"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

[Auntbee]

I can't remember. I heard it this past weekend also that's how I thought of it.

[TheBigB]

Feh, Flashdance. Wasn't a bad song, actually. Very catchy. Strictly minor-league badness there. How about...

"At This Moment" by Billy Vera & The Beaters

[the OlLine Rebel]

That's simply "Chevy Van". I liked it, musically anyway (altho it's a tad bit risque).

[wardaddy]

You know. That Hot Tuna album after Burgers that came out around 75 or so had some really nice fuzzy guitar work that forecasted bands like The Jesus and Mary Chain or Husker Du or even Grunge that came 15 years later.

Then Jorma and Jack sort of went on sabbatical it seemed. Didn't they live in Europe for a time? Here's the LP....a real gem for fuzzy guitar work that still maintains melody.

[TheBigB]

Hmmm. A Yahoo! search says R.B. Greaves.

[the OlLine Rebel]

I liked that song initially, but it was played to death (recall it being on that TV show). I liked the '50s-ish of it, but it was too long, and too drawn-out, not crisp enough.

[drjimmy]

I LOVE THAT SONG! WHO SINGS IT??
That would be R.B Greaves. I liked the way his voice sounded on that song. Kinda like a low-rent Jose Feliciano. It was also a rather risque song for my 11-year-old ears. My how times have changed!

[Auntbee]

R.B. Greaves? I would have never guessed that. I thought it was someone more "famous". One hit wonder?

[glock rocks]

[Setting: George's apartment building]

(George approaches Mr. Eldridge as he's entering his new apartment. George is carrying Kramer's sea tales book)

GEORGE: Ahoy! Mr. Eldridge. I understand you were on the Andrea Doria.

ELDRIDGE: Yes, it was a terrifying ordeal.

GEORGE: I tell ya, I hear people really stuff themselves on those cruise ships. (Laughs) The buffet, that's the real ordeal, huh, Clarence? (Laughs)

ELDRIDGE: (Defensively) We had to abandon ship.

GEORGE: Well, all vacations have to end eventually.

ELDRIDGE: The boat sank.

GEORGE: (Holding up Kramer's book) According to this, it took.. 10 hours. It eased into the water like an old man into a nice warm bath - no offence. (Pause) So, uh, Clarence, how about abandoning this apartment, and letting me shove off in this beauty?

ELDRIDGE: Is that what this is all about?! I don't think I like you. (Enters his apartment, and slams the door behind him)

GEORGE: (Yelling out) It's my apartment, Eldridge! The Stalkholm may not have sunk ya, but I will! Ha, ha, ha!

[glock rocks]

...Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain,
telling me just what a fool I've been...

yeek. let the floggings begin in earnest.

[oyez]

Sacco and Vanzetti

Didn't they do "Kichie Koo Park?

[glock rocks]

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

Oh yes. I'll see Signs, and raise you Ground Control to Major Tom!

And by the way, Welcome to Free Republic, ashtanga!

[Shryke]

I'd immediately point to Spandau Balet's "So True". uggggh, I have to wretch.

[TheBigB]

Heh. That'd be "Space Oddity" by David Bowie. :)

[glock rocks]

Aha, yep.

When good artists go bad, next time on Oprah :o)

[Salamander]

"Kinda like the church piano player in the Simpsons playing Iron Buttery's "Ina Godda Da Vida"


Precisely.....:))

[Salamander]

ROFL!

I had mercifully forgotten that song!
I'll be humming it all day now.....8-O

[then there's always Chaka Khan]


My mom nearly backhanded me the first time I started singing "Play That Funky Music" in the car.

[TheBigB]

Throw that Wild Cherry 8-Track in the player and let's rock! :^)

[Larry Lucido]

It was Wednesday, July 25th 1956. At 11:10pm on a dark and foggy night, two great ocean liners, T/N Andrea Doria and MV Stockholm, collided near Nantucket, Massachusetts. I was there, I am a survivor........

Welcome to the Andrea Doria Web Site

[timydnuc]

Help me out here. Didn't I hear them play this song at an inagural ball for the Klintoons in 1993? I do remember thinking how "inappropriate" that song was considering that DC was NOT built on "rock & roll" but the Constitution and the sacrifice of millions of Americans.

Am I right on this memory? Help me here!