Customer Reviews

Nuclear Furniture

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've bought everything JA/JS ever recorded and this is my favorite. It's totally pop metal, but not so completely sold-out that the Jefferson needed to be removed. Actually it's Paul Kantner's last album with the group. "No way out", "Laying it on the Line" were both big hits, and rightly so, and stand up today. However, the best songs on the album are "Rose goes to yale" and "Champion", seemingly parts 2 and 3 from "Freedom at Point Zero's" "lightnight rose". Get it, enjoy and shut it. It's the best.

I look at the release of this album by Jefferson Starship in a similar light that I do the mid to late 80's releases by Black Sabbath. Two bands names who garnered so much attention and respect for a particular style and sound in the late 60's and early 70's that when it came time for the band to update their sound and the name remains the same, traditional fans get unruly. I think the album before this called "Modern Times" already had some leanings towards the type of radio-friendly pop rock that makes it's first headstrong and front-to-back appearance on this album. This same group of musicians (mostly anyway) would later cancel the "Jefferson" in their name and become known as just "Starship". This name is synonimous with tunes like "We Built This City", "Sara" and "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" to those of us who grew up listening to 80's rock. This album, the last one under the old monnicker is filled with the same great style of 80's pop rock music that the later 80's releases were! Only trouble is, some of us never knew about it until later on, because of the band's two name stereotyping (that would be me!). When I finally discovered this record, it was like a dream! I always loved the efforts of the Starship projects like "Knee Deep In Hoopla" and "Love Among The Cannibals" and to find that this was the same style was amazing and wonderful! In fact, other than "It's Not Enough" from the "Love Among The Cannibals" LP, "No Way Out" from "Nuclear Furniture" just might be my favorite (Jefferson) Starship song of all time! Forget the reviews of this album that mention the music as "simplistic" and "thrown together" and talking about them "selling-out" . Music is a funny thing, and times change. Musicians in a group like this are thankfully talented enough to last the span of two decades and change enough so that fans of other styles besides their progressively hybridized 70's stuff and "Jimmy Stewart's performance in Harvey" inspired psychedelic recordings of the 60's can have somehting of our own to enjoy. If you remember the "Jefferson Starship" of old, and are expecting that sound from this record...you will be disappointed. But if you are a fan of the talent and musicianship of members like Grace Slick and Mickey Thomas and are open minded and/or just plain love inventive, synth-energized pop rock with overblown choruses and a little quirk, then I highly recommend "Nuclear Furniture". A classic in my book!

,One of the finest albums from the 80's indeed from both musical and sound engineering aspect.I have it on vinyl and was thrilled to see it in cd format.The collaboration between

Slick and Thomas was magical.Favorite cuts,"No Way Out",Layin it on the Line",Sorry Me Sorry You",Magician,The entire works is truly a piece of art.Highly underated.I loved "Freedom at Point Zero" but this one really takes the cake...A definite must Have!

For better or worse, the Jefferson Airplane/Starship were democratic bands, giving room for a lot of band members to have their say in songwriting. When everyone was more or less on the same page, fans would get diverse yet cohesive albums such as "Surrealstic Pillow", "Volunteers", "Dragonfly" or "Freedom at Point Zero". When they weren't, however, you ended up with disjointed works like "Spitfire" or the disastrous "Bark."

This album, the eighth from the Starship, is somewhere in the middle. By this time, the band had four separate factions of songwriters: rhythm guitarist/vocalist Paul Kantner's sci-fi/fantasy visions; singer Grace Slick, solo or with outsiders; bassist/keyboardist Pete Sears, providing music to his wife Jeanette's lyrics; and the pair-up of singer Mickey Thomas and lead guitarist Craig Chaquico.

This could have been very messy, but the band made the smart decision to bring back producer Ron Nevison, who had worked on the group's first two albums with Thomas as well as Grace's most recent solo album, "Software". Nevison also brought along Grace's songwriting partner from that album, Austrian keyboardist Peter Wolf.

