"We Built This City" voted as the worst single ever

News.Com.AU | April 21, 2004 | Patrick O'Neil

[yankeedame]

Dotty ditties with cringe factor

By Patrick O'Neil
April 21, 2004

LOVE or hate them you can't get these stinkers out of your head.

Blender magazine Blender Magazine has rated We Built This City as the worst single ever constructed in its list "The 50 Worst Songs Ever".

The magazine said the Starship song earned the accolade because it inspired "the most virulent feelings of outrage".

To make the list, each pungent ditty had to be a hit.

Entry was based on unintentionally poor songwriting.

Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder's maudlin duet Ebony and Ivory also featured, as did R.E.M's Shiny, Happy People and John Mayer's Your Body is a Wonderland.

But the inclusion most likely to spark calls of blasphemy is the listing of the Simon and Garfunkel ballad The Sounds of Silence.

"It's the poetry meaningfulness that got our goat," said Blender editor Craig Marks. "With self-important lyrics like, 'Hear my words that I might teach you', it's almost a parody of pretentious '60s folk rock."

Few outside the boot-scooting fraternity would contest the listing of the Billy Ray Cyrus atrocity Achy Breaky Heart at No. 2.

Fallen star Vanilla Ice made it in with perennial dance-floor filler Ice Ice Baby, as did good-times theme song Don't Worry, Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin.

Eddie Murphy's ill-advised foray into music, with the 1985 tragedy Party All the Time, was evidence actors other than J-Lo should not sing. It ranked No. 8.

Herald Sun

[Protagoras]

ALL heavy metal, acid rock or Rap (so called) music are waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy worse than the ones listed here IMO.

[mwl1]

"Torn Between Two Lovers" -- that horrible ballad by God-knows who.

[South40]

"Midnight at the oasis
Send your camel to bed..."

Another all time great.

[Revolting cat!]

Joan Baez' "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." That one just makes me cringe,

Oh? I take it you haven't heard her screech You've Lost That Loving Feeling on Phil Spector's TV spectacular from 1965 titled "T.A.M.I. Show", which must have been filmed right after he sold the Righteous Brothers to MGM Records for a cool million. What's the secret of this chick? Was she such a hot babe in those days?

[KJacob]

don't forget "na-na-na-na hey hey goodbye". I do not know the actual title. But just typing the lyrics makes me want to throw my computer out the window.

[kidd]

You're Having My Baby

The very worst version of this horrible song was played on the first episode of WKRP in Cincinnati. Before the station converted from [whatever] to rock, Johnny Fever played "You're Having My Baby" ... by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

So horrible that it was funny.

[mabelkitty]

Hmmm. Heat attack something....I can't remember.

Must have been a huge seller.

I was creeped out by Michael Jackson/Paul McCartney video Say, Say, Say.

When I found out LaToya was playing Michael's love interest, it just put the "ick" factor into overdrive!

[Ichneumon]

I've got you all beat:

Our love is like a ship on the ocean
We've been sailing with a cargo full of, love and devotiooooooon
So I'd like to know where, you got the notion
Said I'd like to know where, you got the notion
to Rock the boat (don't rock the boat, baby)
Rock the boat (don't tip the boat over!)
Rock the boat (don't rock the boat, baby)
Rock the booooOOOOOOOooooooaatt....

The Hues Corporation must die.

[ThePythonicCow]

The magazine said the Starship song earned the accolade because it inspired "the most virulent feelings of outrage".

Huh? The "Starship"? Ah - the Jefferson Starship, as in Jefferson Airplane. Never heard them called the "Starship" before.

Anyhow, the lyrics for the winning We Built This City :

Chorus:
We built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll

Say you don't know me, or recognize my face
Say you don't care who goes to that kind of place
Knee deep in the hoopla, sinking in your fight
Too many runaways eating up the night

Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio, don't you remember
We built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll

chorus

Someone's always playing corporation games
Who cares they're always changing corporation names
We just want to dance here, someone stole the stage
They call us irresponsible, write us off the page

Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio, don't you remember
We built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll

chorus

It's just another Sunday, in a tired old street
Police have got the choke hold, oh, [but] we just lost the beat

Who counts the money underneath the bar
Who rides the wrecking ball into our guitars
Don't tell us you need us, 'cos we're [the ship of] fools
Looking for America, crawling through your schools

(I'm looking out over that Golden Gate bridge
Out on another gorgeous sunny Saturday, I've seen that [bumer-to-bumper]traffic)

Don't you remember (remember)

(Here's your favorite radio station, in your favorite radio city
The city by the bay, the city that rocks, the city that never sleeps)

Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio, don't you remember
We built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll

chorus repeats 2x

(We built, we built this city) built this city (we built, we built this city)
(repeats out)

[HighWheeler]

In the song category, "She Blinded Me with Science" sucks poison ivy to no end, and the station that plays it gets an automatic 2 weeks boycott.

In the commercial category, the "Doctor's Nightguard" teethgrinding commercial gets an automatic station change the moment I hear that jackasses voiceover, even when I'm listening to Rush. All the following commercials go for naught. Phulllleeeeze, Rush, don't play that commercial any more.

[Snowy]

"Don't Go Breakin' My Heart" (Elton John etc.)

I like Elton John. :(

[kidd]

[Protagoras]

"Midnight at the oasis Send take your camel to bed..."

The al queada theme song.

[dfwgator]

When I found out LaToya was playing Michael's love interest, it just put the "ick" factor into overdrive!

For Michael that was relatively normal for him.

[familyofman]

Don't forget the classic "First I Look At The Purse" or it's real title "If you Wanna Be Happy For the Rest of Your Life" - never make a pretty girl your wife. ps I didn't pay attention to the advice given (my 'Chickee boom-boom-baby' was/is very pretty).

[PermaRag]

OK, I admit it - I like Richard Harris' MacArthur Park. If you can get past the sappy lyrics and past the syrupy string part, the end of the song actually rocks pretty well. Really. :-)

I guess that's a pretty feeble argument, but I do like the song (at least part of it).

[Conservababe]

How 'bout these country lyrics...I forgot to remember to forget you....

[mabelkitty]

Yep - nobody really saw that coming.
When pretty replaced good, you knew we were doomed. I was but a wee child, so I can't be blamed (okay, not quite a wee child).

It ruined Deep Purple, (Rainbow was awesome, though) Journey, and any other band that was good by not good looking. Billy Squire was about five years too late for his huge music career, and he got pummeled. So do Robert Plant's solor career. It did ruin music as we know it.

Remember when acts used to have more than two albums?

[CaliGirlGodHelpMe]

What about Whitney Houston's butcher job on "I Will Always Love You"? I will NEVER forgive her for ruining that song with her pretentious, hey-Auntie-look-how-well-I-can-sing vocal fireworks. Another eye-roller: the love theme from "Titanic". The story goes that Celine was buzzed on caffeine when she recorded it, but the producers liked it so she just kept turning it up.

Then we've got toothache-inducing disasters like "You Light Up My Life" (Debbie Boone) and "You Sang To Me" (Marc Anthony)- "Yes I was crashing into love!" (Huh?)

[South40]

Johnson's far more talented as a singer than Travolta.

Have you ever seen the video of JT on American Bandstand singing Let Her In?

Even with his celebrity he wouldn't have lasted 30 seconds on The Gong Show. It's a riot.