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

[pepperlandgirl]

I'm listening to the song right now, and it's pretty bad. In fact, I'm a little boggled that anybody sincerely (as opposed to ironically) enjoys this song.

[Leaper]

Originally Posted by Markxxx

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.

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

Color me informed.

[Nobody]

Originally Posted by pepperlandgirl

I'm listening to the song right now, and it's pretty bad. In fact, I'm a little boggled that anybody sincerely (as opposed to ironically) enjoys this song.

Your mind is boggled that musical taste is subjective?

[Nobody]

Originally Posted by Leaper

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

Color me informed.

I was surprised when I heard (on an SDMB thread) that Huey Lewis & The News' s "Heart of Rock 'n Roll" had Huey sing different cities for different markets.

[sweetie pea]

Because she sang something to the effect of "Everybody's playing corporation games/Who cares, they're always changing corporation names"

(a) like it was such a totally rebellious thing to say

and

(b) oh, for f**k's sake...

[Spoke]

Originally Posted by woodstockbirdybird

I hate it because it's horrible soulless corporate rock, obviously written (and performed) for the express purpose of getting radio/MTV play. Has nothing to do with their history (never liked 'em in any era), just the fact that it's so unbelievably stupid it sounds like a parody of '80s top 40. As mindless as anything Journey or Foreigner ever did.

That's it really.

For a while there in the late 70s and early 80s, videos were new and fun and cool, and most of the acts making them were hip groups bubbling up from the underground. (Not acts that corporate masters had DEEMED were going to be the next big thing.)

Then in the mid 80s it became apparent that the corporations had figured out this video thing and they were going to use videos to sell us dreck and impose musical tastes from the top down. This song and video were symptomatic of that, and became a sort of marker of the end of the golden age of videos.

At least for me.

(All of which makes the line in the song about "corporation games" really ironic.)

[Zebra]

cockroaches - Why the hate?


dentistry without anesthesia - Why the hate?


The Illinois Nazis - Why the hate?



The creators of this song had a dream. Their dream was to make a collection of tones, that would produce the emotion of pure hatred. Why? Who the hell knows? Maybe they were upset that it was the freaking '80s and the hippy era was not just dead but being bought and sold like a commodity. Maybe they hoped the shallow, crass commercialism of the song would make people realize what a horrible idea it is to have basically 4 radio stations in the whole country. Maybe they had a deal with Satan. Maybe they just got up on the wrong side of the bed but for whatever reason, they wanted a song that would make people feel hate. Not just a little hate. Not annoyance. Not peeved. Not ticked. But HATE. The hatred you feel for a child killer, a terrorist, or the person in line in front of you who orders the last tr-colored bomb pop when they know damn well there is only one and that you wanted it and they don't even really like tri-colored bomb pops they just wanted to be a dick. They wanted the listeners' bodies to tremble with hate.

And they succeeded.


If you don't have this reaction, the creators of the song hate you.

[jayjay]

I call "Kneedeep In The Hoopla" the "We're holding Grace Slick's entire family hostage to force her to do this album" album.

It's just sad. If you listen to her on 60s stuff like "White Rabbit" or "Somebody To Love", and then listen to her on "We Built This City", it's obvious that she checked out after the first rehearsal. She's just not into it at that point, so we don't actually get Grace Slick, we get Grace Slick's vocal cords singing independently of her conscious effort.

I can't say I blame her. If half the stories I hear are true, Mickey Thomas was an ass and a half, not just to her, but to everybody.

[N9IWP]

Note that when playing "Settlers of Catan" it is inevatable that someone will sing "We built this city with wheat and ore"

brian

[rock party]

Another HATE IT here. And good gawd they played the hell out of it. That song ran 2X per hour for 8 months.
Pat Benetar's 'We Are Young' is another one that is utter pop crap.
The 80's had lots of songs that were designed to be hits. When the "artist" and the record label stooges sat at a conference table and hashed out some schlock.
Lyrics = "What does our highest purchasing demograph want to hear?"
Music = "What is cool and edgy but inoffensive and 4 min 19 seconds?"
"What can we put to video"
Forget about the artist being inspired about anything but the bottom line.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, except for the relentless, and I mean RELENTLESS airplay.

