"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

[Petronski]

"The Very Best of Toni Basil" was released on one of those 20-second answering machine tapes.

[Auntbee]

I like Three Dog Night, too.

[TheBigB]

Soon to be followed by the Very, Very Best Of...:^)

Anybody else like "Smoke From A Distant Fire" by the Sanford/Townsend Band?

[Auntbee]

I do.

[TheBigB]

Cool!

[Darnright]

>"Sensible shoes"-David Lee Roth (solo)

Aaaaauuuugggh! That brings to mind the absolute biggest bomb of the '60's, Nancy Sinatra's smash (??) hit, "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'"

[Auntbee]

Thanks for mentioning that song. Haven't heard it in a long time. Now I can get that stupid "Loving You" song out of my head.

[NCPAC]

I think you're right. My bad.

[fortunecookie]

Come to think of it, lots of porn masquerading as artistic music videos back then.

LOL. that's for sure. I always wonder how they got away with it, surely the censors recognized what even us kids knew, but they looked the other way...

[NCPAC]

Perhaps I should hide when I say this, but I love The Knack.

[Cagey]

Sad that I know that.

Don't feel too sad, I even know who Aunt Bee is.

I know we can laugh at some of those songs now, but we took them very seriously in the 60's and 70's.

[Auntbee]

I know we can laugh at some of those songs now, but we took them very seriously in the 60's and 70's.



So true.

[dfwgator]

Nothing wrong with The Knack, they helped destroy disco, and for that, they have my enduring gratitude. Besides, "My Sharona" kicks ass.

[Auntbee]

I bet you most of the posters here know the words to almost every song listed on this post, whether they will admit to it or not!!

[Auntbee]

I heard "My Sharona" over the weekend and I sang along!

[Khurkris]

Hot Tuna was a classic combination of talent and timing. It is one of the few bands I have gone out of my way to collect everything I could find.

[Darnright]

>Nothing wrong with The Knack, they helped destroy disco, and for that, they have my enduring gratitude. Besides, "My Sharona" kicks ass.

There is one tiny thing wrong with them. Lead singer Doug Fieger is the cousin (I know, poor guy can't pick his fambly) of Geoffrey Fieger, ace scuzzball lawyer.

[dfwgator]

Ok so every family has their black sheep.

[AgentEcho]

Just looked it up. De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da was all Sting (Lyrics and music)

[fortunecookie]

Too bad I hate the B-52s so much...

Oh, say it ain't so. The B-52's were kitschy, unique. I like the B-52's but don't much like REM, just a song or 2.