Is this '80s rock and roll anthem really the worst song ever?

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I can name hundreds of songs that are worse.

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If you can, please keep that information to yourself

Man, I remember buying that album when it came out, and I was foolish to assume that "We Built This City" would be the outlier, and the other songs would be heavier. Then "Sara" came on, and by then I knew I wasted my money, lol...

The motivation behind naming it the worst song ever is purely based on notions of integrity and purity of inspiration and the goofy idea that lyrics and video presentation mean more than they actually do. It's meant to be held up as a cautionary tale by over-thinking neckbeard types who feel they need to defend music with esoteric appeal by tearing down music with only superficial appeal. Only it's not really that black and white.

Fact of the matter is, you could take the EXACT same melody, alter the lyrics a bit, remove the dated 80s sounds and production, bypass the woeful video, plop it into the setlist of some critically acclaimed artist and those same people would fall all over themselves praising it.

The criticism is about everything but what really matters; the fact that the band went from inspired Aquarian idealists to commercial product manufacturers, the ages of the band members and their cynical attempt to appear youthful and "with it", the awkward radio station interludes, the undeniably terrible video, etc. When you catch just a snippet of the chorus, the vocal melodies and the backing music and the forward momentum of it actually works pretty effectively. In contrast, you can name songs all day long where even that minimal accomplishment doesn't happen.

It's a pretty bad song overall, yes. But anybody who really and truly asserts that it's the "worst ever" exposes himself as simply not knowing very much about music and has no business presuming to make that judgment.

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RockAndRollDetective

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That's a darn good take there.

It's horrible.

But pretty much any modern country song that has "hey girl" in the opening lines is worse, IMO

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It's the song that has caused me the most irritation, due to the fact that it gets played quite a bit. So I'd say it's the worst song ever relative to the amount of airplay it gets. Sure, there are worse songs. And they've been buried by obscurity.

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This x1000.

am i crazy or did all the local radio stations around the country dub in their own little 'station callout' during that portion of the song where the DJ cuts in?

seems like i remember this being a thing...

I didn't realize that Bernie Taupin was involved with this song.
That's a long fall from the classic Elton John tunes of the early/mid 70's.

You learn something new every single day here on Td.

I hate Union of the Snake a lot more than I hate that song.

MacArthur Park

"Someone left my cake out in the rain...I'll never have that recipe again!"



Or

She's Havin' My Baby

"My Green Tambourine" by the Lemon Pipers kicks the shite out of WBTC for epic shittiness; the Starship song can't touch this piece of musical diarrhea:
LINK

Long story short: WBTC sucks but there are many, many worse songs in rock's glorious history.