Thursday, July 28, 2011

Jefferson Starship - "Stranger"

Stranger - Modern Times

(Debuted July 11, 1981, Peaked #48, 11 Weeks on the Chart)

I'm not going to share any stories from childhood about this song, because I never heard this song back then. In fact, I was only made aware of it by a video that showed up on a recording from MTV from the days when they still played videos all day long.

"Stranger" is a nice example of the transition between the Jefferson Starship's late 1970s era and the lead-up to when they became simply Starship. I suspect the difference between liking and not liking this has a lot to do with your own preference about which version of Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship/Starship you have.

The song is marked by a decent bass/drum line and Craig Chaquico's spacey guitar work to go along with the vocal interaction between Mickey Thomas and Grace Slick. Watching the video below, I'm beginning to wonder if anybody else saw Slick as similar to the "weird" girl in high school who was a social outcast but you secretly wanted to spend some time with because you knew the ride would be a lot of fun.



1 comment:

  1. This is a very familiar song, as I was heavily into Jefferson Starship in the 70's and 80's. If memory serves (which it rarely does), it was on the "Modern Times" album, which was definitely a crossover effort between Jefferson Starship and the later versions of Starship - included "Find Your Way Back" and the very clever "Stairway to Cleveland." I had a huge crush on Gracie back in the day, and named my daughter Lisa Grace Delia.

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