Song is so bad I actually enjoy it

We built this city... we built this city on rock and roll!!!

I think it's because they say they built this city on Rock and Roll yet are performing the least rock song they possibly could.

Knee deep in the hoopla! LOL! Pretty terrible lyrical content, but the melody and the hook were spot ON! It's one of those anthemic songs that STILL holds up well after all these years! And (Grace) Slick sounded pretty GOOD all "slicked" out!

NorthC said:

sort of symbolizes the death of the hippy era.

It is the yuppie anthem.

I liked "Sara" And "We Bulit This City" is definitely a guily pleasure...kinda like The B-52's "Love Shack"

[Edited 3/6/16 12:03pm]

The song has a high 80's cheese factor but is undeniably catchy and well written. Like UncleJam says, a guilty pleasure!

CynicKill said:

MotownSubdivision said:

CynicKill said:

I think it's because they say they built this city on Rock and Roll yet are performing the least rock song they possibly could.

I didn't look at it quite from that angle though I thought that had something to do with it. "Rock and Roll" is an implied part of the title yet the song is as poppy as it could get. Makes sense to me I like the song but I can understand why it got lambasted since it's a staunch contradiction. I think if the song came out in 2015 instead of 1985 then the criticism would have been light. Critics seem to praise almost anything that's a hit these days despite how obviously flawed many of them can be.

>

Agreed.

Remember "Call Me Maybe"?

But the hook sticks and like someone said "Sara" is a good song.

But WBTC is definitely time-capsule 80's glitz.

https://www.youtube.com/w...Xy6JElmgHU

[Edited 3/6/16 13:50pm]

CynicKill said:

Yeah I didn't mean to call "Call Me Maybe" a bad song, but its a song that at one time would've been looked at for what it was and not have critics beating down a path to label it best of the year.

I think of "Hotline Bling". It's a good enough song. It gets in your head. But it's the simplest of simple songs. A former booty call that no longer rings? Flat singing? Maybe I'm too old and being way too critical.

CynicKill said:

MotownSubdivision said:

CynicKill said:

>

Agreed.

Remember "Call Me Maybe"?

But the hook sticks and like someone said "Sara" is a good song.

But WBTC is definitely time-capsule 80's glitz.

"Call Me Maybe" is a strong pop song though it sounds like it came out in 2002 instead of 2012. Better examples of terrible songs being given a pass would be Fifth Harmony's "Worth It", Charlie Puth's "Marvin Gaye" (ugh...), and almost all of Beyonce's solo catalog (most recently "Formation") among others. Even when some of these songs do receive negativity, critics seem to pull their punches as opposed to being straightforward with their opinions. Never heard "Sara". Whose song is that?

Starship. From the same album as "We Built This City on Rock & Roll". I believe it was released as the second single from Knee Deep In The Hoopla.

MotownSubdivision said:

In 1985 when this song blew up, critics blasted it and still seem to to do so today. Why? I don't know much about Starship outside of them being a rock group and "We Built This City" being a pop song but they were hardly the first rock act to do/ go pop in the 1980's so why was the group and this song targeted by rock critics so relentlessly? Was it the lyrics? The message? The music itself? Even a fair amount of music fans seem to hate the song as it was voted the worst song of the 80's by Rolling Stone in 2011. Specific examples of critical hate are Blender Magazine ranking it as the worst song ever and VH1 including it in their countdown for "The 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs... Ever." I'm guessing this song was just the scapegoat for crossover (rock) acts during the crossover era of the 80's?

your kidding right?

Farfunknugin said:

What a piece of shit. Pure hot garbage.

Sara on the other hand. That one is a good ballad.

MotownSubdivision said:

I'm not saying that today's acts should be getting completely panned but I wish music journalists would be more objective as opposed to lapping up and loving every single thing they do. Back in the day, the top stars were not exempt from [constructive] criticism so I find it strange how most of today's acts are generally treated as if they can do no wrong.

You mean like trashing all new music that isn't made by Mint Condition, Bruno Mars, & D'Angelo like folks do on this site

MickyDolenz said:

nine inch nails on a blackboard...

Probably at least three reasons:

.

1) Jefferson Airplane were the symbolic anti-authority San Fran band of the late-60s. San Francisco was the original headquarters of Rolling Stone and other of the white, American music press, and the center of hippie culture, and these sorts of "institutions" had long seen the Airplane as the epitome of the 60s' counter-culture in musical form. By merging into Jefferson Starship first and then Starship in the 80s, the remaining members of the Airplane had defied the white rock press of one of its forbears and (yeah, i'm gonna use the dreaded term) sold-out to corporate pop and MTV. That they did so while bragging of "buil(ding) the city on rock and roll" and supposedly dissing "corporation games" was the final twist of the betrayal knife. The band, and their biggest hit single in particular, became the very symbol of the 'corporatization' of the 80s music industry. And thus the enemy.

..

2) The lyrics are embarrasingly bad. Example:

.
Say you don't know me, or recognize my face
Say you don't care who goes to that kind of place
Knee deep in the hoopla, sinking in your fight
Too many runaways eating up the night
Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio, don't you remember
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll.

.

The bolded lyrics (well actually the whole thing) make no sense whatsoever. If you don't know, "Marconi" refers to Guglielmo Marconi [1874-1937], often credited as the inventor of the radio. Then, what is "the mamba"?

.

Craig Marks from Blender magazine put it well (from Wikipedia): "Who is Marconi? And what is the mamba? The mamba is the deadliest snake in the world, so he must have meant the mambo, but it sounds so much like 'mamba' that every lyric web site writes it that way. It makes sense neither way."

.

.

3) The song blows.

[Edited 3/7/16 23:16pm]

MotownSubdivision said:

Critics seem to praise almost anything that's a hit these days despite how obviously flawed many of them can be.

I think critics are worried about sounding irrelevant to pop themselves, or having a disrespectful review of an album that will become popular. It's always funny to read old reviews for now-classic albums that were panned before release.

I've always hated this song with every inch of my being without needing a critic to tell me. A friend drives around with a radio station that plays a lot of these god-awful songs. Wang Chung Tonight.

It's just bad bad.

Another one where I want to die every time I hear it (and they play it a lot for some strange reason) is a song about liking pina colada's and posting on Tinder while you are in a relationship, and being cool when you find out that your significant other is cheating on it too because you're both tools

V10LETBLUES said:

Cinny said:

MotownSubdivision said:

Cinny said:

I think critics are worried about sounding irrelevant to pop themselves, or having a disrespectful review of an album that will become popular. It's always funny to read old reviews for now-classic albums that were panned before release.

That's pretty sad. A critic's job is to state their honest opinions and it sucks that out of fear of not looking "cool" they have to suck up to anything they probably hate. I just find it hard to believe that the vast majority of critic's truly think that some of the things they revere are worthy of their opinion. At thr end of the day, it's still an opinion and people are allowed to have their's but in my opinion, too much of it comes off as contrived pandering.

I absolutely agree. That's why I respected Siskel & Ebert, because at least they were honest, even in opposition to one another's opinion.