We Built This City
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "We Built This City" | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
||||||||||
| Single by Starship | ||||||||||
| from the album Knee Deep in the Hoopla | ||||||||||
| Released | August 30, 1985 | |||||||||
| Format | 7" | |||||||||
| Recorded | 1984-1985 | |||||||||
| Genre | Rock | |||||||||
| Length | 4:56 | |||||||||
| Label | Grunt/RCA | |||||||||
| Writer(s) | Bernie Taupin, Martin Page, Dennis Lambert, Peter Wolf | |||||||||
| Producer | Peter Wolf, Jeremy Smith | |||||||||
| Starship singles chronology | ||||||||||
|
||||||||||
"We Built This City" is a song written by Bernie Taupin, Martin Page, Dennis Lambert, and Peter Wolf, and originally recorded by the group Starship and released as its debut single on August 30, 1985. The lyrics were written by Bernie Taupin, best known for his longtime collaboration with Elton John. The song features Mickey Thomas and Grace Slick on lead vocals, and the single version reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 on November 16, 1985, and also number one on the U.S. Top Rock Tracks chart and number twelve in the United Kingdom. The song was engineered by Grammy-winning producer Bill Bottrell and arranged by Bottrell and Jasun Martz.
In April 2004, the song was listed as "the #1 Worst Song Ever" by Blender magazine.[1]
According to Slick, the song was written about early-1970s Los Angeles.[1] The radio station in a late interlude references "The City By the Bay", "The City That Rocks" and "The City That Never Sleeps", meaning San Francisco, Cleveland, and New York City, respectively.
Contents |
[edit] Production
MTV executive and former D.J. Les Garland provided the D.J. voice-over during the song's bridge.[2]
The song was also released without the traffic report and D.J. interaction during the song's bridge (the B-side of the promotional 45-rpm record). Local stations were encouraged to make local versions. New York City, for example, included a traffic report describing conditions on the George Washington Bridge and LG73 in Vancouver, British Columbia included a traffic report overlooking the Lion's Gate Bridge.
Janice Cruz, later from the Brooklyn-based indie rock trio Dark Room NYC, appears in the first verse of the video.
The song references radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi playing the "mamba". While "mamba" has no musical connotations, there is a dance known as the mambo.
[edit] Reception
The Blender ranking of the song as the worst song ever was in conjunction with a VH1 Special of The 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs...Ever.[1] In order to qualify for the distinction, the songs on the list had to be a popular hit at some point, thus disqualifying many songs that would by general consensus be considered much worse. Blender editor Craig Marks said of the song, "It purports to be anti-commercial but reeks of '80s corporate-rock commercialism. It's a real reflection of what practically killed rock music in the '80s."[3]
Blender magazine contributor Russ Heller later set a record for listening to "We Built This City" continuously for 24 hours. He was encased in a Plexiglas booth—without earplugs—beginning Friday, October 13, 2006 at 8:00 a.m. at a Best Buy store in New York City.[4]
[edit] Covers and parodies
Australian punk band Frenzal Rhomb covered "We Built This City" on their 2004 album For the Term of Their Unnatural Lives.
It was later covered by LMP on its album A Century of Song, and by the hip hop group The Diplomats. The British band Half Man Half Biscuit recorded a song called "We Built This Village on a Trad Arr Tune". In the Swedish Idol 2008, Johan Palm and Robin Ericsson did a cover of this song.
Bristol native Kid Carpet often breaks into a parody of the song during his live shows, using the lyrics "We built this city on slavery" in reference to the History of Bristol.
American punk band A Wilhelm Scream wrote a song called We Built This City on Debts and Booze.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c "The 50 Worst Songs Ever! Watch, Listen and Cringe!". Blender.com. http://www.blender.com/lists/61412/the50worstsongseverwatchlistenandcringe.html?p=1.
- ^ "We Built This S**tty", Radio & Records, May 14, 2004 (PDF)
- ^ "10 Really, Really Bad Songs, CBSNews.com
- ^ Heller, Russ (October 2006). ""We Built This City" 24-Hour Marathon on Blender.com". Blender.com. http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?ID=2120.
| Preceded by "Miami Vice Theme" by Jan Hammer |
Billboard Hot 100 number one single November 16, 1985- November 23, 1985 |
Succeeded by "Separate Lives" by Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin |
| Preceded by "Species Deceases" by Midnight Oil |
Australian Kent Music Report number one single January 20, 1986 - February 10, 1986 |
Succeeded by "A Good Heart" by Feargal Sharkey |
