[HN Gopher] An oral history of "We Built This City," the worst s...
___________________________________________________________________
An oral history of "We Built This City," the worst song of all time
(2016)
Author : coloneltcb
Score : 47 points
Date : 2024-11-14 04:59 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.gq.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.gq.com)
| iwanttocomment wrote:
| For some reason, this mention of Starship's "We Built This City"
| led me down a hole of Internet research on my own personal
| Mandala Effect rabbit hole. I remembered as a kid, the Residents
| - who I only knew at the time as a bunch of guys wearing eyeballs
| as their heads - being part of the video for "We Built This
| City". I later became a fan of the Residents, who hadn't
| mentioned this at all. No evidence of them appearing with
| Starship, including the video for "We Built this City". But I
| hadn't been able to shake this vision for decades. Did I imagine
| it?
|
| Tonight, digging deeper, I found it! I found the source. In 1984,
| just a year before "We Built this City", Jefferson Starship (the
| progenitor of Starship, we won't mention the Airplane here)
| released a video for their ostensible hit single "Layin' it on
| the Line".
|
| There they were! The Residents! In a terrible, terrible Jefferson
| Starship video! Sung by Grace Slick and, uh, that dude from
| Starship!
|
| Strangely, I'll be able to sleep deeply tonight knowing that this
| mystery that was knawing at my soul for so many years has finally
| been solved.
| f1shy wrote:
| You mean Mandela effect, don't you? If not, the name Mandala is
| yet another Mandela effect. :D
| gcr wrote:
| And "gnawing," not "knawing"! :)
| dvh wrote:
| It was always mandala effect. The fractal like nature of
| mandala characterize the wispy tenuous nature of ones memory.
| bena wrote:
| No, it's named for Nelson Mandela. Because when he died
| people falsely thought they remembered him dying a couple
| of decades before. But they likely conflated his release
| from prison with his death.
| hinkley wrote:
| The Mandala effect is forgetting that the effect is about
| Nelson Mandela not a Buddhist exercise in impermanence.
| tomcam wrote:
| Damn son. That line is epic. Pretend I somehow gave you
| another dozen votes.
| richrichardsson wrote:
| Mandala effect a typo?
|
| It should be Mandela effect, but this is the 2nd time I've seen
| Mandala in its place.
| NobodyNada wrote:
| Are you _sure_ it 's supposed to be "Mandela effect"?
| cholantesh wrote:
| Yes; it is named for the mistaken belief that Mandela died
| in prison during the 80s.
| jdenning wrote:
| Whoosh :)
| dankwizard wrote:
| But he did?
|
| Or didn't he?
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| Like aluminum and flavor. My spellchecker does not agree even
| if I write those words correctly.
| thrtythreeforty wrote:
| You can't tell the story and then not link the video!
| jmknoll wrote:
| With a promotion like "terrible, terrible Jefferson Starship
| video," I needed to go watch it.
|
| That really was just a completely incoherent mess. But the guys
| with eyeballs on their heads were there.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqLnVgR7fLw
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Every once in awhile I see an 80s video or movie, and
| remember: yeah, wow, people really did have giant hair back
| then.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| It's not giant when everyone is doing it: it's just normal.
|
| And what do you have against letting your soul glo?
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=961x0NmyHKE
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| I find Lionel Richie a phenomenon. The hair and moustache
| look weird now, but his songs stand the test of time.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| +1, but then my copy of Rick James' _Street Songs_ has
| grooves cut into it, so what do I know of music?
| Vecr wrote:
| A lot of things have always been pretty boring. People
| wanting to be seen were less likely to look boring though,
| so there's a selection effect there.
| tptacek wrote:
| I feel like I should be familiar with this song but I'm not,
| and I have to say, truly one of the great choruses of 80's
| rock: "we're layin' it on the line (layin' it on the line)
| ---just layin' it all, right on the line".
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Sign of our times -- starship more popular than airplane
| euroderf wrote:
| Balin had that whiney edge that was in style (and probably
| always is).
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| >"Layin' it on the Line"
|
| Damn that song is great! Seems to have an anti-war message too.
| burningChrome wrote:
| I remember having my own rabbit hole with the Residents band.
|
| In junior high I used to stay up late and watch Letterman. He
| used to have Chris Elliot the comedian on doing various bits.
| He had one that imitated the Residents where Chris and several
| other people dressed up in weird outfits called something like
| "Maumoshcantz" or something French sounding. Chris' costume had
| a big black box with three toilet rolls for the face on it and
| played bizarre, "avant-garde" music. When they finished, Chris
| came over to sit with Dave. Dave tried to announce the name of
| the band and Chris scolded him by over pronouncing the name.
| Then Dave asked what part Chris played and he exclaimed, "I
| played the guy with toilet rolls on his head Dave! Shesssh!"
