An oral history of "We Built This City," the worst song of all time (2016)
gq.com
gq.com
Tonight, digging deeper, I found it! I found the source. In 1984, just a year before "We Built this City", Jefferson Starship (the progenitor of Starship, we won't mention the Airplane here) released a video for their ostensible hit single "Layin' it on the Line".
There they were! The Residents! In a terrible, terrible Jefferson Starship video! Sung by Grace Slick and, uh, that dude from Starship!
Strangely, I'll be able to sleep deeply tonight knowing that this mystery that was knawing at my soul for so many years has finally been solved.
And well done, GP: I laughed outloud!
It should be Mandela effect, but this is the 2nd time I've seen Mandala in its place.
Or didn't he?
That really was just a completely incoherent mess. But the guys with eyeballs on their heads were there.
And what do you have against letting your soul glo? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=961x0NmyHKE
~ Humphrey B. Flaubert, TISM, If You're Not Famous at Fourteen, You're Finished - De RigueurMortis (2001)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zj7C3GRj7s
Somewhere in here you can hear Jim McKay explaining the difference between "poppers" and "break dancers" and it is just awesome.
https://youtu.be/UJ1tBVtYOBc?si=gSho4eXJMV96onaw
Surely this must have been when some new "clip art for video" technology had just appeared?
The song slaps though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantel_Paintbox
The wireframe 3D graphics in that video must have been rendered in something else, though. Maybe it was made on Amiga with VideoToaster?
The original Amiga with its 8MHz 68000 CPU had just enough horsepower for that kind of 3D.
o_O
Damn that song is great! Seems to have an anti-war message too.
In junior high I used to stay up late and watch Letterman. He used to have Chris Elliot the comedian on doing various bits. He had one that imitated the Residents where Chris and several other people dressed up in weird outfits called something like "Maumoshcantz" or something French sounding. Chris' costume had a big black box with three toilet rolls for the face on it and played bizarre, "avant-garde" music. When they finished, Chris came over to sit with Dave. Dave tried to announce the name of the band and Chris scolded him by over pronouncing the name. Then Dave asked what part Chris played and he exclaimed, "I played the guy with toilet rolls on his head Dave! Shesssh!"
I recounted the bit to a friend and he instantly said the whole bit was a tilt of the cap to the band The Residents and it poked fun at their outfits and members on purpose.
This lead me, pre-internet to start digging around to find out what I could about the band. A few weeks later there was some MTV News story about a musician who died that apparently was one of the members. They made light of the fact nobody knew this since the band had purposefully concealed their identities so they could rotate out people as necessary and then say they just wanted people to focus on the music instead. Strangely enough, there was a similar story making the rounds on the internet about something similar that Slipknot was doing and Corey Taylor even used the same reason they wear masks - so fans can focus more in the music! This of course, brought back memories in my own research that eventually concluded with an older brother of a friend who was into really weird stuff and gave me a somewhat sordid history of the The Residents, and some the eerie connections to their management team Cryptic Corporation. He even pulled out several albums saying there's a possibility The Beatles WERE the Residents and showed me the two albums "Meet the Residents" and "Meet the Beatles" album as proof. Keep in mind, I was like 10, my buddies brother was like 16; so imagine how that conversation went down.
Anyways, thanks for bringing this up, it was really fun remembering my own rabbit hole with that band. Which interestingly enough, started with a David Letterman bit and ended with similar rumors swirling around Slipknot.
I think the secret sauce is Diane Warren. It's the same reason I love belting out I Don't Want to Miss a Thing at karaoke, or listening to If I Could Turn Back Time on a loop while working.
This post has been sponsored by the Committee to Get Diane Warren into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (CGDWRRHF).
I say that with love as I absolutely love the We Built This City (and Starship for that matter)
I'd rather hear We built this City 10 times in a row than any 10 songs of Taylor Swift's. How about that?
It's basically a bouncing, bopping reminder that we aren't as smart as we think we are.
Campfire Song with 10,000 Maniacs. And Kid Fears with the Indigo Girls still gives me chills.
I like to joke/start arguments by saying that R.E.M's greatest album was "Sentimental Hygiene".
I'll see myself out.
In this universe where 90% of music-related journalism boils down to competitive hipster snark.
