"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

[Cagey]

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!!

I'm sure. LOL

[fortunecookie]

And much like them, America. I also like some southern rock, like The Outlaws and Pure Prairie League and Marshall Tucker. At least, some of there stuff.

[NCPAC]

Actually, I think Doug and Geoffrey Fieger are brothers. Could you imagine trying to raise those two in the same household?

Anyway,..GET THE KNACK, and send Geoffrey packing!

By the way, after reading every post on this thread, I have to change my worst song ever to Minnie Ripperton's "Loving You." I'd forgotten that abomination. Thanks to whoever first mentioned it on this board.

[fortunecookie]

Hey, I liked Relax.

It is catchy, but ... umm... highly suggestive in a gay kind of way...

[axel f]

How high did "My Sharona" by The Knack get

It got to No. 1 for six weeks in 1979.

[Khurkris]

now thats truly poetic!

[fortunecookie]

"the most virulent feelings of outrage".

Really?? More intensely, virulently negative than say, oh, "CHERISH", everyone's (from the 70's & 80's, at least) prom song... Blech.

[Future Snake Eater]

The End of The World As We Know It is a personal favorite. My wife likes it too as it's one of very few songs I won't try to sing in the car.

That is a terrific song. I learned the lyrics to it a while ago, so I can wow people by singing along with it. One of those great stupid human tricks!

[Auntbee]

"prom song" - That is funny!!

[Colonel_Flagg]

Auntbee, in this competition there are no winners. Only survivors. :)

[Auntbee]

And much like them, America. I also like some southern rock, like The Outlaws and Pure Prairie League and Marshall Tucker. At least, some of there stuff.

Me, too.

[Auntbee]

That is true.

[TheBigB]

My HS's prom theme song was "Lost in your Eyes" by Debbie Gibson.

[Larry Lucido]

To continue:

KRAMER: 51 people died.

GEORGE: 51 people?!

KRAMER: That's it?! I thought it was, like, a thousand!

KRAMER: There were 1,650 survivors.

GEORGE: That's no tragedy! How many people do you lose on a normal cruse? 30? 40?!

[Auntbee]

My prom, in 1974, was "Color My World" by Chicago.

[StrictTime]

YOU ARE SO WRONG!

The B-52's are one of the most innovative, humorous, light-hearted, dance-a-licious bands to come out of the American New Wave scene. And anyone who thinks differently is a NERDO. So THERE! :)

[MotleyGirl70]

Well look on the "bright side" it could have been something from New Kids on the Block.

[StrictTime]

And the winner is: "If you like pina coladas, getting caught in the rain ... "

WE HAVE A WINNER!

[South40]

Aunt Bee.

I always had the hots for Aunt Bea and watched the Andy Griffith Show just to see her.

Her and Ann B. Davis from the Brady Bunch were the two sexiest women on TV at the time.

[drjimmy]

My prom, in 1974, was "Color My World" by Chicago.

"Color My World" was my junior prom song in 1975. For my senior prom it was Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle." Somewhere I think I still have the hourglass tchotchke we got for that.