While it’s nothing like acid trips, it is interesting that the music that I was exposed to early in my freshman year in college really stuck with me. My roommate had the first big Airplane album, and I bought the first album that Chick Corea and Return To Forever did.

I had listened to a variety of interesting music in high school: Led Zepplin, Beatles, Jethro Tull, Hendrix, the Stones, CSN&Y, but nothing stuck quite like the two above.

Yep, I have no dog in this fight as I was never a fan of any of the 3(?) incarnations of the band but I would say it’s obvious that they got more commercial minded through the years (the original band had surprisingly little commercial success) and less artistic though I would say ‘Miracles’ is a great song just different from the Airplane style.

Commercial interests are something fans don’t like to think about but they have always been there. A band of my youth Heart went through the same thing when after their success of the seventies they hit the skids and then made a huge comeback but with more middle of the road material written by outside writers and while it made huge bank for them it will never be looked at as fondly as the early stuff.

McCartney famously said he thought of the Beatles as his job and people didn’t like that but it really was true.

You’re talking to an unreconstructed Jefferson Airplane fan. I imprinted the Airplane on my first acid trips. True love is nothing compared to acid imprints.

Which is not say I’m incapable of some objectivity. JA’s members got caught up in the hippie ethos, but at root they were also seriously ambitious musicians.

The drugs, rock’n’roll, hippie imperatives and personal issues were a volatile mix for the Airplane. The surprising thing was they did not implode years earlier.

The Jefferson Starship was the short transition from Jefferson Airplane to Starship, which were essentially two different groups. Listening to Starship now, I recognize a not unadmirable interest in satisfying customers.

When I was young, it didn’t occur to me how my 60s icons were also ordinary folks just trying to pay the bills and dancing as fast as they could to push product for the bucks.

The best the Jefferson Airplane/Starship ever did was reach #3 with ‘Miracles’ a great Marty Balin song in 1975 pre Mickey Thomas.

‘Miracles’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m8izf-oXY4

‘We Built This City’ co written by Bernie Taupin BTW. It is very catchy no doubt and it has become such a cliche to rip on it that it is almost cool to praise it.

Griffin, TommyJay:

Definitely not my thing either. I didn’t even realize those were Starship songs. They just went into my mental bin of big forgettable 80s pop hits.

However, as much as I’d like to join the recent Two-Minute-Hate of “We Built This City” as one of worst songs of the 80s, it’s pretty darn catchy.

–“Starship – We Built This City (Official Music Video) [HD]” (1985)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1b8AhIsSYQ

Ah, give me the original Jefferson Starship, “Blows Against the Empire” (1970) perhaps the silliest concept album of all.

Hippie mutants, disowned by Amerikkka, hijack starship; blast off into the cosmos, blasted on acid. Utopia ensues.

Fortified with Jery Garcia, David Crosby and Graham Nash.

Yes, same here. I liked a little harder edge to my rock’n roll. Nice video. It includes a young Rebecca De Mornay, if I’m not mistaken.

I was quite surprised by the story of the soundtrack, Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_the_Galaxy_(soundtrack)

Fooled Around is a great song.