|
| I recounted the bit to a friend and he instantly said the whole
| bit was a tilt of the cap to the band The Residents and it
| poked fun at their outfits and members on purpose.
|
| This lead me, pre-internet to start digging around to find out
| what I could about the band. A few weeks later there was some
| MTV News story about a musician who died that apparently was
| one of the members. They made light of the fact nobody knew
| this since the band had purposefully concealed their identities
| so they could rotate out people as necessary and then say they
| just wanted people to focus on the music instead. Strangely
| enough, there was a similar story making the rounds on the
| internet about something similar that Slipknot was doing and
| Corey Taylor even used the same reason they wear masks - so
| fans can focus more in the music! This of course, brought back
| memories in my own research that eventually concluded with an
| older brother of a friend who was into really weird stuff and
| gave me a somewhat sordid history of the The Residents, and
| some the eerie connections to their management team Cryptic
| Corporation. He even pulled out several albums saying there's a
| possibility The Beatles WERE the Residents and showed me the
| two albums "Meet the Residents" and "Meet the Beatles" album as
| proof. Keep in mind, I was like 10, my buddies brother was like
| 16; so imagine how _that_ conversation went down.
|
| Anyways, thanks for bringing this up, it was really fun
| remembering my own rabbit hole with that band. Which
| interestingly enough, started with a David Letterman bit and
| ended with similar rumors swirling around Slipknot.
| dfan wrote:
| The Letterman bit must have been parodying Mummenschanz, an
| avant-garde Swiss theater group that was pretty popular (as
| those things go) at the time. They do feel a bit in the same
| corner of the arts universe as the Residents...
| PrismCrystal wrote:
| Right there in the first paragraph: "At the time, Starship's most
| famous member, singer Grace Slick, was 46."
|
| Grace Slick was born in 1939, so she was among the oldest of her
| cohort already in the Sixties. She's one of the strangest things
| about pop history for me, right up there with Debbie Harry being
| over thirty when Blondie hit it big, and Stuart Murdoch being
| accepted by Glasgow hipster circles well into his late 30s. Pop
| music is so youth-centered, and that youth audience has often
| been highly suspicious and deprecating of people much older than
| them, that it baffles me that these performers still flourished.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Perhaps the exceptions that prove the rule then.
| jhbadger wrote:
| A lot of the leaders of the hippies were actually older than
| that generation, despite the classic "don't trust anyone over
| 30" and "hope I die before I get old" sentiments of the
| movement. For example, both Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin (who
| founded the "Youth International Party" or yippies, which
| mutated into hippies) were born in the 1930s, a decade or more
| older than most hippies.
| hinkley wrote:
| Aerosmith was about to call it quits, they did that duet with
| Run DMC and had another handful of platinum records afterward.
| Tyler was ~38 when Walk This Way charted the second time. Many
| of their greatest hits are from after they were old.
|
| And then there was Tom Petty, who had hits in three decades.
| Practically David Bowie levels of staying power.
| bena wrote:
| Dude sang about smoking weed, hanging out, and loving each
| other. None of that goes out of style.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| Stephin Merritt was 34 when 69 Love Songs came out.
|
| Dick Taylor was an early member of the Rolling Stones and then
| in his 40s joined the Mekons and played guitar on some of their
| best records.
|
| I'm sure there are more fun examples.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| Well then, the mystery surrounding how old Ric Ocasek of The
| Cars will make you even more baffled:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/17/reader-center/ric-ocasek-...
| osmsucks wrote:
| Nonsense. The worst song of all time is "Wonderful Christmastime"
| by Paul McCartney.
|
| (Don't believe me? Listen for yourself:
| https://youtu.be/94Ye-3C1FC8)
| jjulius wrote:
| That's actually tied with Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War is Over)".
| Listen carefully and you can hear Yoko Ono screeching
| incredibly far out of tune as the piece climaxes. It's not in
| the forefront of the song, but it's there, and it's stuck out
| so much to me ever since I first noticed it.
| deltarholamda wrote:
| "Do They Know It's Christmas" usually makes the lists of
| terrible Christmas music as well.
|
| So much Christmas music is repetitive, but coloring outside the
| lines is a tough thing to do with Christmas music. The Pogues
| nailed it with "Fairytale of New York", but it largely appeals
| only to GenX and younger.
| rob74 wrote:
| Yeah, I mean it's pretty silly to declare something "the worst
| song of all time" - everyone has their personal taste and their
| own personal songs they love to hate. For me, it's (of course)
| Wham's _Last Christmas_ and _I Will Always Love You_ (sorry
| Whitney, but back in the 90s when I was watching a lot of MTV,
| listening to a lot of radio, and ads for _Bodyguard_ were all
| over the place, I seem to have developed an allergy to this
| song).
|
| And BTW, I wouldn't even call this the quintessential 80s song,
| for me that's Stevie Wonder's _I Just Called to Say I Love You_
| , with that cheapo synthesizer bleeping along in the
| background. Oh well, to quote Calvin Harris, it was "acceptable
| in the 80s"...
