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 ... read more »