"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

[BlazingArizona]

Someplace in hell, there is a jukebox that plays nothing but this horrid 1980s music.

When old musicians die, they go to Vegas. If they sucked, they go to Branson.

[dfwgator]

Oops. Make that CLINT Holmes that did "Playground In My Mind."

Is that the one that goes "My name is Michael, I've got a nickel"

[Future Snake Eater]

Kate Pierson was awesome on "Out of Time" for R.E.M. "Shiny, Happy People" was fun but not great. However, her work on "Me In Honey" at the end of the album was terrific. Too bad I hate the B-52s so much...

[mabelkitty]

"On The Cover of the Rolling Stone....."
That was kinda funny..

[Khurkris]

That was a true classic...I am literally spitting tea from my nose reading your post....LOL

[fortunecookie]

I can't believe I might know this, but... Was it "Relax" by Frankie goes to Hollywood? Yuk, that's another for the top ten... Checking on IMDB... update to follow.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

"You Don't Bring Me Flowers"

Yep. A good choice. I almost lost my lunch just thinking about it.

[mabelkitty]

No!
They were sold out here forever, because the heifers from other towns were buying them off the internet and following them around the country.

So, I missed the Reunion Tour.
Ticked me off.

[fortunecookie]

Eddie Murphy's "Boogie in your butt"

Go ahead and Google the lyrics.

I'm afraid, very afraid, but a little curious, so here goes...

[dfwgator]

What about "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go". Note to George Michael: We all knew you were gay after watching that video.

[mabelkitty]

Coors? Sure!

[Charles Martel]

Mickey - Bad
Mickey in Spanish - Hilarious

Weird Al's version was pretty good, too.

[SamAdams76]

"Signs" by the Five Man Electrical Band. Quintessential Sixties drivel.

You got that right. Such an annoyingly self-righteous pretentious song. It talked about how selfish people were to put fences around their yards and how the singer went to a job interview "with his long hair tucked under his hat" only to reveal it at the end while turning down the job.

Yet I'm sure that once the members of that band struck it rich, they had fences around their property and if you dared to step over them, they'd call the cops on you.

[AgentEcho]

Hey, I liked Relax.

[fortunecookie]

What about "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go". Note to George Michael: We all knew you were gay after watching that video.

LOLOL!! So true. And how he pretended to deny it! So - many - songs, can't - get - them - out - of - my head....

[Khurkris]

""Put The Lime In The Coconut" by Harry Nilsson"

A true classic.

[mabelkitty]

Yep, it was.
Rather intensely homoerotic video, as well.
Come to think of it, lots of porn masquerading as artistic music videos back then.

[mabelkitty]

No kidding.
How many straight men had frosted hair, gloves, and short/tight bicyle pants.

Sheesh!

[Khurkris]

Ahhh....Nilsson Schmilsson...

...or maybe a Little Nilsson in the Night...

[mabelkitty]

In the movie Mulholland Drive (don't watch it - you will go bananas and have to google the meaning), there is a woman who sings Roy Orbison's Cryin' a capella in Spanish.

It is so wonderful it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.