{"id":162234,"date":"2025-08-20T22:43:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T22:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/162234\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T22:43:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T22:43:13","slug":"how-we-built-this-city-went-from-no-1-hit-to-worst-song-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/162234\/","title":{"rendered":"How \u201cWe Built This City\u201d Went From No. 1 Hit to \u201cWorst Song Ever\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1985, the band known as Starship made music history. Apart from the Rolling Stones, they became the only other act to ever have three top-five singles in three different decades<\/a>: the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. The trifecta was thanks to \u201cWe Built This City,\u201d a catchy anthem that enjoyed heavy rotation on the radio and on MTV.<\/p>\n

\u201cShort, snappy, with a catchy chorus, it is made for radio play,\u201d wrote<\/a> the Associated Press. \u201cHow can a song that constantly repeats \u2018We built this city on rock \u2018n roll\u2019 go wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a question better left unasked. After a couple decades of relative tolerance, the public seemed to abruptly decide that \u201cWe Built This City\u201d was not a good song. Instead, it was one of\u2014if not the worst\u2014songs ever recorded, a sentiment that even Starship\u2019s band members appeared to share.<\/p>\n

\u201c \u2019We Built This City,\u2019 \u201d Starship singer Grace Slick said decades later, \u201cis the worst song ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A Record Disaster<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. A \u2018City\u2019 in Ruins<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    A Record Disaster<\/p>\n

    Starship had taken a long and winding road to their 1980s incarnation. In 1965, Marty Balin and Paul Kantner formed<\/a> Jefferson Airplane, a San Francisco-based rock troupe that eventually recruited Grace Slick on lead vocals. Band members came and went, and by 1974<\/a>, the group had morphed into Jefferson Starship. In 1984, Kantner left<\/a>, taking legal ownership of the Jefferson name with him. That left Slick, co-vocalist Mickey Thomas, guitarist Craig Chaquico, drummer Danny Baldwin, and bassist Pete Sears. It also left them with the truncated name Starship. Slick was the only band member to survive all three iterations. (She joined the band for Airplane\u2019s second album, replacing Signe Anderson.)<\/p>\n

    But the band didn\u2019t exactly originate their most infamous recording. In an ambitious oral history for GQ <\/a>in 2016, author Rob Tannenbaum traced the origin of \u201cWe Built This City\u201d to Bernie Taupin, the celebrated lyricist best known for his longtime collaboration with Elton John. Working with Martin Page, Taupin penned lyrics that he considered allegorical to the live music scene in Los Angeles, which was seeing a decline in live acts. Taupin and Page\u2019s song was a lamentation of an industry that was increasingly about provocative, slick music videos, not intimate stage performances.<\/p>\n

    According to Taupin, however, their version didn\u2019t have a lot to do<\/a> with the finished product. \u201cThe original song was a very dark kind of mid-tempo song, and it didn\u2019t have all this \u2018We built this city!\u2019 in it,\u201d he told Rolling Stone in 2013. \u201cIt had none of that. It was a very dark song about how club life in L.A. was being killed off and live acts had no place to go. It was a very specific thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \"Members<\/p>\n

    Starship performs with singer Grace Slick (L). | Paul Natkin\/GettyImages<\/p>\n

    Taupin\u2019s song was tweaked by producer Peter Wolf, who added the \u201cwe built this city\u201d chorus and began shopping a demo to different acts. He made his way to Starship, where he played the sample for guitarist Chaquico.<\/p>\n

    \u201cAbout a minute in, he hit the pause button and in his Austrian accent started to sing, \u2018Vee built dis seety on vock and VOLL,\u2019 \u201d Chaquico told Tannenbaum.<\/p>\n

    Starship, which wanted to bank on populist, radio-friendly tracks, thought the song had potential. So did an MTV executive, who listened to it and told them they were sitting on a hit. They recorded it for their album Knee Deep in the Hoopla, which was released in 1985. Off the album came two No. 1s: the ballad \u201cSara\u201d and the crowd-pleasing \u201cWe Built This City,\u201d which knocked<\/a> the powerhouse theme to the television hit Miami Vice off the top of the charts. \u201cCity\u201d was also nominated<\/a> for a Grammy for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group. (It lost to Dire Straits and \u201cMoney for Nothing.\u201d)<\/p>\n