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Wow, the rare double penalty. Loss of 5 yards for stooping to a
| Christmas song for worst song of all time debate, loss of an
| additional 20 yards for going with a post-Beatles McCartney
| track. This may be internet bullshit, but by god we have rules.
|
| > (Don't believe me? Listen for yourself:
| https://youtu.be/94Ye-3C1FC8)
|
| This may not be a felony, but it should be. Have you no shame,
| sir? A child could accidentally click on that link.
| etimberg wrote:
| For me, "I want a hippopotamus for christmas" is even worse.
| hondo77 wrote:
| Hey, when only a hippopotamus will do, what else is there?
| drewcoo wrote:
| We'd have to ask Dr. Demento.
| DanHulton wrote:
| I will literally leave a store if this is playing.
|
| But also, the fact that you are damn near guaranteed to run
| into this song _yearly_ qualifies it to be way higher up than
| any other song on a "worst song" list (even if it weren't
| already at #1).
| JohnFen wrote:
| > I will literally leave a store if this is playing.
|
| Me too. But, in fairness, that's my instinctive reaction to
| any Christmas music being played in a store.
| sed_zeppelin wrote:
| The Mannheim Steamroller version of "Deck the Halls" Is bloody
| awful.
| techdmn wrote:
| If this song isn't proof that Paul McCartney is a psychopath, I
| don't know what is. It is absolutely the most insipid,
| uninspired piece of garbage ever to be recorded.
| scrumper wrote:
| Aaagh you monster it's only November and now that horrible
| aimless effected wobbly chord fever dream is stuck in my head
| again. I had at least another couple weeks before hearing it
| for the first time this year.
|
| I never understood how something could be so bland and yet so
| revolting at the same time, like a smoothie made of wallpaper
| paste and dog shit.
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| How does he sing out of tune on his own darn song? If he's not
| out of tune, those awfully strained high notes shouldn't have
| been written in whatever weird key they're in.
| marton78 wrote:
| Also, ebony and ivory. Absolutely terrible.
| cynicalsecurity wrote:
| I'm flagging it just because the website is not readable at all,
| even with an adblocker. The content is completely blocked with
| popups.
| askl wrote:
| Looks perfectly fine. Get a better adblocker or enable more
| rules.
| deltarholamda wrote:
| I didn't know Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics to this song. Man,
| that's gotta sting.
|
| But if I was making a list of Awful, Terrible Songs, I'm not sure
| I would have even included this one, mostly because I wouldn't
| remember it existed. Maybe that's what makes it bad--it was in
| _constant_ rotation in the 80s, but as soon as they stopped
| playing it regularly I just... forgot it existed.
|
| Looking at various lists of "Worst Songs" always confuses me. A
| lot of them are just really popular songs that got overplayed.
| Wikipedia's page says the Spandau Ballet's "True" is one, which
| is just nuts.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > But if I was making a list of Awful, Terrible Songs, I'm not
| sure I would have even included this one
|
| I wouldn't. It's not a great song or anything, but I can easily
| come up with a lengthy list of songs that are far, far worse.
| sed_zeppelin wrote:
| > I didn't know Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics to this song.
| Man, that's gotta sting.
|
| It would Sting more if we were talking about a song like
| "Fields of Gold."
| cholantesh wrote:
| I think there are songs that wear listeners out from being
| overplayed, some that require repeated listens to appreciate,
| but there are ones that start out bad and do not get redeemed
| either by repeated listens or context. Lift Yourself
| (https://youtu.be/8fbyfDbi-MI?t=117), Gucci Gang
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LfJnj66HVQ), and Beautiful
| Things (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa_RSwwpPaA&pp=ygUQQmVh
| dXRpZ...) all exist as examples of this, I think. All fairly
| recent, I'll confess.
| tikhonj wrote:
| It's a consequentialist sort of "worst": (lack of) artistic
| quality multiplied by exposure and impact. Couple that with how
| hard aesthetic quality is to assess and you get some odd lists.
| thijson wrote:
| This song brings back good memories for me. Other songs from
| that era I remember are "Life in a Northern Town", "Walk Like
| an Egyptian", some Corey Hart songs.
| GoofballJones wrote:
| Spoiler alert: It's not the worst song of all time. There is no
| one single "worst song", just as there's no one single "best
| song". It may be one of the worst, sure. But when doing something
| this subjective, there's no way everyone in the world universally
| agrees on everything...including "worst" and "best".
|
| I don't care how many "experts" they asked or whatever, it's not
| the worst song. It always bugs the heck out of me when I see
| clickbait crap like this. If they think "We Built This City" is
| worst than...say..."My Pal Foot-Foot" by The Shaggs, then it just
| means this writer is full of shit.
