Starship's "We Built This City" - Why the hate?

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by silenus

Good. I'm willing to see the end of creation if it means that piece of shit dies with everything else.

I feel the same way about Carrot Top.

[Don Draper]

Originally Posted by SuperFleetwoodMac

Hey, what do you think about the live version? I like the song, its cool!! here they sing it at mtv new years eve 1986!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6z7enkkPMw

Lol. Gotta love the very clear shot at 00:30 of the audience member who is clearly NOT a Starship fan. He looks almost as bored as Mickey Thomas does. Pete Sears looks like he's thinking "Get me the HELL out of here!"

At least Grace is trying to act like she's having a good time...

[Scumpup]

All I can tell you is that the first time I heard this song I was a young man in college and it irritated me enough that I shut the radio off. Now I am a man of fifty, and even though I should probably be having pangs of nostalgia for the things of my youth, I still shut the radio off when this song comes on.

[LaurenIpsum]

Wow, I'm getting better at this. Before I even saw that SuperFleetwoodMac was the one who revived this zombie, I correctly identified his/her join date, based solely on the number of "lol"s and exclamation points.

[fjs1fs]

Originally Posted by Nobody

Well yeah, I agree about the video.

I love "The Flame". Not as much as some of their other songs, but I still love it.

I love THE FLAME too--I'd rank it as Cheap Trick's fourth best song (after I want you to Want me, Surrender and Dream Police.

[Grestarian]

[quote=Originally Posted by [B]Markxxx[/b] http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/...s/viewpost.gif
For instance, where the DJ talks there is a version made that omits that part so that each radio station can fill in their own "DJ" bit with the name of their own radio station./quote]

Originally Posted by Leaper

Holy crap, and I thought Missy Elliot's "Work It" was the first one to do that.

Color me informed.

Hmm...seems to me that was done pretty liberally with Money for Nothing by Dire Straits, where each radio station overdubbed Sting's intro "I want my MTV" with their own radio station letters. In San Diego, the AOR station inserted "KGB" while the pop station inserted "KFMB" yet nobody blasted the entire song for selling out. In fact, they praised it as a working man's backlash against nouveau riche slacker-musicians -- this coming from a band of newly rich musicians...

--G!

That ain' workin'...
. Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits)
. Money For Nothing
. Brothers in Arms

[silenus]

So? The DJ bit is just a very minor part of the suckitude that is WBTC. Focusing on that is like focusing on the fact that Mussolini hated dogs. So many more reasons to hate than that.

[SuperFleetwoodMac]

Im sorry for reviving this thread, Im new here!

[Greg Charles]

Originally Posted by SuperFleetwoodMac

Im sorry for reviving this thread, Im new here!

It's OK, but you've distracted us from our serious discussions on the cultural impacts of, "Ice Ice Baby".

[MannyL]

Originally Posted by Greg Charles

It's OK, but you've distracted us from our serious discussions on the cultural impacts of, "Ice Ice Baby".

Are you asking Vanilla to kick it one time?

[Mtgman]

Originally Posted by Elendil's Heir

You'll all be glad to know that "We Built This City" was, I have it on good authority, actually engraved by NASA on the Voyager Gold Records and thus will long outlive humanity itself.

No it wasn't. Mankind has done a lot of horrible things, but we didn't do that. Actually the radio broadcasts of the song will reach interstellar civilizations far before Voyager does. So I guess we shouldn't be all that proud of ourselves.

Enjoy,
Steven

[foolsguinea]

Originally Posted by Proudest Monkey

For 20 years I thought that line was "My Tony plays the mamba." I finally got it about a year ago.

I neither hate it nor love it. I like the pace it sets when it comes up on my iPod during my morning walk.

I also have "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" on the iPod. Even more cheesy and overproduced!

I thought it was, "While Tony plays La Bamba."

[Truman Burbank]

"Saturday in the Park" by Chicago.
After Chicago (CTA) dedicated their first album to "The people and the revolution in all of it's forms (paraphrase from memory). Losing your early edge is one thing, but totally selling out is revolting.
I'm an old guy. Maybe it's an 'you had to be there' thing...

[Ike Witt]

Originally Posted by Mtgman

No it wasn't. Mankind has done a lot of horrible things, but we didn't do that.