Wolf provided most of the keyboard parts and arrangements to the album, which results in a signficant change in the JS sound. On "Freedom at Point Zero" and "Modern Times", Nevison let the guitars dominate, with keyboards in a support role. Here, Wolf's synthesizers are on an equal footing with the guitars in the mix. Combining this with new drummer Donny Baldwin's more basic rhythms and some drum machines, we have a slicker, more "80's" sound from the group.

That's not all bad, because it lends a coherence that might have otherwise been missing from the album. For instance, even so, the Searses' songs are all over the place. "Sorry Me, Sorry You" is a bouncy synth-popper that sounds like the Moody Blues' "Gemini Dream", even down to the duet vocals of Slick and Thomas. On the other hand, the spooky synth and booming percussion of "Live and Let Live" are remniscent of Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight". Thomas pulls out his best vocal of the album for it, though. Finally, the creeping "Assassin" is Pete's best musical idea, but the trite lyrics undercut it.

Craig and Mickey continue down the generic arena rock path. "Shining in the Moonlight" is a rather blatant rewrite of the hit "Find Your Way Back". "Laying it On the Line" is better, a rousing rocker with some interesting political lyrics.

Grace contributions are stronger then they had been on the previous "Winds of Change" album. She provided the lyrics to Wolf's "Magician", another cute, upbeat synth-pop song. On the opposite end of the spectrum, her solo composition "Showdown" is a dark vision of nuclear war, with the ghostly synths and percussion effectively adding to the atmosphere.

Kantner's tracks are by far the most ambitious. The bizarre, lenghty "Connection" seems to about modern humans reconnecting to caveman roots, or post-apocalyptic primitives remembering pre-war civilization (or something), ending up with a lyrical plea from Thomas for Christian and Muslims to make peace. It rambles musically, but it does work anyway. Finally, "Rose Goes to Yale" and "Champion" form a two part suite, reviving "Freedom.."'s Lightning Rose character as a symbol of the human determination to go on in the face of nuclear devastation. Again, a typically Paul weird combo of sci-fi and 60's radical ranting.

Finally, there's one outside composition. Wolf and his wife Ina contributed "No Way Out", a synth-dominated ballad that sounds like nothing the Starship had yet recorded. Its sound, like Marty Balin's "Miracles" before it, would redefine the band's sound to come for better or for worse.

Paul was unhappy enough with the album to jump ship during the tour,
resulting in lot of changes. Despite some of the songs being sort of generic, there's enough vestiges of the original "Jefferson" sound along with the new 80's "Starship" sound to please both camps of fans. This makes it an improvement over the previous two, although "Freedom at Point Zero" should be the first choice of the Thomas-era albums. Really old line Airplane fans, though, better look elsewhere.

There are so many great songs on here from Mickey Thomas and Grace Slick that it's not funny. At least four great songs which never made it to a greatest hits collection are: "Shining in the Moonlight" by Mickey Thomas, "Sorry Me, Sorry You", by Thomas and Slick, "Live and Let Live" by Thomas and Slick, and "Magician" by Slick. The vocals and synthesizers are awesome on here. A real 80's gem. This cd is very rare and very hard to find.

The Peter Wolf who worked with JS on this CD is NOT the same guy from the J. Geils Band. Come on people, haven't you figured that out already? It's only been 21 years since this came out.

"Nuclear Furniture" #28 (1984).
8th and final album by the Jefferson Starship. Paul Kantner would leave the band after it's release. Saw these guys in concert in '84, they did a great job, everybody wanted to talk with Grace Slick after the show. This album was a little better than "WOC". We start off with the rocking' "Layin' It On The Line" #66 hot 100 and #38 MSR, and the pop of "No Way Out" #23 hot 100, the technoish"Sorry Me, Sorry You", the electric "Connection", the fun "Rose Goes To Yale" (a little back story about Jodie Foster at the time). The Grace Slick tune "Magician", which would of fit perfectly on her solo album "Software". The mid-tempo "Assassin", Grace's intense "Showdown" and Kantner's uplifting "Champion". A nice comeback after the sluggish "Winds Of Change'. They would come out with a new album in 1985, under the name "Starship".

