# Starship's "We Built This City" - Why the hate? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 26, 2009, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634 "2009-09-26T09:53:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/1 "2009-09-26T09:53:32Z")
A lot of people on this board, and elsewhere, really seem to hate this song. Why is that? Do you hate pop rock in general? Did you like it at first, but then it got overplayed and you came to hate it? I’ll be honest, I love the song. It’s a great catchy little pop rock tune and I can’t understand the hate. ---
**Author:** ![Lobot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce7236/32.png) [@Lobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobot)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/2 "2009-09-26T10:14:14Z")
I hated it as soon as it came out. Unbelievably kitsch, even at the time. That said, I enjoy that same aspect now. It’s still bad, but entertainingly so. The video alone is GOLD. I miss the campiness of the '80s. FWIW, I love pop/rock. But “We Built This City” is LCD, manufactured junk. See also: “The Flame”, a song Cheap Trick (one of my favourite bands) were forced into recording. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/3 "2009-09-26T10:23:29Z")
The song “We Built This City” was by Starship, one of the groups that was spun off the group Jefferson Airplane after it broke up and got together several times: > **[We Built This City](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Built_This_City)** > > "We Built This City" is a 1985 song by American rock band Starship, the debut single from the album Knee Deep in the Hoopla. It was written by English musicians Martin Page and Bernie Taupin, who were both living in Los Angeles at the time, and was originally intended as a lament against the closure of many of that city's live music clubs. > The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Outside the United States, "We Built This City" topped the charts in Australia and Canada, peaked in... I’ve heard the _Behind the Music_ episode on the Jefferson Airplane, and even the people in the group didn’t like what they were doing by that point. It was popular, but it was so far from their origins in the Jefferson Airplane that they felt that they were selling out. ---
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/4 "2009-09-26T10:28:39Z")
For me, part of the hate is for what they’d mutated into by then. Back in the '60s, they were icons of free love, revolution and morning maniac music. They then embraced a large section of West Coast musicians with the incomparable Blows Against The Empire, Sunfighter, Baron Von Tolbooth, Manhole and Dragonfly albums, inviting us to All Fly Away to some interstellar heaven. Yes, I know how that sounds - it wasn’t just the music, but the whole fantastical concept that inspired and moved me. They were alternative and great. We Built This City is a very catchy, typical pop song. It could have been done by any number of nonentities. They were trail-blazing heroes; they became a pop group. I felt let down. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/5 "2009-09-26T10:38:52Z")
Gah. I hate it because it’s an awful, terrible, dreadful song. And now it’s gonna be stuck in my head all day. You’re a bad, bad man, Nobody. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/6 "2009-09-26T10:42:11Z")
> [@Lobot](#): > > I hated it as soon as it came out. Unbelievably kitsch, even at the time. > > That said, I enjoy that same aspect now. It’s still bad, but entertainingly so. The video alone is GOLD. I miss the campiness of the '80s. Well yeah, I agree about the video. > [@](#): > > FWIW, I love pop/rock. But “We Built This City” is LCD, manufactured junk. See also: “The Flame”, a song Cheap Trick (one of my favourite bands) were forced into recording. I love “The Flame”:o. Not as much as some of their other songs, but I still love it. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/7 "2009-09-26T10:44:38Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > Gah. I hate it because it’s an awful, terrible, dreadful song. Yes, but why do you feel that way? Or is it something you can’t articulate? > [@](#): > > And now it’s gonna be stuck in my head all day. > > You’re a bad, bad man, Nobody. I try. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/8 "2009-09-26T11:18:44Z")
I’ve also heard a lot of people hate it, but I like the song. ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/9 "2009-09-26T12:09:00Z")
It’s dreadful, and I’ve hated it from the get-go. [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/uH-UqB7uYiE/hqdefault.jpg "Starship - We Built this City") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH-UqB7uYiE) Horribly overproduced vocals in the opening. How to do it right? See Kansas - “Carry On Wayward Son”. I don’t think the song allows the singers to, you know, sing. Grace is almost talking through much of it, rather than singing. It sounds like MTV threw up the 80’s. Did they have to cram in EVERY dreadful early 80’s synth cliche? Wow, I just checked **Wendell Wagner** ’s Wikipedia link. it was co-written by Bernie Taupin and Peter Wolfe. Peter doesn’t surprise me much: he was a great disappointment to me after he left J. Geils, and everything that I know he did afterward sort of ruins his earlier stuff by association. I can only hope that my knowledge of what Bernie unleashed on the world in 1985 doesn’t similarly taint my appreciation of Elton