An oral history of "We Built This City," the worst song of all time (2016)

With a promotion like "terrible, terrible Jefferson Starship video," I needed to go watch it.

That really was just a completely incoherent mess. But the guys with eyeballs on their heads were there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqLnVgR7fLw

You mean Mandela effect, don't you? If not, the name Mandala is yet another Mandela effect. :D

Sign of our times -- starship more popular than airplane

Mandala effect a typo?

It should be Mandela effect, but this is the 2nd time I've seen Mandala in its place.

>"Layin' it on the Line"

Damn that song is great! Seems to have an anti-war message too.

You can't tell the story and then not link the video!

The same one that hates Nickelback (they're not great, but terrible?, nah), clowns ("eek, let's collectively decide to feign fear at the humorously funny looking people with big shoes at the circus, even without having read "It"!"), and "moist" (who wants an arid cupcake?).

There are anti-fads, too.

I remember REM self-nominating 'Shiny Happy People ' as the worst song. And even though it was one of their most successful songs in the charts they refused to play it live.

In what universe is "We built this City" the worst song ever?

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.

I think you're missing the point. WBtC is a "bad" song in exactly the same way that Swift's songs are "bad". It's unashamedly pop, aimed at tastes that sophisticated listeners try to escape, and critically: is so good that those sophisticated listeners find themselves listening to it anyway.

It's basically a bouncing, bopping reminder that we aren't as smart as we think we are.

I made it as far as "your toilet parts".

Still not as vapid as Rebecca Black, though https://youtu.be/kfVsfOSbJY0?si=ruKslHtaZuKrBMP-

This song brings back good memories for me. Other songs from that era I remember are "Life in a Northern Town", "Walk Like an Egyptian", some Corey Hart songs.

> But if I was making a list of Awful, Terrible Songs, I'm not sure I would have even included this one

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's a consequentialist sort of "worst": (lack of) artistic quality multiplied by exposure and impact. Couple that with how hard aesthetic quality is to assess and you get some odd lists.

I think there are songs that wear listeners out from being overplayed, some that require repeated listens to appreciate, but there are ones that start out bad and do not get redeemed either by repeated listens or context. Lift Yourself (https://youtu.be/8fbyfDbi-MI?t=117), Gucci Gang (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LfJnj66HVQ), and Beautiful Things (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa_RSwwpPaA&pp=ygUQQmVhdXRpZ...) all exist as examples of this, I think. All fairly recent, I'll confess.

> I didn't know Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics to this song. Man, that's gotta sting.

It would Sting more if we were talking about a song like "Fields of Gold."

Let’s all take a moment to recognize that, really, this discussion is about good bad songs.

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.

Tiny Tim's "Tiptoe through the tulips" beats that by a country mile. Watch it on youtube and be horrified.

How about some Big Head Todd, with this riveting chorus:

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)

Looking Glass: "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" occupies that space in my brain.

Not "Total Eclipse of the Heart"?

Or "Ghostbusters" (sorry, Ray, loved your earlier stuff)?

Or Huey Lewis and the News entire catalog?

Neil Sedaka's Bad Blood is pretty awful in my book

Write it!

A lot of the leaders of the hippies were actually older than that generation, despite the classic "don't trust anyone over 30" and "hope I die before I get old" sentiments of the movement. For example, both Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin (who founded the "Youth International Party" or yippies, which mutated into hippies) were born in the 1930s, a decade or more older than most hippies.

Well then, the mystery surrounding how old Ric Ocasek of The Cars will make you even more baffled:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/17/reader-center/ric-ocasek-...

Aerosmith was about to call it quits, they did that duet with Run DMC and had another handful of platinum records afterward. Tyler was ~38 when Walk This Way charted the second time. Many of their greatest hits are from after they were old.

And then there was Tom Petty, who had hits in three decades. Practically David Bowie levels of staying power.

Stephin Merritt was 34 when 69 Love Songs came out.

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.

Perhaps the exceptions that prove the rule then.

"Do They Know It's Christmas" usually makes the lists of terrible Christmas music as well.

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.

Aaagh you monster it's only November and now that horrible aimless effected wobbly chord fever dream is stuck in my head again. I had at least another couple weeks before hearing it for the first time this year.

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.

I will literally leave a store if this is playing.

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).

How does he sing out of tune on his own darn song? If he's not out of tune, those awfully strained high notes shouldn't have been written in whatever weird key they're in.

Also, ebony and ivory. Absolutely terrible.

Wow, the rare double penalty. Loss of 5 yards for stooping to a Christmas song for worst song of all time debate, loss of an additional 20 yards for going with a post-Beatles McCartney track. This may be internet bullshit, but by god we have rules.

> (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.

The Mannheim Steamroller version of "Deck the Halls" Is bloody awful.

For me, "I want a hippopotamus for christmas" is even worse.

Yeah, I mean it's pretty silly to declare something "the worst song of all time" - everyone has their personal taste and their own personal songs they love to hate. For me, it's (of course) Wham's Last Christmas and I Will Always Love You (sorry Whitney, but back in the 90s when I was watching a lot of MTV, listening to a lot of radio, and ads for Bodyguard were all over the place, I seem to have developed an allergy to this song).

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"...

That's actually tied with Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War is Over)". Listen carefully and you can hear Yoko Ono screeching incredibly far out of tune as the piece climaxes. It's not in the forefront of the song, but it's there, and it's stuck out so much to me ever since I first noticed it.

If this song isn't proof that Paul McCartney is a psychopath, I don't know what is. It is absolutely the most insipid, uninspired piece of garbage ever to be recorded.

It was a favorite of mine as a kid. I can still sing the whole thing, including the radio DJ part.

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.

People bond over mutual hatred even if they didn't come to that hatred on their own. Seems like for this song, it was during slow news period when a list of worst songs came out, and it went viral. Soon it became one of those things that everyone just repeated uncritically, like your mattress doubling in weight due to dead mites. There have been many lists of worst songs before that list and many since, but once "We Built This City" took hold in the collective cultural consciousness as being the worst, there was little that could be done to change the dominate opinion.

Boardgame filk versions might make it worse.

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.

> 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.

On this side-topic, Wikipedia has trouble writing e.g. "worst X of all time", because that can't ever be an objective fact... so instead it has articles named "List of X considered the worst" and "List of X notable for negative reception", to which things like "Worst X of all time" redirect:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automobiles_known_for_...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_considered_the_w...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_music_considered_the_w...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_shows_notab...

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"

The Shags rule. You just don't get them.

Everyone already knows there is no objectively worse song, and the writer knows everyone knows. It's hyperbole to emphasize the writer's opinion that it's a really bad song, an inconsequential rhetorical flourish no reasonable person takes seriously.

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