Red Octopus - JEFFERSON STARSHIP***

Fast Buck Freddie/Miracles/Git Fiddler/There Is Love/Sweeter Than Honey/Play On Love/Tumblin'/I Want To See Another World/Sandalphon/There Will Be Love

Red Octopus was by far the most commercially successful album to carry the Jefferson moniker yet for the most part it is fairly mediocre. The stand out track is the US No. 3 hit Miracles. (US:1)

“An accomplished band playing a series of tracks that somehow just don't quite gel. There are plenty of good sections, but overall I found it a bit disappointing and not a great showcase for Grace Slick's impressive vocals.”

“This whole album has a distinctly soft and dreamy feel. It's very pleasant to listen to, and extremely unique and shockingly solid, especially for a 70s radio album.”

“The album's best quality is that it is original sounding, even some of the weaker tracks have an unusual feel to them which prevents them from becoming boring.”

“Red Octopus is probably the best Jefferson Starship album. The most played song is Miracles which captures the old chemistry that Grace Slick and Marty Balin had together back in the old Airplane days.”

“Red Octopus was a mainstay of the mid-1970s AOR playlist. Unlike the Airplane, whose politically-minded, drug-fuelled, and musically daring discography made them a pure counterculture band, Jefferson Starship stayed largely within the bounds of convention. Virtually all the tracks are pure love songs, and the vast majority of them will someday make the Vegas circuit with no problem at all.”

“To think that the Jefferson Airplane made such great, cutting edge albums in the 60s, and then they stooped to making vacuous, boring albums such as this one. What a shame.”

“Although Red Octopus was one of the biggest selling albums of the seventies, and certainly of the whole Airplane/Starship canon, it really has lost much of its lustre. Yes, it was the smoothest production sound to date, but the album has little, if any, bite. As pleasing as it is to have Marty Balin's yearning tenor back in the mix, it is also his influence on the group's direction which caused a critical nosedive. The love songs are generally uninspired both lyrically and musically. It all has a slick, corporate gloss.”