John’s body of work. I think I’m safe though . Elton and Bernie were just too, too awesome to taint. They’d have to take a Gary Glitter style nosedive into the gutter, through the pavement and deep into the Earth’s mantle to taint that catalog. > **[We Built This City](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Built_This_City)** > > "We Built This City" is a 1985 song by American rock band Starship, the debut single from the album Knee Deep in the Hoopla. It was written by English musicians Martin Page and Bernie Taupin, who were both living in Los Angeles at the time, and was originally intended as a lament against the closure of many of that city's live music clubs. > The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Outside the United States, "We Built This City" topped the charts in Australia and Canada, peaked in... “Knee deep in the hoopla”? Really? It took Bernie Freakin’ Taupin to write that line? Maybe it did. Anyone else and they wouldn’t get away with it. It’s drek. Painful pablum. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/10 "2009-09-26T12:46:02Z")
I’m with the OP. Maybe it’s because I was only dimly aware of the connection between Starship and some 60s band called Jefferson Airplane, so my opinion wasn’t coloured by that. But I liked “We Built This City” at the time and don’t understand why it is held up as a paragon of bad 80’s songs. I still think the chorus is pretty strong. The verse, less so. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/11 "2009-09-26T12:59:09Z")
There’s also the inherent conceit in the title – that this corporatized synth-pop remnant of a Haight-Ashbury band was claiming credit for the Summer of Love. ---
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/12 "2009-09-26T13:10:53Z")
> [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#): > > “Knee deep in the hoopla”? Really? It took Bernie Freakin’ Taupin to write that line? Maybe it did. Anyone else and they wouldn’t get away with it. > > It’s drek. Painful pablum. You’re forgetting “Marconi plays the mamba”. Bernie Freakin’ Taupin indeed. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/13 "2009-09-26T13:19:13Z")
Total sell-out, and total dreck. A true low-point in human existence. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/14 "2009-09-26T13:20:10Z")
Yeah, I didn’t hate it. It wasn’t great, but it was catchy and fun. ---
**Author:** ![Lochdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/edb3f5/32.png) [@Lochdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lochdale)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/15 "2009-09-26T14:06:48Z")
Wasn’t the band happy though because they needed the money? Count me in the like column. Didn’t know anything about Jefferson Airplane in the mid 80’s. Was 10 or 11 when it came out and I thought it was a good song then. Can kinda of get the hate but it sort of comes off as grumpy yet pretentious old folk annoyed that their nostalgia has been coloured. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/16 "2009-09-26T14:07:32Z")
…so? Whether it was a good or bad song, they got paid for it. That’s the bottom line. Free love, revolution, and morning maniac music?? What are you thinking? That they lived in a commune where their fans could drop in and get loaded sitting on beanbag chairs? Out overthrowing The Man? (I don’t know what morning maniac music is.) I doubt the JA did any of that after their first paycheck. And I LOVE “The Flame”. It still brings tears to my eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/17 "2009-09-26T14:07:53Z")
> [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#): > > Wow, I just checked **Wendell Wagner** ’s Wikipedia link. it was co-written by Bernie Taupin and Peter Wolfe. Peter doesn’t surprise me much: he was a great disappointment to me after he left J. Geils, and everything that I know he did afterward sort of ruins his earlier stuff by association. The Peter Wolf who collaborated with Grace Slick and Starship wasn’t the J. Geils Band guy (whose real name was Blankfield). This Peter Wolf was an Austrian who played keyboards in Frank Zappa’s band in the late '70s. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/18 "2009-09-26T14:14:33Z")
Cheesy, self-important, and a horrible spiral of decay from what they’d once been. I hope they made a boatload of money, though, so it was worth it to them. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/19 "2009-09-26T14:46:47Z")
I don’t really like any of their previosu stuff so the issue of “what they became” or “selling out” doesn’t matter to me. In any event, I don’t care if musicians “sell out.” Everyone else makes as much money as they can, why can’t musicians? I hate “We Built This City” because it sucks. ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634/20 "2009-09-26T15:17:12Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > The Peter Wolf who collaborated with Grace Slick and Starship wasn’t the J. Geils Band guy (whose real name was Blankfield). This Peter Wolf was an Austrian who played keyboards in Frank Zappa’s band in the late '70s. Thank you for the correction. I’d like to think that if I had any sleep last night that I would have clicked the link and worked it out for myself. I still think the Peter Wolf(of J. Geils fame) is a disappointment, and that “We Built This City” is an embarrassment to all involved. 😃 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starships-we-built-this-city-why-the-hate/511634.md?page=2)