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Modern music isn't as recognizable because there's way more of it, it's more varied, and doesn't get played a billion times over radio and MTV to a huge audience. The record industry isn't what it was at all, as detailed in your link. Jukeboxes with a selection of hits used to exist, now they're like spotify clients instead. I don't agree with you saying it's less enduring, though. That's a different thing. You shouldn't confuse popularity and number of plays for quality. For me there are some songs I'll hold on to a long time that I first heard in the last 10 years. There's still great music being made, IMO, but then pop from any era rarely was what I'd call good.

Speaking to that, the most played song on Spotify, ever, is "Blinding Lights" by The Weeknd. Came out 5 years ago, and it's "okay"; funny enough, it triggers a lot of 80s nostalgia with its instrumentals. So, there's a data point for you to ponder.

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.

Really? I get annoyed because after 4 or 5 decent picks based on whatever song I start with, it inevitably shifts to the most well-known, overplayed singles by any related band.

> There's been analysis that you basically like whatever was popular when you were 14 [2].

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.

I like 80s music a lot, i was 14 in 89, so that computes. But what i find weird (and not at the same time) is that a lot of <20yo like the 80s-90s!

> There's a lot of weird revisionism when it comes to judging 1980s music (eg [1]).

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.

You can pry Higher Love and its cheesy horn synths from my cold dead hands.

Ok, Steve Winwood gets a pass :)

> Anyway, it seems silly to call this the "worst song of all time".

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.

It seems like this entire thread is a counterargument to your claim.

It's not a counterargument at all. It's just someone who assumes that there is this great counterargument they haven't bothered to make while whining "there are other bad songs too". Your comment here indicates that you're just too young to have heard it every single day, twice a day, throughout your childhood as it inexplicably got constant airtime. The long ride to and from school on the schoolbus, my first experience with torture. At least on sundays you could turn Solid Gold off. This is like saying "Vietnam wasn't that bad" because you watched a war movie once.

I'm in my 40s and loved it as a kid.

> ... heard it every single day, twice a day, throughout your childhood

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.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEe_eraFWWs

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE

And they are still not even as bad as a lot of basically redundant modern pop with the deliberately atonal robovox, trap beats, and flat production.

I think you're conflating "overplayed" with "just plain bad."

Your comment here indicates that you're just too young to have heard it every single day, twice a day, throughout your childhood as it inexplicably got constant airtime.

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.