Jefferson Airplane "Surrealistic Pillow" [1967]

A veritable encyclopedia of bad ideas, the Jefferson Airplane took a series of dumps into the well of 60s music and taught Crosby, Stills & Nash that singing multiple harmonies was the same thing as having substance, the Monkees that continually running triplets on blues scales is the same thing as playing a solo, the Mamas & the Papas that any group of chicks and dudes will do (i.e., a key party's a key party), the Grateful Dead that tripping while playing means the same thing to those listening to your album who are not tripping, and X that a female singer can be way-off and it gets excused as "purposefully dissonant" instead of "destructively atonal." You really don't even need to revisit this album; simply listen to this band's 80s metamorphosis as Starship and their single "We Built This City" -- the acutely hideous nadir of all pop music -- to see what Jefferson Airplane's ultimate manifestation was going to be... and it was Otis Redding's fucking plane that had to crash? Count this band's Marty Balin as one guy I'm glad the Altamont Hell's Angels beat the shit out of.