In 1984, Paul Kantner left Jefferson Starship. His former bandmates wanted to continue as Jefferson Starship, but Kantner, as the last founding member of Jefferson Airplane, took legal action over the “Jefferson” name. He won his suit, and the band’s name was reduced to simply Starship, marking the third incarnation of the band. Keyboard player David Freiberg, who had been increasingly marginalized, left as well.
In 1985, Starship released Knee Deep In The Hoopla and immediately scored two #1 hits. The first was “We Built This City”, written by Bernie Taupin, Martin Page, Dennis Lambert, and Peter Wolf (producer), and inspired by Bay Area power-rock station KSAN-FM. This song was trashed at the time by Kantner, and was later declared to be the “worst song of all time” by Blender magazine. VH1 also named it the number-one “Most Awesomely Bad Song” on a top-50 countdown co-sponsored with Blender. The second #1 was “Sara” no previous incarnation of the Airplane had had a #1 hit. The album itself reached #7, went platinum, and spawned two more singles: “Tomorrow Doesn’t Matter Tonight” (#26), and “Before I Go” (#68).
In 1987, “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” was featured in the film Mannequin and hit #1, although only Slick and Thomas (plus Craig Chaquico’s guitar solo) appeared on it. This song made Slick the oldest female vocalist to sing on a number-one Billboard Hot 100 hit, at the age of 47. (She held this record until Cher broke it at age 53 in 1999 with “Believe”.) The following year,with two new members Mark Morgan[keyboard] Brett Bloomfield[Bass] the band’s song “Wild Again” (which reached #78 on the Billboard singles chart) was used in the movie “Cocktail.”
By the time No Protection was released, bassist Pete Sears had left. The album went gold and featured the hits “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” (#1), “It’s Not Over (‘Til It’s Over)” (#9), and “Beat Patrol” (#46). In addition, the last song on the album, “Set the Night to Music”, would later become a huge hit when re-recorded as a duet between Roberta Flack and Maxi Priest.
Grace Slick left Starship in 1988, having become disillusioned with the band’s new pop image and swearing never to perform with them again. The revamped Starship lineup Mark Morgan[keys] and Brett Bloomfield[bass] released Love Among The Cannibals in 1989, but the next year the group finally disbanded.