I just have to say, thanks for that link. Amazing stuff there...and a few ideas.

[Elendil's Heir]

Originally Posted by Mtgman

No it wasn't....

Whoosh!

[wolf_meister]

Elendil's Heir
Yes, I had a feeling that you were facetiously posting that NASA "fact".
Everyone knows that the song on board "Voyager" was "Billy Don't Be A Hero".

[Zebra]

Which is why the Borg are out to destroy humanity.

[foolsguinea]

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2012/02/saturday-night.html

Originally Posted by Atrios

Tonight I learned that Bernie Taupin is one of the listed writers of We Built This City.


Very important.

Sounds like he or someone he knows has been reading this thread!

[Elendil's Heir]

Steve Cohen, a small businessman from Ohio, is now addressing the Republican National Convention in Tampa. As he walked out to the podium, they played about ten seconds of "We Built This City." That might have lost Romney the election right there!

[silenus]

I'm willing to bet that none, zero, nada, zilch of the assholes at that convention tonight were in the crowd with me at Winterland back in 72. Leave it to the GOP to use the corporate, sell-out music rather than the real thing.

One generation got old
One generation got soul
This generation got no destination to hold
Pick up the cry

[wolf_meister]

silenus

Sorry for the lyric correction here but I always thought the line was:

One generation got sold

Doing a search for the lyrics, I found both "soul" and "sold".
If nothing else, "sold" fits perfectly into the rhyme pattern.

[silenus]

Trying to identify what Marty screams at any given performance is a mug's game.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

Originally Posted by Elendil's Heir

Steve Cohen, a small businessman from Ohio, is now addressing the Republican National Convention in Tampa. As he walked out to the podium, they played about ten seconds of "We Built This City." That might have lost Romney the election right there!

Curse you for reviving this thread (again)! Now my brain has to replay that damn song over and over again!

Jeez, the zombie that will NOT die!

[zoid]

Originally Posted by FoieGrasIsEvil

Curse you for reviving this thread (again)! Now my brain has to replay that damn song over and over again!

Jeez, the zombie that will NOT die!

You do know it's gonna be played at your funeral, right?

[42fish]

Originally Posted by zoid

You do know it's gonna be played at your funeral, right?

To comfort the mourners, I presume: "Thanks to the sweet release of death, he'll never have to hear that $%&@# song again."

[Elendil's Heir]

Originally Posted by 42fish

To comfort the mourners, I presume: "Thanks to the sweet release of death, he'll never have to hear that $%&@# song again."

"...but now we'll be hearing it in our heads for the rest of the $%&@# week!"

[GargoyleWB]

Hmm...seems to me that was done pretty liberally with Money for Nothing by Dire Straits, where each radio station overdubbed Sting's intro "I want my MTV" with their own radio station letters...

This was also done heavily with Huey Lewis' "Heart of Rock and Roll", inserting the local market city into the lyrics. I recall both a "...Seattle!..." and a "...Portland, Oregon!.." version of the song. I was happy because he pronounced Oregon correctly

[silenus]

Originally Posted by GargoyleWB

I was happy because he pronounced Oregon correctly

/waɪˈoʊmɪŋ/?

[DonLogan]

Listen to Milk Train and you'll understand why people hate We Built This City.

[drewtwo99]

You know I vaguely remembered liking this song, but now that I'm listening again... it is fucking terrible.

The chorus is the only tolerable part. Damn. My memory was way wrong on this one.

In fact, this song in my memory is like the republican party itself. I vaguely remember liking them in the past, but now that I look at them again I realize how fucking terrible they are. They have one or two tolerable parts but damn.

[Morbo]

Originally Posted by GargoyleWB

This was also done heavily with Huey Lewis' "Heart of Rock and Roll", inserting the local market city into the lyrics. I recall both a "...Seattle!..." and a "...Portland, Oregon!.." version of the song. I was happy because he pronounced Oregon correctly

We got "Saint Louis!....Champagne, Illinois!"

[Elendil's Heir]

Here it was, "...in Cleveland!" because of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

[Krokodil]

Because it's really self-congratulatory, and because for years I thought Grace Slick was the vocalist on it and it wasn't, it was some dude.

[Lobot]

Originally Posted by Krokodil

Because it's really self-congratulatory, and because for years I thought Grace Slick was the vocalist on it and it wasn't, it was some dude.

