Customer Reviews

Modern Times/Nuclear Furniture (2 CD Set) (Original Recording Remastered)

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

 

 

"Modern Times" has never been released on CD by RCA/Grunt except for an expensive Japanese release several years ago. I was leery of this release as I wasn't familiar with the Friday Music label, but they really did a fantastic job. Both albums sound great, although "Nuclear Furniture" has slightly more volume than the original 1986 CD release on Grunt. Even the packaging and design is great.

This was an album that took JS one step further in the direction of pop/rock that they would later follow. Many fans malign this incarnation of the Jefferson Starship, although this version of the band is not without its merits. The band indeed took a more commercial approach to their music starting with the arrival of vocalist Mickey Thomas on the previous album, Freedom At Point Zero. Mickey Thomas is a tremendous vocalist with a strong falsetto that could compete with the very best that the times had to offer. Here the band is more Arena-rock sounding than on earlier fan-loved albums such as Dragonfly. The sound is a little shizophrenic with some of the songs written with a more artsy approach, such as Find Your Way Back and Stranger, and other songs with a more 80s sound. Guitarist Craig Chaquico outright rocks and deserves a heap more recognition than he ever got. This album also marks the return of vocalist Grace Slick, albeit in a lesser role than she took in earlier incarnations of the band. Slick was one of the founding members of legends Jefferson Airplane which would later become Jefferson Starship.

These songs are classics from this period in the band's long career.

Find Your Way Back
Stranger
Save Your Love
Mary
Stairway To Cleveland

These 5 out of a total of 9 songs are bona-fide classics, the rest of the songs are less memorable but not too bad. If you like 80s art-rock a la Styx, or Journey, you will love this one.

Friday Music does a great job of remastering and repackaging these two albums from Jefferson's Starship's New Wave/Rock period, before the whole thing degenerated into just Starship. It's good to see the full artwork from both original LPs faithfully represented in the booklet. Unfortunately, those of us old enough to remember this era might have to put on our reading glasses to decipher the tiny print.