Customer Reviews

Knee Deep In The Hoopla

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Another high school memory comes from hearing Starship's irresistible and cheery "We Built This City," as my classmate, Brad Liscom, was really into Starship then. I had him copy that song and "Sara," the two singles that became the constantly revamped group's first #1 hits. What makes this album no hoopla are the 80's style synths, Mickey Thomas's soaring vocals and Craig Chaquico's fiery and grinding guitars. True, these made be considered the final surrender and incarnation of Starship into the pop mainstream, but that's what I grew up on.

"We Built This City" embodies the oppression the band feels by the corporate mindset and by police and other authorities, but also rock as the symbol of high school youth. Slick's lines of "Someone always playing corporation games/Who cares they're always changing corporation names" are sadly still relevant today. The mid-song DJ monologue also adds to the mix, with a reference to the Bay Area, Starship's home base, when Les Garland refers to San Francisco as the city that rocks and never stops. Two weeks at #1? Four would be satisfactory for this song, which unseated Jan Hammer's "Miami Vice Theme" before giving way to "Separate Lives" by Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin.

Two of the songwriters here include Bernie Taupin, Elton John's songwriting partner, Martin Page, who with Taupin wrote Heart's "These Dreams," and Peter Wolf (more on him later down).

"Sara, Sara, no time is a good time for goodbyes." Set to a steady drum machine, the bittersweet ballad "Sara," is bolstered by Chaquico's guitars and the keyboards, which lend to the sorrowful atmosphere. I recall the video, where Rebecca de Mornay played the title character, a pretty but shallow blonde temptress.

I got peeved when the third single, "Tomorrow Doesn't Matter Tonight," only reached #26. Maybe it was the video for the song, a solid electronic drum beat, Chaquico's solo, or the airy female vocals before the last bits of the choruses take over with a thundering sound, but I was quite taken with this upbeat number.

If the fourth single, "Before I Go," and certain songs throughout sounds like something from Heart's 1985 comeback, well, it's because Peter Wolf (no, not the J.Geils' Band lead singer) but a keyboardist did synth work on that classic album, on which incidentally, Mickey Thomas and Grace Slick did backing vocals on "What About Love." Anyway, this song sounds like a cross between "Nothin' At All" and the future "All I Want To Do" by Heart, with the constant backbeat drum machine and a catchy chorus. Its #68 showing was way too low. At least Top 20, come on!

If I were to choose a candidate for a fifth single, it'd be "Hearts of the World Will Understand," with prominent lead vocals by Slick. Perfect 80's pop, soaring harmony vocals, a mid-song monologue by Slick, and the intense drums and guitars of the group. Next up would be "Rock Myself To Sleep" with its pounding drums, hard-edged guitar chords, and also sung mostly by Grace Slick.

"Love rusts when it rains on romance/Hailstones heavy on this empty heart." Some bombastic synths pepper the somber ballad "Love Rusts," which is accompanied by airy synths and a host of backing vocalists, including Simon Climie of Climie Fisher fame, Martin Page, Ina Wolf, who co-wrote "Sara" with Peter Wolf, and Siedah Garrett, who sang with Michael Jackson on "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" from his Bad album. Some parts of this song have a moody and oppressive aura, due to the bass synths.

Where songs like "Find Your Way Back" and "No Way Out" showed Starship moving closer to the mainstream after years as Jefferson Airplane and then as Jefferson Starship, Knee Deep In The Hoopla finally has the group getting its laurels and being embraced by my generation, by me because of "We Built This City" and due to a sound similar to but less grinding than Heart. So thanks, Brad, wherever you are, for introducing me to them, because I built my collection on rock and rollllllllll.

Starship caught a bad rap, even my own father, when I was about 9, asked "what the hell happened to Grace Slick to sing this crap" but it's a good album.

Grace WAS the oldest FEMALE vocalist with a #1 hit. When "We Built This City hit #1-she was 46 years and 17 days old. The previous record was Tina Turner from the year before (she was 45 years 10 months when "What's Love Got To Do With It" topped the charts). Then Grace broke HER OWN record in '87 with "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" at almost 48 years old!

To Cher's credit, she DID break the record in 1999.

I think Michael Giersher should stop listening to whatever crap he listens to (probably Mmmmbop) and get with the freaking program. We Built This City is one of the most popular and easily recognizable songs on the radio!

There's no feeling better than playing Rock Myself to Sleep full blast and shouting along!

Sarah is a great ballad that makes me sad everytime I hear it.

Michael, why don't you stop trashing good music or I'll start trashing your idols (the three 6 year olds that make up Hanson).

If you, like me, find humor in extremely hideous 80's music, this is a perfect cd for you. I honestly cannot listen to ten seconds of "We Built this City" without a smile gushing from my face. In all practical musical senses, I'd give this cd a resounding 1, but for entertainment purposes, a 5. Average them, and you get 3 stars, just what I rated it.

Here's my advice for anyone who buys it on its humor merit: play it in your car as loud as possible while driving through a city. You'll definately turn some heads and get some weird looks. I guess they're just jealous that you're the coolest person in the galaxy!

Another great buy is Asia's "Then and Now." Between these two cds, you'll have enough over-produced, cheesy 80's music to last you a life time. And you'll never get sick of annoying people with it. Trust me, if you're like me, its well worth it.

A couple killer mid-80's singles and a whole lotta crap...

When I was a 9 and 10 year old kid, in 1985 and 1986, I remember the first two singles from this album ("We Built This City" and "Sara") being all over radio and MTV. In my opinion, both of those songs are still killer mid-80's pop songs. The third single, "Tomorrow Doesn't Matter Tonight" (which is also the third song on the album) is also a pretty good mid-80's pop song.

