This song was made by Starship, and unless you lived in the 1980s, or have a large understanding of music history, the name won't ring any bells. Starship, came from the 70s rock band Jefferson Starship, which came from the 60s rock band Jefferson Airplane, so if any of you don't mind, I'm going to lump this with "St. Anger" and "Crush 'Em" as being a bad song, from a good artist. Starship was actually a new band because of some members departing from the band, and the fact that they decided to change genres, and also because of a lawsuit by Paul Kanter, I said there was some history. The suit was settled as both parties could not use either "Jefferson" or "Airplane" in their band names unless the members of Jefferson Airplane agreed.
The song itself earned a bit of a reputation despite it's success topping both the Hot 100 and the Mainstream Rock Charts, so yeah sometimes I wonder what everybody in the 80s was on for a lot of this music to pass.
Right off the bat we are pelted with some annoying vocals from the singer for this song, Mickey Thomas. Now, I've only listened to one full album by Jefferson Airplane and when I reviewed that on my album review blog, I said that Marty Balin was a boring singer, so now I'm dealing with the annoying. I do have to say that, sans the vocals, the build up is pretty good with a nice keyboard opening, I'm not gonna lie, it could've been great, but sadly it went all down hill from there.
The 1980s was a confusing decade for the rock genre, with the success of synth groups like Tears for Fears and Genesis, a lot of rock songs were going more synth and techno based rather than guitar based. Bands like Yes and a lot of the Hair Metal scene were hugely dominated by the keyboard and synth more than guitars, and if you don't believe me look at the rock charts at the time, how many guitar based rock songs topped them? Not very many, the rock charts were dominated with songs like "Owner of a Lonely Heart", "Don't You (Forget About Me)" and even "Hungry Like the Wolf" which I don't even think counts as a rock song.
What I'm saying is that this song is really outdated. The drums sound synthetic, the guitar sounds mixed with the keyboards and the bass is more of a makeshift metronome than anything else. The vocals are really the worst part about this song, they sound synthetic and kind of remind me of "Call Me Maybe" which is one of the worst songs I've ever heard. Grace Slick also offers her vocals, but they are, as usual, drowned out making her pretty pointless.
However, does this song deserve the scorn it has received? I was lead to believe the was one of the worst songs of all time, but what I got was mostly bland, annoying and mediocre at worst. I can't say I hate it, but the song does suck.
And speaking of Starships...
I'm the Entity of Darkness, next time.
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