How was We Built This City considered "bad?"

[tbolt909]

Only seven of which reached the Billboard top 10, and four of those still get played today on classic hits radio. Not "tons" by any means, and it's hard to make a case for any station still playing 40-year-old music in 2025 going much deeper.

I was referring to Top 40 stations in the 1980's, not current stations. There were many Pop artists that were "One Hit Wonders". Airplane/Starship had longevity. As I said, the bands lineup and sound changed dramatically over its lifespan. They had some great records and some truly awful ones. "We Built This City" was a low point.

Classic Hits and Classic Rock formats are still playing music from 40 to 50 years ago. They wouldn't have a format without the Oldies. CHR stations may be scrambling to find new songs to play, but adding old music is no longer Contemporary Hits. You're more likely to see modern "Cover Versions" of old songs...

 

[michael hagerty]

The vast majority of "We Built This City is the worst song..." is just media regurgitation.

Americans love lists---"Best of", "Worst of"...doesn't matter. So when freelancers or interns (or Artificial Intelligence) get the assignment to produce a list of the worst songs ever, previous lists get scoured and "We Built This City" indexes high ---"Everybody hates it"---just because whoever it is that's compiling the new list sees it on all the other lists.

It's not that bad a song. Someone here educated me a couple of years ago to the fact that it was co-written by Elton John's lyricist, Bernie Taupin and Martin Page. They wrote it about a rash of live music club closings in Hollywood and L.A.

Not knowing that, I thought it made sense for Starship and San Francisco. There are people in the Bay Area who today will tell you that San Francisco was "built on rock and roll"---a narrow view heavily influenced by the late 60s explosion of the Jefferson Airplane, Sly & The Family Stone, The Grateful Dead, Santana and Creedence Clearwater, among others as well as some radio stations---KMPX, KSAN and KFRC---that achieved legendary status around the same time.

And---the line about "always changing corporation names", I took (again, mistakenly, because they didn't write it) as a gentle jab at themselves---from "Jefferson Airplane" to "Jefferson Starship" to just "Starship". Exactly the sort of self-own Grace Slick would have found delicious.

As for the DJ break---the voice is that of Les Garland, then VP of Programming for MTV, but prior to that (1977-1980), program director of KFRC.

Some stations played it without the DJ (especially AOR stations). Some played Les. Surprisingly, when KFRC added the record, they didn't play Les, but had then-PD Dave Sholin record exactly the same rap Les did on the record, but adding "610 KFRC" at the beginning and "on 610 KFRC" at the end...forcing him to deliver it much quicker than Garland did.

The thing that I think contributes to the bad reputation is the video---dear God, is it everything wrong with the 80s all in one package:

Being just a little too old to have been in the thick of the MTV demo in its first few years, I never saw the video until maybe 10 years ago. And over time, I've come to realize that a lot of songs from that era were bigger hits because of their videos than they might have been if they had to stand on the audio alone---and there are also pretty solid songs that people might remember more fondly if the video hadn't been so damn cheesy.

 

[CentralFL]

It always has sounded like a solid song to me. Great song from the peak years of 80s pop.

Still gets plenty of airplay on oldies/classic hits stations.

Few stations would touch The Achy Breaky Heart or Macarena today.

 

[CTListener]

It always has sounded like a solid song to me. Great song from the peak years of 80s pop.

Still gets plenty of airplay on oldies/classic hits stations.

Few stations would touch The Achy Breaky Heart or Macarena today.

Not even classic country stations play Achy Breaky Heart.

 

[CTListener]

I’m guessing the 4 still played today are Jane, Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now, We Built This City and Sara (another snoozer). How close am I?

I was thinking of Miracles rather than Jane, but now that you mention it, I've heard Jane as well. Runaway is great and hardly ever heard now, especially the full album version with Craig Chaquico's brilliant guitar run in the middle.

 

[kevtronics]

I think "Pops Goes the World" is way worse than "We Built This City". It was the big comeback for Men Without Hats... and is the reason why you only ever hear "Safety Dance" anymore:

 

[michael hagerty]

I think "Pops Goes the World" is way worse than "We Built This City". It was the big comeback for Men Without Hats... and is the reason why you only ever hear "Safety Dance" anymore:

Well, and "Safety Dance" peaked at #3 and "Pop Goes The World" at #20. Which are you gonna play?

But yeah, it sucked. As I recall it was fresh-sounding for about two weeks on KROQ, and after that---who cares?

 

[TheBigA]

Someone here educated me a couple of years ago to the fact that it was co-written by Elton John's lyricist, Bernie Taupin and Martin Page. They wrote it about a rash of live music club closings in Hollywood and L.A.