I love the song, but I was ten when it came out, so of course I do.
There are anti-fads, too.
There was also the bit about gauges and hipsters (which just became the most mainstream). Then there was the fedora hate which I think was the funniest because I knew about it (because I’m chronically online) and then one day I’m traveling through Japan with my friends and the girls are all like “you should try out these hats at this store” and it’s piece for piece exactly what Reddit would hate. But the girls loved it on the lads and I’m married to one now.
It’s like how here people are always like “oh I’d never give X a buck they’re stealing all your data” and then out in the real world people love Google, like adore it. What’s the deal with that?
And I always thought that was kind of a hilarious thing to go through. Most people I know who are music snobs are generally anti-pop music and it seems like they miss out on the fun stuff that everyone gets into.
I couldn't get into Nickelback personally because they came in on a wave of similar music that I was generally over by the time they got big.
I feel like that's often part of it. Something that represents peak (whatever) in terms of a sound. The sort of highly-polished result that almost sounds like it was AI-generated by a model trained on exactly what was popular over the past few years.
Of course, you don't need AI to do it - just slightly more human and manual analysis of trends, sales, marketing, and production techniques.
The thing is though, they’re amazing musicians. Kip Winger is premiering another one of his classical works with the Nashville Symphony in the next few weeks. Reb Beach is one of the most skilled and melodic guitar players to come out of the 80s. They wrote and continue to write some great songs too if you like that kind of music.
Music snobbery is just silly, and robs you of the joy of discovering some great new music while simultaneously robbing others of it too. Everybody loses.
I don't think I'd even recognize a single Taylor Swift song. I plan to keep it that way, currently she's just a name and a face to me, knowing her music would probably only cause me to dislike her unfairly.
Along those lines, I'd never pay to see Britney Spears perform, but "Toxic" goes hard.
Their music shouldn't make you dislike them. It's not objectively awful, not by a long shot. If anything, just acknowledge we're not the target audience and move on.
I too try to avoid falling into the all-too-typical trope of reflexively hating on what's broadly popular just because it's popular. While I'm also not a big fan of Swift's music, I agree it's consistently very well executed. I also think she deserves genuine respect for remaining both artistically and financially successful for well over a decade without imploding like so many pop stars seem to. I suspect this requires both intelligence and strength of character.
My kids (and their friends too) don't listen to current music either, so I don't get much exposure to it.
I think her earlier music really demonstrates her talent. Well. Again, it's not my favorite, but it is genuinely really well written, creative, and well performed. Her newer stuff after she switched to more of a pop sound, I have a very hard time finding the talent. If I didn't know some of her work already from the earlier days, I would absolutely not recognize the talent even if it sits there in a latent form.
In the universe where William Shatner covers it, as he did with "Rocket Man."[0]
So yes, there are many worse songs and even worse renditions of better songs.
But I think a very important caveat missing from the article and all of the comments here is that Blender/VH1 never said it was the worse song of all time. They said it was the most "awesomely bad" song of all time. To which I 100% agree with. Its not worst songs, its good catchy songs that are also objectively bad. And I think "awesomely bad" is just a great way to title it. We can all agree "We Built This City" is a catchy ear worm you can rock out to in the car, it lifts my spirits whenever it gets played. It stands on the pantheon of terrible but awesome hits like "Ice Ice Baby", "She Bangs", and the Ghostbusters theme song.
Nobody is saying you shouldn't listen to "We Built This City". Its a guilty pleasure. Crank that mother up on your car ride home alone and rock the fuck out.
It makes sense in hindsight, but I'm pretty sure it was not intentional :)
"Objectively bad"? What are the "objective criteria" they're using? I'd argue that no art can be "objectively bad". That's not how art works.
But if I was making a list of Awful, Terrible Songs, I'm not sure I would have even included this one, mostly because I wouldn't remember it existed. Maybe that's what makes it bad--it was in constant rotation in the 80s, but as soon as they stopped playing it regularly I just... forgot it existed.
Looking at various lists of "Worst Songs" always confuses me. A lot of them are just really popular songs that got overplayed. Wikipedia's page says the Spandau Ballet's "True" is one, which is just nuts.
I wouldn't. It's not a great song or anything, but I can easily come up with a lengthy list of songs that are far, far worse.
