Smells Like Grace Slick
Tuesday, August 29th, 2006Coming home from the Abba Sing-Along on Sunday night, Caroline and I were listening to an 80’s mix CD she made a couple of years ago. One of the tracks was Starship’s 1985 hit “We Built This City.”
It’s stuck in your head now, isn’t it?
Starship is essentially the same band as Jefferson Airplane, but the former’s crappy commercial pop is a far cry from the latter’s psychedelic rock. Compare, for instance, the aforementioned masterwork of cheese to “The White Rabbit,” a song so totally about LSD that it can only be understood as such.
Another difference for me and Caroline is that Starship is a nostalgic childhood memory, but Jefferson Airplane and the 60s are, like, ancient history because all that happened before we were born. But what we realized on Sunday is that only 15 years or so separate the height of psychedelic rock and the height of 80s crap-pop. The image of the band as a counterculture icon would still be strong in the fans’ minds, and they would be horrified by the band’s transformation.
It’s like if Kurt Cobain were still alive and somehow involved with “London Bridge.” Imagine that.
“We Built This City” is not only filled with cheesey synthesizer sounds, but it’s lyrical content is self-absorbed and self-congratulatory. I think there’s something to be said here for the story of Jefferson Airplane and subsequent incarnations as emblematic of Baby Boomers, but I’ll let you piece that one together.