Few songs have had a stranger life than Starship’s “We Built This City.”
The song was released in August 1985 as the band’s debut single, and it climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on November 16, 1985. It was even nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. Billboard praised it at the time as a rock anthem that was as wise as it was rebellious.
Today, though, it’s best known for something else: being called the worst song ever.
The song came from an unexpected place. It was written by Bernie Taupin, Elton John’s longtime lyricist and the man behind classics like “Tiny Dancer” and “Rocket Man,” along with Martin Page, Dennis Lambert and Peter Wolf.
Taupin and Page originally wrote it as a lament about the closing of live music clubs in Los Angeles. Taupin later told Rolling Stone that their first version was dark and mid-tempo, and didn’t have the big “We built this city!” chorus at all. The song didn’t reach its final, stadium-sized form until Starship and its producers reshaped it.
The backlash took years to arrive, but when it did, it stuck. In 2004, Blender magazine put “We Built This City” at No. 1 on its list of the worst songs ever, with editor Craig Marks arguing the song claimed to be anti-commercial while reeking of ’80s corporate rock.
In 2011, Rolling Stone readers voted it the worst song of the 1980s, by a margin so large the magazine called it possibly the biggest blowout in the history of its readers’ poll. GQ later declared it the worst song of all time. And in 2021, Forbes included it on a list of the worst lyrics of all time, singling out the line “knee deep in the hoopla” and its relentless chorus.
Much of the mockery has centered on the lyrics, especially the baffling line “Marconi plays the mamba.” Critics have also pointed out the irony of a band that had changed its name from Jefferson Airplane to Jefferson Starship to Starship singing about corporations changing names.
Love it or hate it, 41 years later, people are still singing along.
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