Grace Slick was (one of) the vocalist(s) on it.

[Morbo]

Originally Posted by Elendil's Heir

Here it was, "...in Cleveland!" because of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The version I remember included the "in Cleveland...Detroit!" line. Then they added the St. Louis, Champagne Illinois" part in the next verse.

[montag01]

I'm stunned to have read up-thread that Bernie Taupin had anything to do with this song. I never knew that and didn't believe it. And in verifying it, I also learned he co-wrote Heart's "These Dreams," which I consider dreck as well. The man, like most rock lyric writers, has produced his share of questionable songs, but Taupin must have been doing as many drugs as Elton John at this point.

[ioioio]

Somewhere there is a person who decided that We Built This City on Rock and Roll had some relevance to the Republican National Convention and added it to the playlist. Republicans are not known for their sense of irony, so I'd really like to know who and why. Seriously, why?

[Elendil's Heir]

Originally Posted by laina_f

Somewhere there is a person who decided that We Built This City on Rock and Roll had some relevance to the Republican National Convention and added it to the playlist. Republicans are not known for their sense of irony, so I'd really like to know who and why. Seriously, why?

Same guy who OK'd Clint Eastwood to do improv?

[jayjay]

Originally Posted by laina_f

Somewhere there is a person who decided that We Built This City on Rock and Roll had some relevance to the Republican National Convention and added it to the playlist. Republicans are not known for their sense of irony, so I'd really like to know who and why. Seriously, why?

Because their theme this year (building on a completely out-of-context Obama quote) was "We Built This".

[Wendell Wagner]

Perhaps their theme should have been "I talked to the trees":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn8Yu...eature=related

Since the trees have been cut down and made into chairs, Eastwood knew what he had to talk to.

[johnpost]

double zombie or no

what can be done to make a song suck worse than it originally did?

[Hottius Maximus]

I really enjoy the song although I know people who feel the exact opposite. As for why they feel that way, I venture guess that they DON'T REMEMBER: We built this city...we built this city on ROCK AND ROLL!

[elmwood]

Originally Posted by Elendil's Heir

God help me, I like it (not that I'd want to hear it 24/7).

In 1985, that was the reality many of us faced. It got a LOT of airplay on album rock stations, because it was Jefferson [fill in the blank], a long-established mainstay of the format. However, the song sounded so out of place compared to the guitar-driven rock and prog that otherwise made up most of the playlist of AOL stations.

Imagine listening to 94 Rock or Q-103 or 93-X or whatever, getting into a Tuesday two-fer of Led Zeppelin, when all of a sudden, it hits you.

♫♫ ... and she's climbing the stairrrrway to heaven! ♫♫ We built this city ♫♫♫ we built this city on rock and roooooooohoool! ♫♫♫♫

[elmwood]

Originally Posted by GargoyleWB

This was also done heavily with Huey Lewis' "Heart of Rock and Roll", inserting the local market city into the lyrics. I recall both a "...Seattle!..." and a "...Portland, Oregon!.." version of the song. I was happy because he pronounced Oregon correctly

Back in the day in the Rust Belt, Michael Stanley's My Town was the king of localization.

♫♫ This town is my town! BUFFALO! All right! Love or hate her, it's don't matter, 'cause I'm gonna' stand and fight! ♫♫

Didn't matter that the song was really about Cleveland.

[drewtwo99]

My boyfriend heard me laughing at this thread and I told him it was about how people hate We Built This City... and he said "I like that song!!!"

So I played it for him. He immediately began to realize how terrible it is, and after a few minutes asked me to just turn it off. So he went from remembering emphatically that he liked it, to not even being able to hear it all the way through just once.

What is it about this song???

[Procrustus]

Someone has to add: they didn't build it.

[Hottius Maximus]

Yeah just exactly HOW DOES Marconi play the MAMBA!? A mamba is a deadly snake. Maybe they meant the MAMBO but you never can tell with those psychedelic pop artists.

[Eliahna]

So... It's not "Marconi plays La Bamba"?

[Sodalite]

Looks like it's creepy coincidence time again.

Lead guitarist for Starship dies.

[Zebra]

Why the hell did you revive this thread? Now I see the fucking title and the song gets stuck in my head.

CURSES!