution, and youcouldn'talways get what you wanted. But while time has made their storm-the-barricades ethos seem a little silly,Volunteersstill has some teeth. For starters, the hook found in both the album opener ("We Can Be Together") and closer (the title track) is one of those primal to-die-for rock riffs. And the Kantner/Slick/Balin-led ensemble was at the height of its vocal and instrumental powers.Volunteersisn't a great rock record, but it does provide a perspective on a time (the end of the '60s) and place (San Francisco) where the sense of possibilities outstripped the sense of proportion.--Steven Stolder