| Veen wrote:
| Everyone already knows there is no objectively worse song, and
| the writer knows everyone knows. It's hyperbole to emphasize
| the writer's opinion that it's a really bad song, an
| inconsequential rhetorical flourish no reasonable person takes
| seriously.
| amiga386 wrote:
| On this side-topic, Wikipedia has trouble writing e.g. "worst X
| of all time", because that can't ever be an objective fact...
| so instead it has articles named "List of X considered the
| worst" and "List of X notable for negative reception", to which
| things like "Worst X of all time" redirect:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automobiles_known_for_...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_considered_the_w...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_music_considered_the_w...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_shows_notab...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sitcoms_known_for_nega...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_notable_fo...
|
| In each category, it picks criteria like press reviews or user
| ratings that mark a work for being considered "worst"
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| The Shags rule. You just don't _get_ them.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| I don't know why people rag on this song so much. It's catchy as
| hell and has interesting changes. I've always liked it.
| vundercind wrote:
| It was a favorite of mine as a kid. I can still sing the whole
| thing, including the radio DJ part.
|
| But I also liked Styx. So.
|
| I probably would have liked Rush then too, but wasn't really
| exposed to them until later, so they remain in the pile of
| culture-things I'll simply never understand.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| People bond over mutual hatred even if they didn't come to that
| hatred on their own. Seems like for this song, it was during
| slow news period when a list of worst songs came out, and it
| went viral. Soon it became one of those things that everyone
| just repeated uncritically, like your mattress doubling in
| weight due to dead mites. There have been many lists of worst
| songs before that list and many since, but once "We Built This
| City" took hold in the collective cultural consciousness as
| being the worst, there was little that could be done to change
| the dominate opinion.
| jmyeet wrote:
| There's a lot of weird revisionism when it comes to judging 1980s
| music (eg [1]). It actually feels like a lot of 90s kids just
| being haters. There's been analysis that you basically like
| whatever was popular when you were 14 [2].
|
| Additionally, it seems like more modern music just isn't enduring
| [3] in the same way music from the 1950s to 1980s was. Just the
| fact that people today know about "We Built this City" nearly 40
| years after it was released tells you something. I honestly think
| that unless you grow up in the 2000s you could go and play the
| music from 2000 to 2010 (as an example) and it would overall be
| much less recognizable than music from the 1960s and 1970s is.
|
| Anyway, it seems silly to call this the "worst song of all time".
| It's recognizable. People know it. It has a vibe. Millenials who
| grew up on 90s grunge may see it differently but that doesn't
| really mean anything.
|
| [1]: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/readers-
| poll-...
|
| [2]: https://archive.is/zM4xq
|
| [3]: https://stereomonosunday.com/2019/03/23/why-modern-music-
| is-...
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| > Anyway, it seems silly to call this the "worst song of all
| time".
|
| There may be other contenders, but if this song doesn't make
| the short list for you, I can't explain it. I doubt I could pay
| anyone to make such an outrageous claim.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| It seems like this entire thread is a counterargument to your
| claim.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| It's not a counterargument at all. It's just someone who
| assumes that there is this great counterargument they
| haven't bothered to make while whining "there are other bad
| songs too". Your comment here indicates that you're just
| too young to have heard it every single day, twice a day,
| throughout your childhood as it inexplicably got constant
| airtime. The long ride to and from school on the schoolbus,
| my first experience with torture. At least on sundays you
| could turn Solid Gold off. This is like saying "Vietnam
| wasn't that bad" because you watched a war movie once.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| I'm in my 40s and loved it as a kid.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Oh, well, I didn't ride the shortbus.
| jmyeet wrote:
| > ... heard it every single day, twice a day, throughout
| your childhood
|
| If it was so terrible, why did it get played so often?
|
| When I think "terrible", I think of the movie "The Room",
| which has been called the Citizen Kane of bad movies. It
| is truly awful. The dialog is awful. The acting is awful.
| There are all sorts of logical inconsistencies where
| things inextricably appear and disappear. By any metric
| it's bad. It's so bad that it has a cult following
| because it's so bad.
|
| "We Built This City" just isn't anything like that.
|
| Compare it to My Humps [1] or What Does the Fox Say [2]
| or Friday, just to name a few? These are a few random
| songs that are all miles worse than We Built This City.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEe_eraFWWs
|
| [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE
| cholantesh wrote:
| And they are still not even as bad as a lot of basically
| redundant modern pop with the deliberately atonal
| robovox, trap beats, and flat production.
