Well, what do you know? Blue Cheer made two records right at the beginning of the 90's, and they pretty much sounded like each other. Pretty much a tongue-in-cheek "modern" updating of the original sound, although I find the following record more adventurous. Then again, neither of them are anything to write home about. Jack Endino of Nirvana/Bleach fame produced this one, although there's nothing to indicate anything connecting those two records. Which was a bit sad.

Out of nowhere, there was a brief Blue Cheer sighting in the mid-80's, although the group had reformed numerous times since their last studio record. This "beast" was rather underwhelming and reliant on substandard covers of past material. The newly written stuff was OK, but nothing to brag about, either. The cheap production feel doesn’t help matters. I would say keep this beast at a distance.

This was sort of like Jefferson Starship "The Next Gen" except it was Kantner, Balin, and Casady surrounded by a host of newer players. A BIG rambling record reminiscent of Meatloaf circa 1993, with lots of unfocused sociopolitical baggage and moribund hippie-style love ballads. Slick has background vocals on one track but not like anyone can tell. I sure couldn't.

The last record before Jefferson Starship morphed into Starship, and into pop music history (for better or worse), was really just as much of a blatant stab at the top of the charts as the next record would be. Sure, there's a moderate vein of old Airplane rebellion to be mined, that is, if you can locate it underneath huge banks of synths, power vocals, and screamin' guitar solos. Somehow, 1984 audiences didn't see "No Way Out" as the mega-huge stomping hit that "We Built This City" turned out to be for 1985 audiences. Why is that? Who knows? Tastes are fickle. This album may not be great, or even good, but if you're looking for the quintessential goofy 80's pop record to geek out to, this is a really good candidate....

These were the modern times? Total blur of a record which was dated on arrival. The trade-off was a lot of the performances were rather spirited (Chaquico's solos stand out in this regard), the title track had some remnants of past glories, and there's "Stairway to Cleveland" which, if nothing else, showed they still had some levity in them. Grace Slick returned to duet with Thomas on "Stranger", but that was nothing to brag about. The Journey-like "Find Your Way Back" was the sort-of hit which led off the record. One listen should suffice.