It would Sting more if we were talking about a song like "Fields of Gold."
Additionally, it seems like more modern music just isn't enduring [3] in the same way music from the 1950s to 1980s was. Just the fact that people today know about "We Built this City" nearly 40 years after it was released tells you something. I honestly think that unless you grow up in the 2000s you could go and play the music from 2000 to 2010 (as an example) and it would overall be much less recognizable than music from the 1960s and 1970s is.
Anyway, it seems silly to call this the "worst song of all time". It's recognizable. People know it. It has a vibe. Millenials who grew up on 90s grunge may see it differently but that doesn't really mean anything.
[1]: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/readers-poll-...
[3]: https://stereomonosunday.com/2019/03/23/why-modern-music-is-...
There may be other contenders, but if this song doesn't make the short list for you, I can't explain it. I doubt I could pay anyone to make such an outrageous claim.
If it was so terrible, why did it get played so often?
When I think "terrible", I think of the movie "The Room", which has been called the Citizen Kane of bad movies. It is truly awful. The dialog is awful. The acting is awful. There are all sorts of logical inconsistencies where things inextricably appear and disappear. By any metric it's bad. It's so bad that it has a cult following because it's so bad.
"We Built This City" just isn't anything like that.
Compare it to My Humps [1] or What Does the Fox Say [2] or Friday, just to name a few? These are a few random songs that are all miles worse than We Built This City.
So your argument is basically just a no true Scotsman.
I grew up listening to it. I still enjoy it. I also still enjoy Rock Me Amadeus, and Kashagoogoo's Never Ending Story theme, too.
I was ten. How old were you? I ask because your recollection has strong "seething teen" energy.
What I find really interesting of late is YouTube Music suggesting sleeper hits to me, that were big 20-30 years ago, but somehow missed out on them. "Somewhere Only We Know" has been on rotation in some shopping venues & showed up on my playlist; it was a hit, 20 years ago, yet somehow missed out on it.
Disclaimer, I grew up in the 90s and became an adult around 9/11.
All 80s pop music is terrible with the exception of Thriller. There was an over reliance on cheesy synths and reverbed drum machines, (and cocaine) and almost none of it is redeemable 30 years later. To me, it all sounds dated and bad. If you grew up in the 80s it probably sounds good.
Pop producers and technology finally reached a point in the 90s where electronic synths and drum machines sound cohesive and more natural.
I was clearly excluded from this analysis, seeing as how out of the entries in the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 2006, I can see exactly three songs that I somewhat enjoy alongside dozens of songs that I hate with a passion. I'd sooner listen to "We Built This City" on repeat for 24 hours straight than listen any of the Top 10 of that year even once (with the sole exception of "Crazy").
I'd find that analysis to be more believable if it filtered by genres/subcultures a bit. I hung out with the metalheads when I was 14, so a lot of rock and metal artists/groups that were popular in 2006-ish - SoaD, Disturbed, Evanescence, Lacuna Coil, Mushroomhead, Nightwish, Dream Theater, Lacuna Coil, Dethklok, Blind Guardian, and the like - are the ones that stuck around at the top of my personal rankings.
Grace Slick was born in 1939, so she was among the oldest of her cohort already in the Sixties. She’s one of the strangest things about pop history for me, right up there with Debbie Harry being over thirty when Blondie hit it big, and Stuart Murdoch being accepted by Glasgow hipster circles well into his late 30s. Pop music is so youth-centered, and that youth audience has often been highly suspicious and deprecating of people much older than them, that it baffles me that these performers still flourished.
And then there was Tom Petty, who had hits in three decades. Practically David Bowie levels of staying power.
Dick Taylor was an early member of the Rolling Stones and then in his 40s joined the Mekons and played guitar on some of their best records.
I'm sure there are more fun examples.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/17/reader-center/ric-ocasek-...
Especially when we live in a world where "Sweet Caroline" (specifically sung by Neil Diamond) is a thing.
Or "Ghostbusters" (sorry, Ray, loved your earlier stuff)?
Or Huey Lewis and the News entire catalog?
... I don't know what to do, I'm always in the dark ... Once upon a time, there was light in my life But now there's only love in the dark ...