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| I think you're conflating "overplayed" with "just plain
| bad."
| snozolli wrote:
| _Your comment here indicates that you 're just too young
| to have heard it every single day, twice a day,
| throughout your childhood as it inexplicably got constant
| airtime._
|
| So your argument is basically just a no true Scotsman.
|
| I grew up listening to it. I still enjoy it. I also still
| enjoy Rock Me Amadeus, and Kashagoogoo's Never Ending
| Story theme, too.
|
| I was ten. How old were you? I ask because your
| recollection has strong "seething teen" energy.
| smolder wrote:
| Modern music isn't as recognizable because there's way more of
| it, it's more varied, and doesn't get played a billion times
| over radio and MTV to a huge audience. The record industry
| isn't what it was at all, as detailed in your link. Jukeboxes
| with a selection of hits used to exist, now they're like
| spotify clients instead. I don't agree with you saying it's
| less enduring, though. That's a different thing. You shouldn't
| confuse popularity and number of plays for quality. For me
| there are some songs I'll hold on to a long time that I first
| heard in the last 10 years. There's still great music being
| made, IMO, but then pop from any era rarely was what I'd call
| good.
| unquietwiki wrote:
| Speaking to that, the most played song on Spotify, ever, is
| "Blinding Lights" by The Weeknd. Came out 5 years ago, and
| it's "okay"; funny enough, it triggers a lot of 80s nostalgia
| with its instrumentals. So, there's a data point for you to
| ponder.
|
| What I find really interesting of late is YouTube Music
| suggesting sleeper hits to me, that were big 20-30 years ago,
| but somehow missed out on them. "Somewhere Only We Know" has
| been on rotation in some shopping venues & showed up on my
| playlist; it was a hit, 20 years ago, yet somehow missed out
| on it.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| I like 80s music a lot, i was 14 in 89, so that computes. But
| what i find weird (and not at the same time) is that a lot of
| <20yo like the 80s-90s!
| danesparza wrote:
| I strongly object that "We built this city" is the worst song of
| all time.
|
| Especially when we live in a world where "Sweet Caroline"
| (specifically sung by Neil Diamond) is a thing.
| devilbunny wrote:
| Looking Glass: "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" occupies that
| space in my brain.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| The Muzak system at a retail job I worked played it all the
| time and we came to despise the song. It became a bit of a
| proto-Rickroll for those of us who worked there to trick
| others into hearing it. But the song became much more
| interesting once I learned about the urban legend connecting
| it to Mary Ellis. That the writer of the song says there's no
| connection just makes it that much more enticing.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ellis_grave
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Not "Total Eclipse of the Heart"?
|
| Or "Ghostbusters" (sorry, Ray, loved your earlier stuff)?
|
| Or Huey Lewis and the News entire catalog?
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Total eclipse of the heart is a fuckin banger.
| mindcrime wrote:
| As a self-identified metalhead who _hated_ 80 's pop in the
| 80's, I have to agree. Over the years I've gained a
| newfound respect for a lot of that stuff. So much great
| music by Bonnie Tyler, Belinda Carlisle, Meatloaf, Bryan
| Adams, REO Speedwagon, Carly Simon, The Eurythmics, The
| Bangles, etc. etc. I wouldn't have been caught dead
| listening to that stuff in 1989 (my metalhead friends would
| have crucified me, although I did manage to sneak in liking
| Madonna all along), but these days I dig quite a bit of
| that stuff.
| danesparza wrote:
| For a teenage boy in the 1980's, Huey Lewis was a god.
| rightbyte wrote:
| What are you... Total Eclipse of the Heart is all in power.
| Were you alive when it was playing on radio all the time?
| Being played too much doesn't make it bad.
| petersumskas wrote:
| When you realise the song is about vampires there's no way
| this ever goes back on any "worst song" list.
| defrost wrote:
| That's a superficial gloss over an even deeper and
| weirder back story behind the filthiest song ever
| scrawled on a napkin: https://youtu.be/LGqYnj_Y3CI?t=73
| yazantapuz wrote:
| > Or Huey Lewis and the News entire catalog?
|
| Under no circumstances can "power of love" be a bad song
| nonameiguess wrote:
| 15 years ago when video chat with strangers was still a
| popular thing to do on the Internet, whenever I hosted a
| room, I always used the name "NumberOneBonnieTylerFan" and
| played her hits in the background. That you do not appreciate
| her music tremendously saddens me.
| vundercind wrote:
| Let's all take a moment to recognize that, really, this
| discussion is about _good_ bad songs.
|
| Bob Dylan made three records of Christian music and 80% of the
| tracks from those are definitely worse than anything anyone's
| discussing here.
|
| There's bad, and then there's _bad_. The _bad_ stuff is so bad
| it doesn't even come up in worst-song conversations. Nor in so-
| bad-it's-good conversations.
| blast wrote:
| Dylan's gospel albums are classics. Documentaries have been
| made about how good they are. IIRC "Shot of Love" is one of
| Dylan's favorites of his own records.
|
| Many fans rejected them at the time because of the culture
| shock of his religious pivot, but that reaction was about the
| content, not the music, and has long faded. Nowadays it's
| understood that the sudden-fan-alienation-move is a Dylan
| thing, just like when he went electric at Newport in the
| first place.