[DKW]

Mmm.

I don't know anything about the history or values of Jefferson/[no word] Airplane/Starship and wouldn't care if I did. We Built This City got regular airplay throughout nearly my entire childhood, and the truth quickly danwed on me...damn, this song is stuuuuupid. It sounds like a collaborative effort of Bill O'Reilly and Homsar.

I mean, seriously, the hell? Marconi playing the mambo? Something surging through the guitars into unspecified schools? Corporate name changes making corporate machinations irrelevant? And could someone PLEASE explain to me what the hell this song has to do with rock & roll? (Poppification aside, this is an actual genre and actually means something. Just because the Hall of Fame takes all kinds does not mean that anyone has carte blanche to just throw the term around like a...corporation baseball.) Or San Francisco, for that matter? I mean, hello, Memphis, ever hear of it?

That said, it's stupid; it's not stomach-churning irritating, preachy, unbearably sappy, or grossly offensive. Which puts it ahead of I Will Always Love You, Dreamlover, Don't Cry Out Loud, Wind Beneath My Wings, You Can't Hurry Love, Jesus Take The Wheel, Right Here Waiting, that Expose one about not getting over, et-damn-to-hell-cetera.

I'd put it in the same boat as Ragg Mopp, Got To Be Starting Something, Play Me, The Joker*, and pretty much anything by America, or as I've come to know them as, "Nickelback unplugged".

* Never mind that pompatous business, what the frag is a "midnight toker"??

[NineToTheSky]

Originally Posted by DKW

* Never mind that pompatous business, what the frag is a "midnight toker"??

Someone who smokes dope at midnight? (See Steve Miller's 'The Joker'.)

[NineToTheSky]

Originally Posted by DKW

* Never mind that pompatous business, what the frag is a "midnight toker"??

Someone who smokes dope at midnight? (See Steve Miller's 'The Joker'.)

Too late to edit. That last sentence is, of course, completely superfluous.

[EinsteinsHund]

Originally Posted by DKW

Mmm.

I don't know anything about the history or values of Jefferson/[no word] Airplane/Starship and wouldn't care if I did. We Built This City got regular airplay throughout nearly my entire childhood, and the truth quickly danwed on me...damn, this song is stuuuuupid. It sounds like a collaborative effort of Bill O'Reilly and Homsar.

I mean, seriously, the hell? Marconi playing the mambo? Something surging through the guitars into unspecified schools? Corporate name changes making corporate machinations irrelevant? And could someone PLEASE explain to me what the hell this song has to do with rock & roll? (Poppification aside, this is an actual genre and actually means something. Just because the Hall of Fame takes all kinds does not mean that anyone has carte blanche to just throw the term around like a...corporation baseball.) Or San Francisco, for that matter? I mean, hello, Memphis, ever hear of it?

That said, it's stupid; it's not stomach-churning irritating, preachy, unbearably sappy, or grossly offensive. Which puts it ahead of I Will Always Love You, Dreamlover, Don't Cry Out Loud, Wind Beneath My Wings, You Can't Hurry Love, Jesus Take The Wheel, Right Here Waiting, that Expose one about not getting over, et-damn-to-hell-cetera.

I'd put it in the same boat as Ragg Mopp, Got To Be Starting Something, Play Me, The Joker*, and pretty much anything by America, or as I've come to know them as, "Nickelback unplugged".

* Never mind that pompatous business, what the frag is a "midnight toker"??

You're my man.

[kenobi 65]

Originally Posted by DKW

Or San Francisco, for that matter? I mean, hello, Memphis, ever hear of it?

The band was originally *from* San Francisco, which I think was the point.