Correct. In post #15, I linked to this quote from Bernie:

Bernie Taupin (lyricist, best known for collaborations with Elton John): "The original song was ... a very dark song about how club life in L.A. was being killed off and live acts had no place to go. [Wolf] got a hold of the demo and totally changed it ... If you heard the original demo, you wouldn't even recognize the song."

The "Wolf" he refers to is Peter Wolf, the producer of the record and other Starship hits of the era. I think he also wrote Sara. This is not the same Peter Wolf who sings with J. Geils. This one is from Austria. He also plays keyboards on the song. He did exactly what Grace wanted: To make hits so she could retire.

Personal taste: Some people hate it, some people love it. It's called the Music Business. The goal is to make money not create art. This song did what it set out to do.

 

[gr8oldies]

The vast majority of "We Built This City is the worst song..." is just media regurgitation.

Americans love lists---"Best of", "Worst of"...doesn't matter. So when freelancers or interns (or Artificial Intelligence) get the assignment to produce a list of the worst songs ever, previous lists get scoured and "We Built This City" indexes high ---"Everybody hates it"---just because whoever it is that's compiling the new list sees it on all the other lists.

It's not that bad a song. Someone here educated me a couple of years ago to the fact that it was co-written by Elton John's lyricist, Bernie Taupin and Martin Page. They wrote it about a rash of live music club closings in Hollywood and L.A.

Not knowing that, I thought it made sense for Starship and San Francisco. There are people in the Bay Area who today will tell you that San Francisco was "built on rock and roll"---a narrow view heavily influenced by the late 60s explosion of the Jefferson Airplane, Sly & The Family Stone, The Grateful Dead, Santana and Creedence Clearwater, among others as well as some radio stations---KMPX, KSAN and KFRC---that achieved legendary status around the same time.

And---the line about "always changing corporation names", I took (again, mistakenly, because they didn't write it) as a gentle jab at themselves---from "Jefferson Airplane" to "Jefferson Starship" to just "Starship". Exactly the sort of self-own Grace Slick would have found delicious.

As for the DJ break---the voice is that of Les Garland, then VP of Programming for MTV, but prior to that (1977-1980), program director of KFRC.

Some stations played it without the DJ (especially AOR stations). Some played Les. Surprisingly, when KFRC added the record, they didn't play Les, but had then-PD Dave Sholin record exactly the same rap Les did on the record, but adding "610 KFRC" at the beginning and "on 610 KFRC" at the end...forcing him to deliver it much quicker than Garland did.

The thing that I think contributes to the bad reputation is the video---dear God, is it everything wrong with the 80s all in one package:

Being just a little too old to have been in the thick of the MTV demo in its first few years, I never saw the video until maybe 10 years ago. And over time, I've come to realize that a lot of songs from that era were bigger hits because of their videos than they might have been if they had to stand on the audio alone---and there are also pretty solid songs that people might remember more fondly if the video hadn't been so damn cheesy.

I still get a kick out of the song...maybe it's a "so bad, it's good" situation. I remember comments about "this is your brain on drugs". I have been in the same room as Les Garland at the CKLW/Rosalie Trombley event in 2023, as he was once the PD there.

 

[Mark Roberts]

It's not that bad a song. Someone here educated me a couple of years ago to the fact that it was co-written by Elton John's lyricist, Bernie Taupin and Martin Page. They wrote it about a rash of live music club closings in Hollywood and L.A.
{...}
Some stations played it without the DJ (especially AOR stations). Some played Les. Surprisingly, when KFRC added the record, they didn't play Les, but had then-PD Dave Sholin record exactly the same rap Les did on the record, but adding "610 KFRC" at the beginning and "on 610 KFRC" at the end...forcing him to deliver it much quicker than Garland did.

The thing that I think contributes to the bad reputation is the video---dear God, is it everything wrong with the 80s all in one package:

The hair! The fearsome eye contact! The hyped-up colors! The excessive use of chroma key!

To me, it's supermarket music, inoffensive but not particularly notable. Though I will say that the supermarkets I've been in lately have had more of a 90s alternative lean.

The part I truly hate is that DJ bridge. That is cheesy. The rest, ummm, whatever.

Being just a little too old to have been in the thick of the MTV demo in its first few years, I never saw the video until maybe 10 years ago. And over time, I've come to realize that a lot of songs from that era were bigger hits because of their videos than they might have been if they had to stand on the audio alone---and there are also pretty solid songs that people might remember more fondly if the video hadn't been so damn cheesy.