|
| I'm not gonna argue that "Man gave names to all the animals"
| is one of Dylan's finest, but I'd be interested to know which
| specific tracks you think are terrible, because those records
| are full of great songs, and so are some of the outtakes.
|
| If you want awful Dylan I think you're a few years too early-
| Empire Burlesque anyone?
| vundercind wrote:
| Admittedly, I've only listened to the supposedly-best one
| (Slow Train Coming, maybe? It's been a while) and the
| supposedly-worst one (Saved?) of the three. The former got
| my toe tapping a couple times IIRC but was mostly
| forgettable--it was on its account that I allowed that as
| much as 20% of the three albums, together, might not
| qualify as very-bad. The latter was back-to-front a slog of
| a listen. The musical equivalent of contractor-beige
| painted walls with off-white trim. One of the dullest
| albums I've ever heard, and I owned some stinkers in my
| high school years.
|
| I sometimes like religious music, so that aspect's not a
| deal-breaker for me. One of my favorite local bands was
| kinda secretly a Christian rock band, they just veiled the
| references enough and shifted things more-poetic so they
| didn't sound ultra cheesy from the very first line like
| that stuff usually does, and probably some listeners didn't
| even notice (they didn't bill themselves as Christian rock
| and played normal venues). I love the couple of very-
| Christian tracks on Springsteen's _Nebraska_.
|
| > If you want awful Dylan I think you're a few years too
| early-Empire Burlesque anyone?
|
| Sadly(?) that album-trilogy is the latest Dylan I've heard,
| so I can't say whether it gets worse (but I'd believe it).
| ryandrake wrote:
| Whenever the topic of strikingly bad songs comes up, I always
| like to link to _Spaced Out - The Best of Leonard Nimoy &
| William Shatner_[1] which is an album truly breathtaking in
| its badness. Everyone I've ever played the CD for has agreed
| it's the best bad music they've ever heard.
|
| 1: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_k8rGB_NGkgen
| 0y...
| gedy wrote:
| Neil Sedaka's Bad Blood is pretty awful in my book
| neverartful wrote:
| Tiny Tim's "Tiptoe through the tulips" beats that by a country
| mile. Watch it on youtube and be horrified.
| jhbadger wrote:
| But that was a "novelty song" -- you weren't supposed to like
| it unironically even at the time.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| How about some Big Head Todd, with this riveting chorus:
|
| It's bittersweet
|
| More sweet than bitter
|
| Bitter than sweet
|
| It's a bittersweet surrender
|
| It's bittersweet
|
| More sweet than bitter
|
| Bitter than sweet
|
| It's a bittersweet surrender
|
| (these 8 lines are repeated 4 times through the song)
| amiga386 wrote:
| This 2016 article (posted on the song's 30th anniversary... we're
| now coming up for its _40th_ anniversary) is too old to note the
| LadBaby cover: _We Built This City on Sausage Rolls_
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iEB8bfP7wE
|
| "Worst Song of All Time" or not, it's still an immensely popular
| song. If you want to poke fun at the 80s and their obsession with
| synths, poke fun at Scritti Politi instead! (e.g. _Boom! There
| She Was_ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QmDUkxAHgQ)
|
| Meanwhile, the _feeling_ of that 80s synth sound has been
| reimagined by modern composers, giving us _synthwave_ and all its
| spinoff genres, and music videos made with an AfterEffects "VHS"
| plugin, like _Turbo Killer_
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er416Ad3R1g
| taylorius wrote:
| In what universe is "We built this City" the worst song ever? I
| love that song. Awesome bit of 80s power pop.
|
| I'd rather hear We built this City 10 times in a row than any 10
| songs of Taylor Swift's. How about that?
| ajross wrote:
| I think you're missing the point. WBtC is a "bad" song in
| _exactly the same way_ that Swift 's songs are "bad". It's
| unashamedly pop, aimed at tastes that sophisticated listeners
| try to escape, and critically: is so good that those
| sophisticated listeners find themselves listening to it anyway.
|
| It's basically a bouncing, bopping reminder that we aren't as
| smart as we think we are.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Yeah, if you're looking at it from a composition/music theory
| angle, it's not your typical 4 chord pop song. There are
| thirds in the bass all over place that provide interesting
| contrary motion to the chords, and the verse and chorus are
| technically in different keys. It's not genius writing but
| it's definitely not lazy.
| taylorius wrote:
| Indeed - it's full of pedal tones, and slash chords. love
| it, love it.
| drivers99 wrote:
| I like that it mentions Marconi, who created the first real
| wireless communication system.
| dingaling wrote:
| I remember REM self-nominating 'Shiny Happy People ' as the
| worst song. And even though it was one of their most successful
| songs in the charts they refused to play it live.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Indeed. As with all things, "popular" and "good" are two very
| different qualities that aren't always correlated with each
| other.