I found the song to be overly self-righteous about commercialism, when it was so obvious that it *was* an exceedingly commercial song. That, and it just wasn't a very good song.

[TBG]

I'll always love "We Built This City" because of the Simpsons episode "Kill The Gator And Run"

[DKW]

EinsteinsHund - Aww, shucks. Hey, no biggie, just trying to see all sides here. Apparently that's not always appreciated, but it's great when it is.

kenobi - Oh. Still do not understand how that particular city was built on anything remotely resembling rock & roll. New Orleans, sure. Philadelphia, no problem. Seattle, you could make a case. Maybe Detroit. San Francisco? Cable cars, gay baths, Rice-a-roni, fine art, Chinatown, expensive housing? Nope, not seeing it.

[silenus]

The song is shit, if for no other reason than the radio edit, which deleted the "dj voice-over" to allow whichever platter-jockey was forced to air the turd to do his own patter in its place, specific to whatever market he was stuck in.

[Talon Karrde]

I hadn't heard it before this thread, but was familiar with its reputation. I keep watching the video. It's like a trainwreck. My favorite parts are the guy who doesn't look like Able Lincoln playing his statue, and the weird little dance Grace Slick does when she sings the "Marconi plays the mamba" part after her verse. Actually, I like her verse itself. It sounds like she's not even trying.

I think the 80's had some great pop music, but this song isn't among them. I don't get how people defend this saying it's catchy and fun, because to me it isn't either. It's depressing and joyless.

BTW: I love Sugar, Sugar by The Archies.

[cochrane]

Originally Posted by DKW

kenobi - Oh. Still do not understand how that particular city was built on anything remotely resembling rock & roll. New Orleans, sure. Philadelphia, no problem. Seattle, you could make a case. Maybe Detroit. San Francisco? Cable cars, gay baths, Rice-a-roni, fine art, Chinatown, expensive housing? Nope, not seeing it.

Jefferson Airplane? Grateful Dead? Quicksilver Messenger Service? Big Brother and the Holding Company? Santana? Blue Cheer? Sly and the Family Stone? CCR? The Bay Area counter-culture spawned a good number of seminal American bands in the 60s.

Also this thread wouldn't be complete without "We Built This City" - The Literal Video Version.

[Vinyl Turnip]

Couple of years ago, two friends and I were on an interstate motorcycle trip and stopped for the night in Coos Bay, Oregon, where we found a dive bar fitting my preference (feels like you're below ground when you aren't; single half-bitten egg floating in an underlit beaker of green fluid; bar mirror and bartender both antique and opaque from decades of nicotine resin).

I announced to the entire room (population: 4) that I was going to go pick out and play the worst song on the jukebox, and after studying the selection carefully, I did. That song was "We Built This City" by Starship. True story.

[Jackmannii]

It's too "meh" a song to hate.

Please tell me the OP is a "Why do you hate..." parody.

[Jodi]

Originally Posted by Ximenean

Somebody mentioned "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now", which demonstrates to me that WBTC is not even Starship's worst song. There were dozens, hundreds even of hit songs in the 80s worse than WBTC. Where's the hate for (to name some random examples that popped into my head) "Borderline" by Madonna, or "I Just Called to Say I Love You", or the entire catalogue of Michael Bolton?

Those are all very bad songs as well, IMHO. Their relative suckage doesn't make WBTC any better.

It's obvious "catchy and fun" is completely subjective. As a teenager when the song was released, I didn't carry any of the "Jefferson Airplane/ they're so much better than this" baggage. But I thought the melody was pedestrian, overproduced, and not at all catchy; the lyrics were stupid on a stick; and the band sounded like they were phoning it in. Add to that the who "INSERT STATION ID" BS in the middle, which of course screamed "SELL OUT!" and you had a Very Bad Song.

It doesn't make me throw up in my mouth or anything, but I will switch stations if it happens to be on.

