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 Extremely happy Oct 24, 2008
As with most of the purchases I make from Amazon and Amazon Market Place I am extremely happy with my purchase and the service I received. Thanks
GLAM VIDEOS WERE NEEDED FOR THIS RELEASE Mar 31, 2008
The most important fact about this 1983 release is that Grace Slick is back with JS and not taking a subordinate position within the band as she did with 1981's Modern Times. She is front and center here whether singing by herself or singing with Mickey Thomas.
This came out in late 1982 (last year of high school for me) I thought this was an exceptionally good recording for the time. Truthfully this recording had me pretty riled up. We weren't hearing energized English new wave or punk back then and I always hated the raunchy male-led hardcore bands like AC/DC and there weren't any hard rock female bands who had the powerful quality sound and signature voice of Grace Slick in my opinion. Too many of them were popular for their looks and not for their singing at the time and I didn't respect them or think they were genuine rockers like I knew Grace Slick was.
"Black Window" was my favorite because of the hard guitar and Grace Slick's powerful singing.
This came out when disco (or dance music) was long dead and the New Wave invasion was still at least 6 months away from taking over and there wasn't much good rock music being played on radio at the time, even though now I'd gladly take what was being played on the radio back in 1982 in exchange for the juvenile, no-musical-ability idiocy being marketed now as being made by "serious artists." If they weren't so gross they'd be funny. I now know there was some great underground dance music and new wave music made at the time but radio refused to play it.
Anyway, some of the local radio stations did advertise that they had an hour- long Jefferson Starship special to air on the radio back in late 1982 and I heard this Jefferson Starship radio special one night on the car radio, and after hearing this radio special I couldn't get to the record store soon enough to buy Winds Of Change. I was knocked out by lots of these songs at the time. My favorites were "Black Widow" and "Can't Find Love" which were played on the official radio specials but never simply as a staple on a radio station's playlist.
I did hear Winds Of Change & "Be My Lady" played on the radio a little bit and also on half hour TV shows which were showing music videos which weren't too well made yet the "Winds Of Change" video was a good one. MTV was not prevalent yet. For some reason radio wouldn't play the rock of Jefferson Starship during the late 1970s or early 1980s and that wasn't right because they made some great music and too many new breeds at the time (like me at the time) didn't get exposed to their music. Rock stations had a serious bias against these rockers and also against Grace Slick because her 1981 solo release Welcome to the Wrecking Ball had some awesome hard rock songs on it.
More than 25 years later I still like this cd but for some reason I don't think all of the band members were taking themselves seriously when marketing this music just before MTV became a huge force to promote music. Instead of producing serious videos for hardcore songs like "Black Widow" they seem to just be joking around during the video concert made for this recording as if the concert footage was something to be aired between Saturday afternoon wresting shows or something. This was a bad mistake and they should have made glam videos instead. They were regrettably not taking themselves serious enough with the video marketing of this music. I love the dreamy, spaced-out sounds contained within these songs but I think Jefferson Starship would have been better off with an image that resembled medieval glam like lots of the later hair bands sported while still keeping their signature spaced-out, dream-like, arena rock sound many of their songs have. I also now think 8 songs was too few and there should have been 9 or 10 songs on this cd.
These songs bring back the some good memories of the shiftless times after high school and before becoming tied to adult commitments. I always thought Grace Slick was a powerhouse rocker not properly acknowledged during the early 1980s simply because she was not a young vixon .
I have to admit the New Wave invasion which was everywhere by the spring of 1983 brought new life to the sorry state music was in during the early 1980s and I think the new wave invasion (thankfully in most cases) knocked a lot of older bands down. My personal observation was that this great JS music had completely disappeared a mere 8 months after its Oct. 1982 release date except for on a few jukeboxes. Nonetheless, this release didn't get enough airplay because of rock and pop radio's bias against Jefferson Starship and not the new wave invasion. Radio played the well-connected billy joel's "Uptown Girl" a billion times back then but too few got to hear this quality music.
Fortunately in 1984 Jefferson Starship released another recording and I got to see them live for the first time back in 1984 in Hampton, Virgina. I think they did their best commercially one year later in 1985 with another album. Unfortunately, I never got to see them live again. Grace Slick is the true queen of rock even though Classic Vh1 would try to get you to think otherwise.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Is it worth the price for this japanese remaster? Feb 18, 2008
The answer to that question is Yes! This sound far superior the the original RCA release. If you are a fan of Jefferson Starship it is the definitive version of the CD. The packaging replicates the original album which is very cool. Great music plus great sound equals a buy!
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Winds of Change is Highly Under-rated Dec 29, 2007
I have long been a fan of Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and Starship. This album definitely wasn't their most famous but the song Winds of Change gets to me everytime. Grace Slick sounded so fresh and alive on this track. I have found the title song on only one greatest hits compilation and it was a new recording done without Grace Slick. If you are looking for the Grace Slick version, be careful. This album has the "real" version.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Jefferson Starship - The 2nd Best Album Of The Mickey Thomas Era Jun 05, 2007
Jefferson Starship had started out as Jefferson Airplane back in the 60's. The Starship had gone through numerous personnel changes by the time this album came out in 1982. Paul Kantner was still the mainstay of the band and Grace Slick had come back to the fold after leaving for one album. A lot of people wrote off the late 70's early 80's version of Jefferson Starship as AOR wimps, but I always enjoyed a lot of what they did. In fact, for me the album "Freedom At Point Zero" was one of my favorite discs of the late 70's. (I still need to get that on CD one of these days). "Winds Of Change" was the 3rd album to feature former Elvin Bishop vocalist Mickey Thomas and was the 2nd after the return of Grace Slick. The album featured the big AOR hit "Can't Find Love" along with two other songs that received some AOR airplay "Winds Of Change" and Slick's "Black Widow". I don't think it is the best Mickey Thomas era Jefferson Starship album, but I would probably put it at number 2. Guitarist Craig Chaquico really shines on this one. There is a lot of metal oriented material here and Chaquico gets the chance to show off probably more than on any other J.S. album. Thomas, Slick and Kantner all share lead vocal duties often singing as duets or all together. It is a sound that works for the most part. Kantner's "I Came Back From The Jaws Of The Dragon" sounds the most like the 70's version of the band and is the longest track on the disc. The lyrics are about Kantner's survival from a cerebral hemorrhage that had happened prior to this album's release. Overall I like this album a lot. It is not quite as good as "Freedom At Point Zero", but it is worth checking out if you liked the AOR / Metal version of Jefferson Starship.
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