Basically, that is what this album is - pre-fabricated radio-friendly mid-80's pop. If you like 80's pop music, and if (like me) you are nostalgic for a time in your life when things were sooooo much simpler, and if that time happened to be 1985-1986, then you are probably going to like the first three songs on this album.

However, there is no coincidence that the first three songs on this album were the three singles pulled from it, because this thing goes downhill (fast) starting with track 4 ("Rock Myself to Sleep" which is an odd ditty, annoying and headache-inducing). "Rock Myself" is also Grace Slick's time to shine on this album, and she takes herself about as far away from "White Rabbit" as that kid from "A Christmas Story" did when he made a porno.

Truth be told, you can get the three singles on this album elsewhere on one of the many Starship "hits" compilations (which is sure to include Starship's other #1 80's schlock-fest - "Nothing Gonna's Stop Us Now" from the even less-memorable 1987 effort "No Protection").

The long and short is, I actually own this CD (and a vinyl copy as well), and I like the first three songs on this CD (esp. "Sara") and even I can't think of a reason to recommend that you buy this CD. There just isn't any reason outside of 1985/1986 to buy this thing. There are no lyrics, the cover sucks and the mastering job is typical mid-80's low bass high treble tinny-sounding fare.

If you are so inclined, get a Starship "Hits" compilation instead....

The strange thing about the songs on this album, which I am sure that most people who are Generation X can relate to, are that this is an album that you may have hated when it came out, but love today, due to the fact that the 80's were the last definitive decade of music in the 20th Century.

When I first heard "We Built This City" on the radio, and found that Jefferson Starship had changed its name to Starship, I lamented the death of the 70's sound of this group, and thought that this song was obnoxious, repetitive and just plain stupid. With that said, about 5 years later, I saw a used copy of this CD, and bought it. I'm sure that a lot of people in their 30's today came of age when this album came out, and hearing "We Built This City" and "Sara" really took me back to that period in my life. I only wish I could go back to 1985 again . . .

The quality of the songs on this album are passable, and one can easily tell that there are a group of songwriters writing for the group at this period of this group's long history. However, there are some songs that are very likeable -- Before I Go, Hearts Of The World Will Understand, Sara, and just maybe "We Built This City" -- not for it's songwriting merit, but simply because it is such an 80's song.

Loved this album when it first came out....I bought it on cassette. Being a music lover of the 70's & 80's, (and trying to replace my favorite 8 tracks and cassettes on CD's) this album brought back alot of memories I'd forgotten til I heard "Built this City" on a TV commercial. While the album isn't typically Starship rock, I loved the change of pace the album has. Thank you Amazon for a great price and quick service!

Starship was one of those underrated 80's band that produced great music and adjusted very smoothly during this great decade. I purchased this album because I am an 80's rock lover and this particular release is awesome. There are great songs in here but I won't mention them because I don't want to spoil the surprize. Let's just say that if you want to remember great 80's music, I strongly recommend this album. I know I love it!

As far as albums that represent the 80s pop/rock scene go, you'd be hard-pressed to find one that tops this album. Starship, which began as Jefferson Airplane way back in the 60s took a lot of flak from old fans for this but I think those fans failed to see the bigger picture. I mean it's not as if they kept their old name and identity; remember Duran Duran and Power Station? Grace Slick and the gang were giving their old fans a big hint in changing their name from Jefferson Airplane, to Jefferson Starship to Starship that they were not to expect the same output at each different incarnation. You have to allow bands to experiment and expecting Starship to sound like Jefferson Airplane is naive at best. Musicians can get bored sometimes and so you have to allow them the leeway to indulge in other pleasures as Starship as done here as Power Station was for Duran Duran.

You could argue that originality songwriting-wise is lacking though as only 1 track was written by any of the band members and that track just happens to be one of the poorer ones here i.e. "Private Room". However, an all-time songwriting great, Bernie Taupin who wrote the lyrics to most of Elton John's best songs had a hand in the big hit "We Built This City" and "Love Rusts". Peter Wolf from the J. Geils Band fame had a hand in the former track as well as on the monster hit "Sara" which happens to be my favourite track here as well.

This mini-lp replica sleeve version isn't the best quality cardboard used and certainly not the best assembled one that I've ever seen. The inner sleeve though faithfully represents the original lp and also included is a booklet of 24 pages which contain all the lyrics in both English and Japanese. Most importantly, the sound quality is very good; too bad the mlps isn't as good quality though which is the big letdown here.

Content-wise, commercial pop/rock never sounded so good! This was one of my favourite albums of my teenage days and now listening to it again after all these years, I'm amazed that I still like it very, very much. "We Built This City", "Sara", "Tomorrow Doesn't Matter Tonight", "Desperate Heart", "Before I Go", "Hearts of the World" and "Love Rusts" still sound very good today.

If only all "sell-outs" could sound this good!

Starship's 1985 album still stands out as the best from the '80s efforts of the Starship or Jefferston Starship incarnations. Everything of this album defines the excesses and bombasts of that decade, even the rock heavy numbers that dominate this effort. Mickey Thomas and Grace Slick are at their best on songs like We Built This City and others. Tommorrow, Hearts of the World and others stand out. I still love the calm, cool landscapes in Sara, which is still a popular radio staple on adult contemporary stations. I think that Peter Wolf played a major part in this band's album, as his writing and producing on City and Sara are among his best pop songs from the 1985-1986 period along with Who's Johnny by El Debarge and the '85 Heart album. But let me close with one standout line that Grace Slick on City--"Someone's always playing/Corporation games/Who cares, they're always changing/Corporation names". Those lines fit well with Grace's political views from her early Jefferson Airplane era and the writers found the right lines for Grace to sing for that song. The other numbers have a strong commercial sheen to them, but the band delivers them quite well musically.