[The Punkyova]

The clearest memory I have of this song, involves MTV. At the time it came out, I was dating a guy who really took MTV seriously. (At one point he was very upset that they wasted a World Premier Video slot on The Fixx. No, I don't know why I didn't recognize that as a sign that the relationship was doomed. What can I say, he was cute. And that's my excuse for having watched enough MTV to know this. Let's move on.) MTV used to do promotions, and they had a "Star Ship" context for this album. They rented a boat, and had a cruise. Because a boat is a ship, see? And they had stars (musicians also currently promoting an album on MTV) on it, so it was a "Star Ship." Get it?

So they kept showing clips of what a wonderful time everyone on this excursion had. Actually, they kept showing the same clip, over and over. The band was playing this song, and the camera angles clearly showed everyone else on the boat, standing there, bored. They weren't paying any attention to the band, at all, they weren't talking to each other, they were just looking like zombies. They didn't even bother to clap when the song ended. And then some young female VJ would appear, screaming manically about how wonderful this was, because they were on a Star Ship with Starship (get it?) and they all stared at her like she was insane, which she may have been.

I regard this as incontrovertible proof that this is a bad song.

[Bearflag70]

Originally Posted by The Punkyova

(At one point he was very upset that they wasted a World Premier Video slot on The Fixx. ...)

Hey, find him and tell him there's nothing wrong with The Fixx.

[Nobody]

Originally Posted by Jackmannii

It's too "meh" a song to hate.

Please tell me the OP is a "Why do you hate..." parody.

Sorry, it's not a parody.

[42fish]

Originally Posted by Nobody

I was surprised when I heard (on an SDMB thread) that Huey Lewis & The News' s "Heart of Rock 'n Roll" had Huey sing different cities for different markets.

Heck, back in 1959 Tommy Facenda's "High School USA" was released in 28 different versions featuring different high school names for various regions of the country.

As for "We Built This City," it's idiotic but the performers act like they're making a big statement. You thus get a ghastly combination of cheese and pretentiousness.

[Icerigger]

I like the song, I also like Safety Dance, Andy Gibb and Big Country as well.........So There!

[MovieMogul]

Originally Posted by DKW

kenobi - Oh. Still do not understand how that particular city was built on anything remotely resembling rock & roll. New Orleans, sure. Philadelphia, no problem. Seattle, you could make a case. Maybe Detroit. San Francisco? Cable cars, gay baths, Rice-a-roni, fine art, Chinatown, expensive housing? Nope, not seeing it.

:sniff: No love for The Fillmore?

In the mid-1960s, The Fillmore Auditorium became the focal point for psychedelic music and counterculture in general, with acts such as Led Zeppelin, The Grateful Dead, The Who, Cream, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Pink Floyd, The Doors, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Big Brother and the Holding Company performing at the venue.[1] Besides rock, Graham also featured non-rock acts such as Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Charles Lloyd, Aretha Franklin, and Otis Redding as well as poetry readings. The venue had a legendary ambience as well as the stellar performances, often with swirling light-show projections, strobe lights and uninhibited dancing. At the end of the evening, Bill Graham often stood next to a huge bin of fresh apples at the front exit saying good night to the patrons and handing out apples. Many attendees also took home small handbill versions of the famous psychedelic art posters designed by artists including Rick Griffin, Wes Wilson, Victor Moscoso, and Stanley Mouse. The cultural impact of the Fillmore was very large. It is referenced by Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in a description of the counterculture of the 1960s in the Bay Area.

The song, though, does indeed blow chunks.

[Michael Ellis]

Rock and roll is a terrible foundation for a city's economy. I never read it because of the basic failure of the writers to understand how economics work.

[Blank Slate]

Bleh, now this awful song is in my head.

I seem to recall that there were regional versions of the chorus too, not just the DJ part.

We built this city
New York city
We built this city
on rock and roll

[Elendil's Heir]

Originally Posted by Michael Ellis

Rock and roll is a terrible foundation for a city's economy. I never read it because of the basic failure of the writers to understand how economics work.