Under no circumstances can "power of love" be a bad song
On its own, it's probably not something I'd want to listen to much, but while watching the movie, it was fantastic, just like the rest of the movie.
It's much like any soundtrack music. The music by Howard Shore on Lord of the Rings probably isn't something you want to listen to by itself while you're jogging or whatever, but in the movie it's a perfect complement.
Their early work was a little too "new wave" for my taste, but when Sports came out in '83, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically.
Bob Dylan made three records of Christian music and 80% of the tracks from those are definitely worse than anything anyone’s discussing here.
There’s bad, and then there’s bad. The bad stuff is so bad it doesn’t even come up in worst-song conversations. Nor in so-bad-it’s-good conversations.
Many fans rejected them at the time because of the culture shock of his religious pivot, but that reaction was about the content, not the music, and has long faded. Nowadays it's understood that the sudden-fan-alienation-move is a Dylan thing, just like when he went electric at Newport in the first place.
I'm not gonna argue that "Man gave names to all the animals" is one of Dylan's finest, but I'd be interested to know which specific tracks you think are terrible, because those records are full of great songs, and so are some of the outtakes.
If you want awful Dylan I think you're a few years too early–Empire Burlesque anyone?
I sometimes like religious music, so that aspect’s not a deal-breaker for me. One of my favorite local bands was kinda secretly a Christian rock band, they just veiled the references enough and shifted things more-poetic so they didn’t sound ultra cheesy from the very first line like that stuff usually does, and probably some listeners didn’t even notice (they didn’t bill themselves as Christian rock and played normal venues). I love the couple of very-Christian tracks on Springsteen’s Nebraska.
> If you want awful Dylan I think you're a few years too early–Empire Burlesque anyone?
Sadly(?) that album-trilogy is the latest Dylan I’ve heard, so I can’t say whether it gets worse (but I’d believe it).
1: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_k8rGB_NGkgen0y...
It's bittersweet
More sweet than bitter
Bitter than sweet
It's a bittersweet surrender
It's bittersweet
More sweet than bitter
Bitter than sweet
It's a bittersweet surrender
(these 8 lines are repeated 4 times through the song)
But that's just like, my opinion, man.
This article was based on a decade-old meme when it was written. That meme didn't particularly need elaboration in 2016, and here in 2024 it has been completely forgotten.
I don't think of GQ as being a great literary magazine, but I thought it had at least some pretension to it. This is weak internet-grade satire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iEB8bfP7wE
"Worst Song of All Time" or not, it's still an immensely popular song. If you want to poke fun at the 80s and their obsession with synths, poke fun at Scritti Politi instead! (e.g. Boom! There She Was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QmDUkxAHgQ)
Meanwhile, the feeling of that 80s synth sound has been reimagined by modern composers, giving us synthwave and all its spinoff genres, and music videos made with an AfterEffects "VHS" plugin, like Turbo Killer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er416Ad3R1g
But I also liked Styx. So.
I probably would have liked Rush then too, but wasn’t really exposed to them until later, so they remain in the pile of culture-things I’ll simply never understand.
The synth and processed drums sit in the mix reasonably well for the time frame. There are some comical 80s songs in the same time frame where the synth really doesn't sit in the mix at all but somehow it remains endearing like Europe's "Final Countdown" or even Don Henley's "Sunset Grill" or Van Halen's "Jump" all of which are rescued by other musical and production value.
"That's a good place to build a city."
"... and roll."
"We're doomed!"
(Don't believe me? Listen for yourself: https://youtu.be/94Ye-3C1FC8)
So much Christmas music is repetitive, but coloring outside the lines is a tough thing to do with Christmas music. The Pogues nailed it with "Fairytale of New York", but it largely appeals only to GenX and younger.
And BTW, I wouldn't even call this the quintessential 80s song, for me that's Stevie Wonder's I Just Called to Say I Love You, with that cheapo synthesizer bleeping along in the background. Oh well, to quote Calvin Harris, it was "acceptable in the 80s"...
> (Don't believe me? Listen for yourself: https://youtu.be/94Ye-3C1FC8)
This may not be a felony, but it should be. Have you no shame, sir? A child could accidentally click on that link.