I lived in a city where we had MTV from day one. It's easy to forget that, just before MTV came along, rock music and particularly Top 40 were kind of droopy. MTV gave it a jolt, more so than Video Concert Hall ever could with its limited distribution. Visuals suddenly became as important as the music, if not more so. MTV also opened things up at first: the supply of videos was so limited that a band whose primary talent was telegenic could have a shot at time on the channel. It shook up radio, too. The full-service AC AM that I worked for wasn't much affected because, quite frankly, music for us was a filler. We did have a music director who occasionally astonished us by slipping in one MTV hit or another, especially the day when Culture Club hit the playlist. Our FM AC competition, which had transitioned from Top 40 due to the doldrums of rock music at the time, was thrown into something of an identity crisis, however, especially once the sleepy but 100,000-watt beautiful music station 35 miles to our south changed ownership and went full-bore with the MTV hits (and is still a hit-music station today).

 

[ted chittenden]

Back in 1979 or 1980, I read a little piece in Playboy (yes, it was available in braille then) called "Hell's Top Ten Jukebox." Songs listed included Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman," (probably because of the feminist lyrics), Don McLean's "American Pie,", and The Archies' "Sugar, Sugar," among others. What all of the songs had in common (save perhaps for the Helen Reddy song) was that they were still getting an immense amount of radio airplay at the time--you would hear one once every 15 minutes or so. Even as a listener, that made it a drag to hear the songs no matter how good they were or might have been.

Of the songs I mentioned, the only one I still hear on a regular basis, and even then, only on oldies and classic hits stations, is Don McLean's "American Pie." And absence has made the heart grow fonder--I like "Sugar, Sugar," better now *precisely* because I'm not hearing it all of the time when I change the radio dial.

I suspect that the overplay of "We Built This City," (as suggested earlier) may well have a lot to do with its being listed by some folks as being one of the worst songs of all time. I suspect that as one hears less and less of the song, it will regain some popularity as people realize that they aren't hearing it anymore.

 

[Ed Nielson]

If you follow the crowd, it's the worst song of the eighties. It's all opinion. I can name a dozen songs from that decade that are FAR worse than that song.

"Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats is definitely worse. Just my opinion, somebody's going to disagree.

 

[CTListener]

If you follow the crowd, it's the worst song of the eighties. It's all opinion. I can name a dozen songs from that decade that are FAR worse than that song.

"Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats is definitely worse. Just my opinion, somebody's going to disagree.

I can't stand Safety Dance, never could. Unfortunately, the local summer collegiate baseball team up my way uses it for its seventh-inning stretch music, so I hear it about 15 times every June and July. OK, I admit it beats "God Bless America," but not "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."

 

[Ed Nielson]

I would also say that "She Blinded Me With Science", "Rock Me Amadeus" and certainly the very dark-sounding "Maniac" by Michael Sembello are far worse.

 

[Mark Roberts]

When KITS in San Francisco revived the "Live 105" alternative format almost two years ago, the tune played just before the 10:53 am switchover was "We Built This City", complete with farting noises. Then the line "Listen to the radio...." was repeated nine times at ever-decreasing speeds before halting.

 

[kevtronics]

I can't stand Safety Dance, never could. Unfortunately, the local summer collegiate baseball team up my way uses it for its seventh-inning stretch music, so I hear it about 15 times every June and July. OK, I admit it beats "God Bless America," but not "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."

It could be worse. They could play the Electric Slide. Which I just discovered was never a hit, despite being played at every wedding, and isn't even called the Electric Slide -- it's the "Electric Boogie".

 

[Mike in Destin]

Wham "Wake me up before you go girl. "

Europe "The final countdown. "

Taco "Putting on the Ritz." This song was literally written by Irving Berlin. Ella Fitzgerald, Fred Astaire and Judy Garland recorded it. I didn't know that!

 

[vchimpanzee]

If you follow the crowd, it's the worst song of the eighties. It's all opinion. I can name a dozen songs from that decade that are FAR worse than that song.

"Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats is definitely worse. Just my opinion, somebody's going to disagree.

I disagree.

I would also say that "She Blinded Me With Science", "Rock Me Amadeus" and certainly the very dark-sounding "Maniac" by Michael Sembello are far worse.

I like the first one. Bart Simpson did something amazing with it and Devo's "Whip It" last Sunday.

The second one's okay.

Believe it or not, I've developed a taste for "We Built This City".

 

[vchimpanzee]

Wham "Wake me up before you go girl. "

"Go Go" and that's one of the best songs of all time, in my opinion.

"

Taco "Putting on the Ritz." This song was literally written by Irving Berlin. Ella Fitzgerald, Fred Astaire and Judy Garland recorded it. I didn't know that!

Okay, there are better versions. I don't dislike it.

 

[michael hagerty]

Back in 1979 or 1980, I read a little piece in Playboy (yes, it was available in braille then)

I remember suggesting once on the air that they could start with the centerfold in Braille and then see if they could expand to the articles…


The boss told me “Talk dirty and play the hits.”