Unless you're lucky enough to have a rock star with a bad accountant move into your 'burgh, most rock musicians would form an insufficient tax base for a modern city.

[WordMan]

San Francisco has a fine musical tradition in the modern era, especially if you include the Monterey Pop Festival and the birth of modern metal when Metallica ended up locating in NoCal. So as a native NoCal'er I have no problem with claiming SF as a cool music city.

But that song - oy, that song...I think all the posts so far in this thread do a nice pile-on; there's not a lot to add. Maybe the fact that it sounds like a clueless guy in a suit trying to rock out and get you to sing along...

[devilsknew]

All I remember is waking up abruptly to this song on my clock radio, nearly every morning of my Freshman year in high school, it was on an unholy "Good Morning Rotation" at the local hard rock station, and was just way-way overplayed on the radio, as well as MTV, period.

I have a bittersweet relationship with it, it's nostalgic, kind of catchy in the blandest way possible, but it is distinctly mixed in with that physical memory and the psychic angst of jerking awake 5 days a week to its Popentonic, hell's shanty chorus only to face those first scary and awkward days of High School.

[Sealemon2.0]

It's been pretty much covered in this thread, but for me:

1. Terrible beat, horrible synth, bland melody. Shitty guitar "riffs" and "solo".

2. Trying to sound rebelious, they come off like a suit in the 90's screaming "To the Extreme!" over and over.

3. The DJ Patter thing in the middle.

4. I can't stand either of the singer's voices. on this song. Yes, I like White Rabbit ok, but Grace Slick sounds completely different on WBTC, and not for the better.

5. This song is rock and roll like I'm a ninja trained CIA agent with bone claws.

6. Radio stations were apparently under a corporate mandate to play WBTC over and over until our brains melted. I know, I was there.

7. "Someone always playing corporation games..." Wow. Just....damn.



And with all that said, I'm actually a big fan of a lot of 80's pop. But this song was one of the worst pop songs of all time to me.

[MrSquishy]

I'm not sure if anybody has posted this yet:

http://www.blender.com/lists/61412/t...inge.html?p=10

I heard on the radio that Blender had named it "the worst song of all time". I thought to myself "Fuckin' A".

P.S. Yes, musical taste is somewhat subjective. But if you read that list and say to yourself "hey, I like that song!" more than once or twice, beware: everybody else thinks your musical taste is shit.

[Manduck]

Originally Posted by cochrane

This is off the subject, but I bought tons of K-Tel compilations in the 70's. They were all fully-licensed recordings from the original artists, not sound-alikes.

Back on topic, I do like We Built This City, although I relize it is not universally liked.

Also back in the seventies, there was a label called Pickwick Records that specialized in sound-alike knockoffs. I was suckered into buy one "Beatles" album that was all covers by some band I forget the name of (no doubt assembled just to perpetrate that record). The band's name was in tiny print on a corner of the back cover, very easy to miss.

Also, "We Built This City" sucks, if this is a poll. I remember it seeming to me like not just a bad song, but a ridiculous song, almost as if it was supposed to be a parody of bad synth pop.

[DKW]

MrSquishy - Ugh...look, I just read through that list, and I really, really don't think you should be using it as a source. I find myself wondering what the bloody hell these guys do like. I mean, they cited like 30 things that drive them nuts...how do they get through the day? (You can't avoid avoid radios forever, y'know!) I stand by my assessment, i.e. stupid, but there's much worse.

Is it really the overplay factor that's causing so much loathing? I speak from extensive experience (we didn't have much radio variety Hawaii until pretty recently) that any song that normally wouldn't be too annoying can inspire white-hot rage when overplayed too much. I'm certain that this was the main problem with My Heart Will Go On, too.

[Ximenean]

Originally Posted by DKW

Is it really the overplay factor that's causing so much loathing? I speak from extensive experience (we didn't have much radio variety Hawaii until pretty recently) that any song that normally wouldn't be too annoying can inspire white-hot rage when overplayed too much. I'm certain that this was the main problem with My Heart Will Go On, too.