| ricardo81 wrote:
| Shame they think that. Anything with Kate Pierson singing and
| moving gets my vote.
| hinkley wrote:
| On the flip side of this, generally speaking I like every
| duet I've heard with Stipe. Except this one.
|
| Campfire Song with 10,000 Maniacs. And Kid Fears with the
| Indigo Girls still gives me chills.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Stipe singing other people's songs: good. Stipe writing
| songs: sometimes acceptable.
|
| I like to joke/start arguments by saying that R.E.M's
| greatest album was "Sentimental Hygiene".
| hinkley wrote:
| Denis Leary: I want you to pull this bus over on the side of
| the Pretentiousness Turnpike! I want the shiny people over
| here, and the happy people over here.
| aetherson wrote:
| We Built This City is fun forgettable pop music. Shiny Happy
| People was wretched from day one. Fight me.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| Shiny happy people is so non- REM by REM. It is just out of
| place.
| rusk wrote:
| I think it was meant to be satirical. Like, it's supposed
| to be about how the old folks want the young folks to be.
| Pleasant times.
| snozolli wrote:
| _In what universe is "We built this City" the worst song ever?_
|
| In this universe where 90% of music-related journalism boils
| down to competitive hipster snark.
|
| I love the song, but I was ten when it came out, so of course I
| do.
| kstrauser wrote:
| The same one that hates Nickelback (they're not _great_ , but
| _terrible?_ , nah), clowns ("eek, let's collectively decide to
| feign fear at the humorously funny looking people with big
| shoes at the circus, even without having read "It"!"), and
| "moist" (who wants an arid cupcake?).
|
| There are anti-fads, too.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Haha these internet fads are great. Especially when you hang
| out with people who aren't chronically online.
|
| There was also the bit about gauges and hipsters (which just
| became the most mainstream). Then there was the fedora hate
| which I think was the funniest because I knew about it
| (because I'm chronically online) and then one day I'm
| traveling through Japan with my friends and the girls are all
| like "you should try out these hats at this store" and it's
| piece for piece exactly what Reddit would hate. But the girls
| loved it on the lads and I'm married to one now.
|
| It's like how here people are always like "oh I'd never give
| X a buck they're stealing all your data" and then out in the
| real world people love Google, like adore it. What's the deal
| with that?
| antod wrote:
| I had forgotten just how much I hated that inescapable song in
| the 80s. Definitely close to my worst song ever. There's plenty
| of 80s pop that I've softened my views on as I got older and
| even started to grudgingly appreciate, but not "we built this
| city".
|
| I don't think I'd even recognize a single Taylor Swift song. I
| plan to keep it that way, currently she's just a name and a
| face to me, knowing her music would probably only cause me to
| dislike her unfairly.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Eh. Swift isn't my cup of tea; you're much more likely to
| find me at an industrial metal show. However, she's crazy
| talented, and her music is well-produced and wildly catchy.
| She's really good at what she does.
|
| Along those lines, I'd never pay to see Britney Spears
| perform, but "Toxic" goes hard.
|
| Their music shouldn't make you dislike them. It's not
| objectively awful, not by a long shot. If anything, just
| acknowledge we're not the target audience and move on.
| billpg wrote:
| "We build this city on rock..."
|
| "That's a good place to build a city."
|
| "... and roll."
|
| "We're doomed!"
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| This song gave Settlers of Catan players the opportunity to spend
| ore and (exchanged) lumber to buy a city, and then burst into "We
| Built This City on Rock and Wood." So it can't be all bad.
| drewcoo wrote:
| Boardgame filk versions might make it worse.
| isk517 wrote:
| I'm honestly glad we don't live in the universe where Bryan
| Danielson chose 'We Built The City' as his Ring of Honor entrance
| music.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| The idea of a worst song of all time is silly, but I want to use
| this as an excuse to juxtapose We Built this City with another
| Starship hit: Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now. The latter is just as
| fluffy and corny, but instead of generic corporate rock it's a
| soaring silly power ballad duet.
|
| I think the secret sauce is Diane Warren. It's the same reason I
| love belting out I Don't Want to Miss a Thing at karaoke, or
| listening to If I Could Turn Back Time on a loop while working.
|
| This post has been sponsored by the Committee to Get Diane Warren
| into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (CGDWRRHF).
| superfrank wrote:
| I agree that a "worst song of all time" is a bit silly, but if
| someone was trying to make the worst song of all time that
| would still get regular radio play and you asked me for ideas,
| "put a traffic report in the middle of the song" would be
| pretty high on my ideas list.