    By any standard, commercial or otherwise, \u201cWe Built This City\u201d was a massive success for Starship. But the song wouldn\u2019t remain in good standing forever.<\/p>\n

    A \u2018City\u2019 in Ruins<\/p>\n

    If someone were to try and predict which song from 1985 would age poorly<\/a>, \u201cWe Built This City\u201d wouldn\u2019t be a very strong contender. That year also saw the release<\/a> of comedian Eddie Murphy\u2019s \u201cParty All the Time\u201d and Lionel Ritchie\u2019s maudlin \u201cSay You, Say Me,\u201d among others. But while these songs and others have their detractors, they didn\u2019t suffer the fate of \u201cCity,\u201d which fell victim to what amounted to a slow news cycle.<\/p>\n

    In 2004, the editorial staff of the music magazine Blender named<\/a> \u201cWe Built This City\u201d the \u201cworst song ever,\u201d topping a list that included \u201cAchy Breaky Heart\u201d by Billy Ray Cyrus, \u201cEverybody Have Fun Tonight\u201d by Wang Chung, and \u201cIce Ice Baby\u201d by Vanilla Ice. (And yes, Blender did give \u201cParty All the Time\u201d its due: It came in eighth.)<\/p>\n

    Blender\u2019s hyperbolic list seemed to capture the attention of the national news media; CBS News ran a story on it, as did a number of other outlets. The VH-1 music channel, which colluded with Blender on the list, put it in front of viewers<\/a> as part of a two-hour special, The 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs \u2026Ever.<\/p>\n

    The media attention seemed to turn a subjective opinion into accepted wisdom, one that was echoed by music critics who jumped at the chance to pile on. \u201c \u2019We Built This City\u2019 is a perfect pick,\u201d wrote Albany Times Union columnist Greg Haymes. \u201c[It\u2019s] somewhat unexpected, yet a song that has gnawed at me for years. It is so self-congratulatory, so pompous. It proclaims itself to be real rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, and yet it\u2019s so corporate and bland production-wise that it argues against itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

    With little backlash to the ranking, \u201cWe Built This City\u201d continued to take a beating. In 2006, Blender pulled another promotional stunt<\/a> by having writer Russ Heller lock himself inside a booth and listen to the song a record 324 times in 24 hours. It was presented as a feat of endurance. In 2011, Rolling Stone opened the issue<\/a> up to readers, who voted it the worst song of the 1980s\u2014somewhat of an improvement over the worst of all time, but no less ignoble.<\/p>\n

    While Blender may have opened the door to mass reconsideration of the song, there was clearly a simmering resentment that went beyond not liking the chorus. One possible answer may lie in Starship\u2019s evolution over the decades. Under the leadership of co-founder Paul Kantner, Jefferson Airplane had been a group unafraid to tackle political messaging<\/a>. When he departed in 1984, it was, he said<\/a>, because he felt the group was becoming too slick. \u201cWe Built This City\u201d seemed to embody the idea of a band fueling the recording industry machinery\u2014something that Starship\u2019s previous counterculture status made unpalatable to purists. Smelling blood, even casual music fans nodded in agreement. <\/p>\n

    If that was the song\u2019s sin, Thomas didn\u2019t buy into it. \u201cThe stakes were higher because of the band\u2019s past,\u201d he told GQ. \u201cPeople said, \u2018You have to carry the mantle of the \u201960s.\u2019 C\u2019mon. It\u2019s 1985.\u201d <\/p>\n

    Bad or good, \u201cWe Built This City\u201d made\u2014and continues to make\u2014its artists money. \u201cThat was voted the worst song of all time in Spin or something, which I don\u2019t necessarily disagree with, considering the way it turned out,\u201d Taupin said. \u201cThough I shouldn\u2019t say that, because it was an [incredibly] successful song. It will probably help send my children to college, and I like that they play it at sporting events, being a sports fanatic.\u201d<\/p>\n

    It’s possible the song may one day be reassessed yet again. For now, it appears that its 2000s-era infamy is staying put. In 2024, \u201cWe Built This City\u201d was repurposed<\/a> by Madison Avenue and turned into \u201cWe Quilt This City With a Comfy Roll.\u201d The spot was for Quilted Northern toilet paper.<\/p>\n

    Read More Mental Floss Music Coverage:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1985, the band known as Starship made music history. Apart from the Rolling Stones, they became the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":162235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,975,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-162234","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115063514941304387","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}