Starship - Knee Deep in the Hoopla

I suppose this was the band's debut album ... as Starship, but before this was Jefferson Starship, and before they went into space, they were merely Jefferson Airplane ... then came litigation and the names Jefferson, and Airplane were verboten so they kept their Starship and embarked on their mission to explore strange new sounds and try and hard as possible to be relevant.

If you're going to try and go commercial, you need to have a song that can be commercial, and boy howdy doo little did they ever get the perfect vehicle that encapsulated everything cheesy about the '80s in one song, and that song was "We Built This City" written by Bernie Taupin, Martin Page, Dennis Lambert, and Peter Wolf (I used to think it he was the guy from J. Geils, but it's not that Peter). I mean it had it all, including a DJ voice over, how awesome. "Cheese Gromit!"

As if getting a vocal showcase like "Sara" wasn't enough, Mickey Thomas gets to really stretch out and show off his range on "Tomorrow Doesn't Matter Tonight" which is a pretty cool song, and keeps the momentum going. We were in basement listening to the album and my wife suddenly she perks up, "Did he say what I thought he said?" I was only partly paying attention as I was reading a comic (don't judge me). I grunted. She says "Did he just sing 'I don't fit into your pants. But you can reach for my hand?'" 

For a moment I wasn't sure, so I put it on again. 

No, listen he sings "'I don't fit into your plans / But you can reach for my hand' which is too bad, as what you heard would have been a great line." She looked disappointed and went back to her solitaire game, and I resumed my comic - I needed to know if Lex Luthor would get his comeuppance.

Next up was the insipid, and I mean really shitty "Rock Myself to Sleep" a song I think I heard before, but tried to block from my memory. Sadly the late Kevin DuBrow was totally wasted on the song, and I don't wish to speak ill of the departed but I was never much of a fan, so his presence wasn't the ace in the hole the band was hoping for. To borrow from Dave Lister from Red Dwarf, "Maybe ace-hole" Regardless, a throw away track, that just doesn't work - at all.

The first side closes with "Desperate Heart" written by Randy Goodrum and Michael Bolton and is pretty solid but not as good as the version Bolton would release on his 1985 album Everybody's Crazy. Yeah, there was a time Mister Bolton rocked, and played a wicked guitar.

Anyway, considering how uneven some of the previous Jefferson Starship albums were, this was pretty solid. I know people like to shit on "We Built This City" but I really liked it then, and even now knowing it's cheese, I still love it. 

Turning the album over, the album continues with okay songs but nothing memorable. Grace takes the lead on a forgettable and formulaic  "Hearts of the World Will Understand" that went in one ear and out the other. I'm not sure what's going on, either I've become harder to please, or this is going down hill. Ooh the next one is seems to be going for something grandiose, let's see where this goes. "Love Rusts" really wanted to be something, I'm just not sure what it was going for. There was a sense of '80s moodiness and a theatrical element with the atonal keyboard runs and ultimately resolves into nothing and then it's over, and so is the album. While there was nothing truly horrid like "Rock Myself to Sleep" there wasn't anything memorable either - good or bad. It was just sort of "Meh."

After almost four decades I'm not going to be the first person to not be overwhelmed by this album. However, I can honestly say that the first side was pretty solid and if nothing else the first three songs were worth what I paid for the album. There's no denying the talent in the band, and when things were good, they were really good. Craig Chaquico doesn't get enough love for his fretwork, and while I prefer Mickey Thomas to Grace slick, they're both good singers.

I appreciate the fact the band was honest in their own assessment of the album. There were just enough good songs to get knee deep in the hoopla.