|
| I say that with love as I absolutely love the We Built This
| City (and Starship for that matter)
| endgame wrote:
| I know your description includes "still get regular radio
| play", but one of my favourite pieces of troll music is "The
| Most Unwanted Song". They surveyed people to find the things
| they liked least in music and put it all together. I don't
| want to spoil just how creatively awful it is or what's in
| there, so I'll just drop the link and go.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gPuH1yeZ08
| jafo1989 wrote:
| I mean...c'mon..they could have at least picked a "worst song
| of all time" that wasn't a Billboard Top 100 #1 hit. Ditto for
| "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now"...
| snapetom wrote:
| For those complaining that it's not "the worst song of all time,"
| yes, we all know it's not the worst song. This includes the
| clickbaiters who claim it is.
|
| It's cheesy, it's simple, Grace Slick hates it. All those factors
| make it fashionable to hate it, and it's been like that for a
| long time. However, it's also catchy, fun, and the lyrics are
| easy to remember. It's a karaoke staple for all those reasons,
| good and bad.
|
| I mean, how can this song be the worst song?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRE-LYqwAi8
| pastureofplenty wrote:
| I have an idea for a parody of that song called "We Bilked This
| City" about the non-profit industrial complex.
| jdougan wrote:
| Write it!
| jandrese wrote:
| "We bilked this city of all its dough"
| kev009 wrote:
| Definitely commercial 80s cheese and mastered for a mono clock
| radio like most 80s soft rock but it seems a bit of hipster
| stretch to call this the worst or even bad.
|
| The synth and processed drums sit in the mix reasonably well for
| the time frame. There are some comical 80s songs in the same time
| frame where the synth really doesn't sit in the mix at all but
| somehow it remains endearing like Europe's "Final Countdown" or
| even Don Henley's "Sunset Grill" or Van Halen's "Jump" all of
| which are rescued by other musical and production value.
| ludicrousdispla wrote:
| Clearly no one here has ever heard the song "Marching around the
| Number Wheel" by Hap Palmer. It's best on loop.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K75cj0FmGHM
| Hunpeter wrote:
| Obviously, the worst song of all time is "The Most Unwanted Song"
| by Dave Soldier.
| jfengel wrote:
| OK, I get that satire is hard, but is there really _nobody_
| capable of it besides The Onion?
|
| This article was based on a decade-old meme when it was written.
| That meme didn't particularly need elaboration in 2016, and here
| in 2024 it has been completely forgotten.
|
| I don't think of GQ as being a great literary magazine, but I
| thought it had at least some pretension to it. This is weak
| internet-grade satire.
| akira2501 wrote:
| This is ridiculous clap trap. Why did you submit this here?
| spacechild1 wrote:
| I first heard this song a few month ago in a Japanese mall. It
| fit quite well I have to say.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Bloodhound gang enters the room. Ladies and gentlemen, brace
| yourselves
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTeSkg-YIWI
| smitty1e wrote:
| I made it as far as "your toilet parts".
|
| Still not as vapid as Rebecca Black, though
| https://youtu.be/kfVsfOSbJY0?si=ruKslHtaZuKrBMP-
| recursive wrote:
| How did I never know about this?!?!
| dessimus wrote:
| I mean... objectively "10 Coolest Things about New Jersey" is a
| worse song, but let's not pretend Bloodhound Gang's music is
| meant to be taken seriously.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk8hFuDoYq8
| bena wrote:
| And let's be doubly fair, 'Screwing You on a Beach at Night'
| is a perfectly serviceable techno/dance beat. And a lot of
| their music is that, perfectly competent. But then they pair
| it with the stupidest fucking lyrics as possible. Often
| describing the very themes of most songs in the most crass
| way possible.
|
| I mean, one of the lyrics is literally "Echo" as it echos.
| He's just describing the song.
| fluorinerocket wrote:
| Well we wouldn't have Opie and Anthony's parody of it without the
| original. It made it all worth it
| aidenn0 wrote:
| The song I wish the radio would stop playing today is "Murder on
| the Dance Floor"
|
| Something about the way the singer sings it just feels unusually
| soulless. After listening to it, I am completely convinced that
| if the DJ _did_ kill the groove, Ellis-Baxter wouldn 't give a
| shit.
| auto wrote:
| The comments here are pretty funny, and do almost nothing for me
| more so than highlight the subjectivity of musical taste. I'd
| never claim to be an authority on music, but as the child of a
| professional musician and with chops of my own that I'd describe
| as "good enough to entertain myself and others at times", I
| _love_ so many of the songs people are ragging on here, "We
| Built This City" included. Sure, there's plenty of stuff that I
| don't go out of my way to listen to, and again, subjective, but
| man, fluffy pop? Corny Christmas Music? Lewd Comedies/Parodies?
| It's all got it's time and place.
|
| But that's just like, my opinion, man.
| jim-jim-jim wrote:
| I didn't coin the term and I forget who did, but "meta rock"
| songs are almost universally awful: rock songs about how much
| rock rocks.
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