Well, I will start my review by saying this: If you are buying this expecting this to be Jefferson Starship's best album, don't buy it. This was the last album to include Paul Kantner and David Freiberg, the two key founders of Jefferson Starship, who would both depart after the promotional tour for this album.

Now that it's said and done, this isn't a terrible album. It's not one of their best by any means, but it's still pretty good. 'Layin' It On The Line' is a must listen for any fan of the band. Also, 'No Way Out' is an interesting '80s pop rock song.

Much of the album is dominated by Mickey Thomas and the bass playing of Pete Sears, so it's not terrible. But compared to their earlier efforts, it loses every time.

Also, Peter Wolf's production is solid, but it's obvious Wolf was aiming Jefferson Starship to go in a poppy, radio-friendly direction, and true fans know that Jefferson Starship were anything but a radio friendly band.

Overall, if you were stranded island and you had to pick just one Jefferson Starship album to listen to, my first choice would not be 'Nuclear Furniture.' Casual fans are strongly recommended to buy their studio albums with Marty Balin as the vocalist or 'Freedom At Point Zero,' Mickey Thomas' first with the band, but unless you are a collector of Jefferson Starship, I would just skip this.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad album. It's just that it's weak under Jefferson Starship's standards.

Recommended for the Jefferson Starship collector.

In my opinion if you skip the first four songs you have a great Jefferson Starship EP!

Nuclear Furniture represents the last gasps from a group of musicians that once made up a cohesive band. It's apparent that individual members of JS did not have the same vision at this point, thus everyone got to contribute a couple songs to try to appease the collective body. However, this approach simply shows how fragmented the members of JS had become by '84. It didn't help that with nearly every album since that late 70's, there had been at least one personnel change from one album to the next.
What we're left with is a loose collection of songs, better taken as mini-compartmentalized exercises than a sum of its parts. As where Winds Of Change still sounded cohesive with the exception of oddball "Out of Control," NF sounds like several different bands' records competing for time. Chaquico and Thomas contribute "Layin' it on the Line" and "Shining in the Moonlight," which are two near identical tunes akin to the more radio friendly songs like "Keep On Dreamin'" from WOC. Sears/Sears get writing credits for "Sorry Me, Sorry You" and "Live and Let Live," the later actually one of the stronger tunes here. Kanter gets his usual weird rebel/political statements in with 3 (!) songs this time: "Connection", "Rose Goes To Yale" and "Champion." These would be better served on a separate concept album, continuing a storyline started back on Freedom at Point Zero (an album which was much more cohesive and enjoyable). Now full fledged member Slick gets two contributions with the embarassing "Magician" and interesting, metaphorical "Showdown." Then, of course, out of nowhere there is the diamond-polished, radio ready "No Way Out," a precursor to the mid 80's Starship hits (and likewise written by the Wolf/Wolf team).
It all adds up to a jumbled set that sends mixed signals, sounding labored. Glaringly obvious that founder Kanter is not on the same page with Thomas, Sears or Chaquico at this point. And I'm not sure where Slick fell into all of this, hedging her bets on most of the cuts; her loyalty on one side and her desire for some commercial success on the other. Don't get me wrong, I do like around half of the songs offered, but always consider the album as a whole before the individual songs, particularly when it comes to band (as opposed to singer/songwriter or performer) releases. Also, I'm usually not a fan of the direction Ron Nevison takes his productions, as this seems to suffer many of the same pitfalls as Modern Times. But for all my nitpicking and complaining, all this did make for decent drama, resulting in a feel of an almost "lost classic." The struggles for independence trying desperately to overcome inside obstacles.