James Lileks: Worst Rock Song Ever? Give This a Spin

The Minneapolis/St Paul Star Tribune ^ | April 25, 2004 | James Lileks

[quidnunc]

It's the list of the 50 Worst Rock Songs Ever — and it surely must be authoritative, because it comes from Blender magazine!

You know, BLENDER?

So I'm not the only one who doesn't read it. Good. Anyway, Blender names the worst rock hit in human history. It's "We Built This City (on Rock 'n Roll)" by Starship.

Good choice. To assert that one can build a city on rock 'n' roll is simply bad urban theory. It is safe to say that rock 'n' roll provides an insufficient means of providing the infrastructure necessary for a large urban environment. If we could take the point further, any architect will tell you that a prerequisite for skyscraper construction is a sheet of thick rock into which the steel superstructure can be anchored. If you build a city on rock 'n' roll, as opposed to schist, your buildings will simply fall over and kill thousands.

Then there's the music. Empty '80s bombast married to '60s narcissism: surefire horror. "Starship" was another incarnation of Jefferson Airplane, a trippy Haight-Ashbury remnant best known for Grace Slick droning the interminable lyrics of "White Rabbit," a song that seemed to last for the entire Nixon presidency. (Both terms.)

But worst ever? I don't think so. Every generation moves the goal posts for the Worst Song Ever. Great-Grandpa thought that "The Horseradish Rag" was the Worst Song Ever, and Grandpa couldn't hear "I'm a Flapper in a Flivver" without spitting on the ground, and so forth. Hence most of my worst songs are from the '70s — to my weary ears, the absolute nadir of pop music. That's when pop split up into several irreconcilable factions:

1. Well-produced stoner operas for dateless guys whose idea of a Friday night was sitting in a dark dorm room, wearing headphones, waiting for a girl. Or the pizza. Or maybe a girl with a pizza! OK, just the pizza. She wouldn't understand this album anyway.

-snip-

[EGPWS]

Anything by Joan Baez makes my worst-list.

Who is that?...and could this "artist" be proved to be a challenger to "Eddie Arnold"? LoL's

[annyokie]

My kids love that song. I thought that was "Herman and the Hermits."

[radiohead]

Do you regret buying it?

No, but I do regret buying 'Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols.'

[Mrs Zip]

ping

[LowOiL]

Most anything by Queen. If I hear "Another one bites the dust" again, I will scream.

Pink Floyd song "Another Brick in the Wall" has about the same affect on me. I can't stand to be in the same room it is playing.

[King Prout]

"AAAUUUGH!!!!"

[Hardastarboard]

Free Bird was a good song the first 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times I heard it on the radio. After that, I kind of thought it sucked. Maybe it's just me.

[King Prout]

oi! some of Queen is QUITE good.
anything can get killed by overplay.
had a stoner neighbor in college, played NOTHING but Floyd nonstop.
Couldn't stand Floyd for about a decade afterwards.

[4mycountry]

"We built this city" only made 45 on the list of Most Annoying Songs to Get Stuck in Your Head

[PatrickHenry]

Phycisist says the link in post 109 deserves a general ping. I haven't tried it, so I don't know.

[Peter J. Huss]

Agreed. Midnight at the Oasis is a great song.

I am 37 years old and listen to this AM station that only plays standards.

'Moon River', anything by Ray Charles, etc., are all classics.

Hell, I like anything by ABBA. I even won a pizza and a Rush Limbaugh coffee mug by calling this station and singing the entire song "Dancing Queen" from memory - correctly!

[aloysius89]

Freebird? Son, that's Gospel Music where I come from.

My nomination for most hated song is "the Little Cafe" by Jay and the Americans (played four times a day every day all year on WOMC in Detroit).

[LowOiL]

OTOH... Big Country's whole second album "Steeltown" rules the roost. Any song remixed on it was gold, pure gold.

[King Prout]

nope, you're not alone.
I'd hate to be a cover-band where I now live.

"Hey, mayuhn, 'own'chew puhlayy suhm Skinnert?"
"Heyuhll yeah! Freebird, mayuhn!"

...every damn gig.

[small voice in the wilderness]

...Ahhhhhh, ABBA..

[sully777]

Massachusetts/I Gotta Get A Message To You -- BeeGees
Honey -- ? (thanks be to God)
Afternoon Delight -- Starland Vocal Band
Seasons in the Sun -- Terry Jacks (Greenpeace spokesman)
Precious and Few -- Climax
Alone Again (Naturally) -- Gilbert o'Sullivan
Playground In My Mind -- Clint Holmes
Disco Duck -- Rick Dees

I broke down the list to three finalists: Seasons In the Sun, Alone Again (Naturally), and Honey

Now, the winner of the most need for duck tape, most terrifying earworm, noseful of 24 hour afterbarf, song to make you insane enough to throw the radio across the room:

Alone Again (Naturally) -- Gilbert o'Sullivan

[LowOiL]

I like anything by ABBA.

Ditto here, except Fernando and Money Money Money.

[Hardastarboard]

OK, you hit a hot button here. I was just thinking today that Manfred Mann should be made to live in Saddam's spider hole for the rest of his life. And, talk about butchering some of Springsteen's greatest stuff.

[LowOiL]

had a stoner neighbor in college, played NOTHING but Floyd nonstop.

LOL, I must of had the same roomie, except he played U2 nonstop.

[weegee]

Think that Peter Jackson would consider using that video as the model for a feature length adaptation of The Hobbit?