I wondered about that too, because here (UK) We Built This City was not a major hit and was not played to death on radio or MTV. Besides, not that many people had MTV or similar channels at the time. I reckon I've only heard WBTC all the way through maybe ten times in my life, max?

[NineToTheSky]

While I've already expressed my dislike for this song, it is perhaps a little unfair to single it out exclusively. Pop music is littered with crass, boring, annoying and repetitive songs. 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep' by Middle Of The Road and 'Sugar Sugar' by the Archies are but two examples that make 'We Built This City' sound like a work of art.

[whitetho]

Originally Posted by NineToTheSky

'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep' by Middle Of The Road and 'Sugar Sugar' by the Archies are but two examples that make 'We Built This City' sound like a work of art.

We never heard of Middle of the Road in the U.S. -- they never had a charted hit here. Our version of Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep was by one-hit-wonders Mac and Kattie Kisson, who reached #20 in 1971. This was three months after Lally Stott's version stalled at #92, the last we ever heard of him (her?).

[WOOKINPANUB]

The song is hokey, to say the least, but it doesn't really get on my nerves or anything. Of course, I've had the pleasure of not hearing it for several years (except for the earworm that's been lodged in my brain since this thread appeared. Darn you to heck, OP).

I remember an interview with Paul Kantner many years ago, it might have been a VH1 Behind the Music, and when Starship was mentioned he said, with utter contempt, " . . .no, no you didn't build this city". I don't recall exactly what else he said but his disdain for the incarnation of his one time band was red hot and funny as hell.

I don't rember anything about the DJ part or it being customized for out local station, though I'll take everyone's word for it. Another song that I do remember getting that treatment was "Fire" by the Pointer Sisters


"I'm ridin' in your car
You turn on the radio <insert station letters>

[Elendil's Heir]

Originally Posted by WOOKINPANUB

...I don't rember anything about the DJ part or it being customized for out local station, though I'll take everyone's word for it. Another song that I do remember getting that treatment was "Fire" by the Pointer Sisters

"I'm ridin' in your car
You turn on the radio <insert station letters>

I haven't heard that, but Robin Williams in his old stage act did a great rendition of "Fire" in the voice of Elmer Fudd:

"I'm widin' in your car
You turn on the wadio...."

[Elendil's Heir]

Originally Posted by MrSquishy

...But if you read that list and say to yourself "hey, I like that song!" more than once or twice, beware: everybody else thinks your musical taste is shit.

I like just seven of those songs, and have four of them on my iPod. Don't you judge me!

[Yorikke]

I loved it at the time, but I was a child. Like 12 or 13. Listening to it again about 5 years ago, I couldn't believe the craptastic sounds coming from the speakers. And that 45 single cover... Ouch!

And that 45 single cover... Ouch!


Joe

[Freddy the Pig]

Y'all are just a bunch of uptight corporate drones, calling the Starship irresponsible and writing them off the page.

Long live faux rock and roll rebellion!

[MrSquishy]

Originally Posted by wheresgeorge04

And that 45 single cover... Ouch!

Oh my god!

[Rhythmdvl]

How forgetful can you be? What's all this discussion of WBtC being a song? Doesn't anyone remember the eighties? Nancy Reagan? Just Say No?

Oh, sure, MTV may have had a parody version or something like that that seemed to be a music video (they were cutting edge from the start--hard to tell satire from reality even back then). But what everyone is talking about is actually just part of a commercial. I can't seem to find the original on YouTube, but the first half varied with either Lather, Plastic Fantastic Lover, Somebody to Love, or White Rabbit, then a voiceover saying something to the effect of "beware kids, look what drugs will do to you..." before fading into We Built this City.

Powerful stuff.

[Boyo Jim]

God help me, this thread is going to make me go and listen to the song again.


DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU TO HELL, YOU DAMN DIRTY APES!

[Nobody]

[Mr. Burns]Excellent[/Mr. Burns]