Love rusts (Starship) (LP 2848 - 2850)

Starship  Knee Deep in the Hoopla (Vinyl, Grunt Records, 1985) **

Starship  No Protection (Vinyl, Grunt Records, 1987) ***

Starship  Love Among the Cannibals (Vinyl, RCA Records, 1989) ***

Genre: Pop, rock, Grunt Records 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: We Built This City

Gear costume: We Dream In Color

Active compensatory factors: At the time (mid to late eighties), I didn't mind these albums because they had a few tracks with Grace doing her thing (let's ignore the embarrassing Rock Myself To Sleep).

Now, it's hard to listen to them. All the synths and, worst of all, the drum sounds, combine to make it a slog. Mickey Thomas' voice works well against Paul and David in Jefferson Starship, but with Grace in Starship it's a similar higher register that doesn't particularly do it for me.

Mostly I think it's the weaker material that affects Knee Deep in the Hoopla the most. Sara and We Built This City were good commercial singles but then the album enters areas not really in keeping with the back catalogue.

No Protection holds up better as an album and Peter Wolf dials back the smoke and mirrors a bit (a bit). It was Grace's final album for Starship and also the final album on Grunt Records, so I've awarded an extra star to celebrate that great label.

My final Starship album was from the Mickey Thomas led outfit from 1989 (I don't own the band's final album - 2013's Loveless Fascination). Thankfully the synth pop of the first two albums had been abandoned for a more AOR (Adult Oriented Rock) sound for Love Among the Cannibals. It's a marginal improvement and without Grace it becomes almost like a Bryan Adams album.

Where do they all belong? That's it for the marathon Jefferson Airplane/ Jefferson Starship/ Starship/ Grunt Records series of posts. No time for a lie down though. Jellyfish is up next!