But also, the fact that you are damn near guaranteed to run into this song _yearly_ qualifies it to be way higher up than any other song on a "worst song" list (even if it weren't already at #1).
Me too. But, in fairness, that's my instinctive reaction to any Christmas music being played in a store.
I never understood how something could be so bland and yet so revolting at the same time, like a smoothie made of wallpaper paste and dog shit.
You've got to give credit to the genius of McCartney's musicianship, that songs perfectly encapsulates the feeling of being stuck in a nightmare you can't escape from.
As a musician, I sometimes make music that I don't like, but just have to get out of my head, feeling compelled to finish a track just to put that pesky musical idea to rest. Recording a track is akin to closing the lid on the coffin; there's nothing more to do, and you can move on.
I wonder if Paul had that experience with that song. The nightmarish chord line is catchy. So he got it out of his head by turning it into a track...
...and ended up getting it in our heads.
I wonder if he thinks "You complain? You can just turn it off. I had to live with that song!". We should be grateful for only being exposed to it once a year, along with the seasonal flu.
The song itself is not bad. This can be demonstrated by listening to Tuxedo cover it (it’s on YouTube)
It's the repetitive, bored-sounding "Christmas comes this time each year..."
Like, no shit! That's how holidays work.
I don't care how many "experts" they asked or whatever, it's not the worst song. It always bugs the heck out of me when I see clickbait crap like this. If they think "We Built This City" is worst than...say..."My Pal Foot-Foot" by The Shaggs, then it just means this writer is full of shit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automobiles_known_for_...
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_music_considered_the_w...
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sitcoms_known_for_nega...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_notable_fo...
In each category, it picks criteria like press reviews or user ratings that mark a work for being considered "worst"
Something about the way the singer sings it just feels unusually soulless. After listening to it, I am completely convinced that if the DJ did kill the groove, Ellis-Baxter wouldn't give a shit.
Still not as vapid as Rebecca Black, though https://youtu.be/kfVsfOSbJY0?si=ruKslHtaZuKrBMP-
I mean, one of the lyrics is literally "Echo" as it echos. He's just describing the song.
The too-cool-for-hit-pop shtick has been over for at least a decade. Hipster snark is stale, itself deeply uncool, and low IQ. I'm unsurprised that this is a GQ article. Cultural media is in a fully-terminal tailspin.
In summary, We Built This City is a great American song. Catch me at the next karaoke night.
Why all the hate for Caillou? I personally think it's the Caillou theme song which ranks up there with "We Built This City" for irritating earworms. But there's another theory: "Bitch Caillou"
There are two "seasons" or personalities of Caillou. I'm not 100% positive which one came first, only that my kids grew up watching the kind Caillou.
The other Caillou season or personality is "Bitch Caillou." Kind Caillou was a staple of the Sprout channel on cable TV and all three of my kinds were able to enjoy this Caillou. About a year ago, PBS Kids expanded the Caillou episodes (because if you've seen Caillou, you've seen the Magnetman episode 100 fucking times) and started playing "Bitch Caillou" episodes as well.
Kind Caillou is a little four year old who learns the easy way and the hard way how to be a better sibling and about the world around him. He learns how to be nice to kids who aren't nice to him, how to clean up, try new foods, and how much fun magnets are. He also goes to an apple orchard and I love apples.
Bitch Caillou complains, cries, and is generally a little asshole of a kid you'd probably trip if he was running around the supermarket. He is rude to his sister, a smart mouth to his parents, and doesn't know a single fucking thing about sharing his toys.
I think that the Bitch Caillou episodes were the originals because everyone I know with older kids wants to kill the little bald headed brat (and the overall look is a little more simple and silly) but everyone I know with comparable aged children to my own- have seen Caillou's good side.
https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/2mzfyj/why_do...
So, kind Caillou/bitch Caillou is basically like Jefferson Airplane giving us "White Rabbit," and Jefferson Starship delivering "We Built This City."
Just remembered "Rico Suave," gonna nominate that one as well.
It's cheesy, it's simple, Grace Slick hates it. All those factors make it fashionable to hate it, and it's been like that for a long time. However, it's also catchy, fun, and the lyrics are easy to remember. It's a karaoke staple for all those reasons, good and bad.
I mean, how can this song be the worst song?
Glad to know I'm not alone.