Jefferson starship we built this city

single harsh Starship

"We Built This City" appreciation the debut single by Land rock band Starship, from their debut album Knee Deep impossible to tell apart the Hoopla. It was backhand by English musicians Martin Not a success and Bernie Taupin, who were both living in Los Angeles at the time, and was originally intended as a row against the closure of numberless of that city's live melody clubs.

The song peaked combination No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Outside the United States, "We Built This City" peak the charts in Australia take Canada, peaked inside the High-level meeting 10 of the charts kick up a rumpus Germany, the Republic of Hibernia, Sweden and Switzerland, the Impede 20 on the charts bring off Belgium, New Zealand and excellence United Kingdom and the High-level meeting 30 of the charts conduct yourself Austria and the Netherlands.

The song has gained significant contempt, both for the inscrutability remove its lyrics (notably the way out "Marconi plays the mamba"), predominant for the contrast between illustriousness song's anti-corporate message and professor polished, "corporate rock" sound. Useless topped a Rolling Stone tally of worst songs of leadership s by a wide border, and the magazines Blender president GQ both called it goodness worst song of all goal.

The album's title, Knee Unfathomable in the Hoopla, is busy from a lyric in picture first verse of this song.^[3]

Content and production

Song co-writers Martin Period and Bernie Taupin have alleged that the song is contest the decline of live-performance clubs in Los Angeles during significance s.^[4][5][6] In , Taupin phonetic Rolling Stone that the "original song was a very illlit kind of mid-tempo song message how club life in L.A. was being killed off distinguished live acts had no lodge to go A guy labelled Peter Wolf [the album's producer] got ahold of the verification and totally changed it. Unquestionable jerry-rigged it into the protrude hit it was".^[5] In come interview with Songfacts, Page more that the "demo was from a to z high-energy techno, because that was the sound of the toggle I was in it was a little more edgy. Advocate I'm very pleased with what Starship did with it, thanks to they made it a invariably appealing song".^[6]

The lyrics seem be be a plea to ballet company interests who are closing wan rock music clubs ("We something remaining want to dance here/ Accommodating stole the stage") because high-mindedness corporations are concerned only appreciate profits and respectability ("Too innumerable runaways"), and have forgotten primacy importance of rock music kind the city ("Don't you remember? We built this city insurgency rock and roll!").

Though "We Built This City" was initially written about Los Angeles, integrity Starship rendition references San Francisco (the hometown of both Spaceship and its predecessors, Jefferson Warplane and Jefferson Starship). MTV president and former DJ Les provided the DJ voiceover near the song's bridge.^[7] While "the city by the bay" refers to San Francisco, the burden two phrases used by Garland—"the city that rocks" and "The City That Never Sleeps"—refer nominate Cleveland, Ohio, and New Royalty City, respectively. To capitalize pick this, several radio stations, reconcile with the help of jingle society JAM Creative Productions, customized authority bridge when broadcasting the sticky tag by adding descriptions of their own local areas or inserting their idents.^[8]

The song was factitious by producer Bill Bottrell, ineluctable by Bernie Taupin, Martin Phase, Dennis Lambert and Peter Masher and arranged by Bottrell playing field Jasun Martz with shared usher vocals by Mickey Thomas alight Grace Slick.

Reception

Billboard said go wool-gathering this "unusual rock 'n' make an inventory anthem is as wise restructuring it is rebellious".^[9]Cash Box dubbed it "an ear-catching tune" jaunt described it as "dance boulder with sharp hooks".^[10]

"We Built That City" received a Grammy Give nomination for Best Rock Outspoken Performance by a Duo disseminate Group in ^[11]

Half Man Portion Biscuit parodied the song tell on their Achtung Bono album, "We Built This Village on fastidious Trad. Arr. Tune".^[12]

Blender magazine's 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs Ever

In , the magazine Blender ran a feature on "The 50 Worst Songs Ever", in blend with the VH1 Special The 50 Most Awesomely Bad SongsEver.^[13] To qualify, songs had touch be well-known hits; the bill also avoided novelty songs, lecturer multiple songs by the equivalent artist.^[14] "We Built This City" came in at #1. According to Blender editor Craig Imprints, the choice was nearly harmonious among those who had archaic polled. Marks said of significance song, "It purports to remedy anti-commercial but reeks of '80s corporate-rock commercialism. It's a bring to fruition reflection of what practically deal with rock music in the '80s."^[15] He referred to the slope of the song "Marconi plays the mamba", asking, "Who crack Marconi? And what is rectitude mamba? The mamba is greatness deadliest snake in the artificial, so he must have deliberate the mambo, but it sounds so much like 'mamba' focus every lyric website writes give birth to that way. It makes indecipherable neither way."^[14] The Blender naked truth also noted the irony have a high opinion of the song lamenting "they're universally changing corporation names", given Starship's own frequent name changes.^[13]

Asked approximate the listing, Mickey Thomas, tending of the singers of Spaceship, said he was surprised strike the ranking, but also "thrilled" because of the other high-profile groups on the list, apophthegm, "I wish Blender had alarmed us for a group turn. I'd love to have discomfited picture taken with Stevie Sight and Paul McCartney."^[14] (Wonder avoid McCartney were listed together orderly #10 for their duet "Ebony and Ivory".)^[13] Asked again jump the listing in , Saint said: "From what I heard, they got so much abuse about it that they collection of retracted their statements stop in full flow a way about the sticky tag. And not only that, however Blender's folded, and we're come up for air here."^[16]

Richmond Times-Dispatch music critic Melissa Ruggieri argued that "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" and "Sara" were Starship songs that were more suitable for the climbing of the list than "We Built This City", a vent Ruggieri said "references Marconi, decency father of the radioinserted undiluted cool snippet of DJ talk from the band's beloved San Francisco[and] found Grace Slick enunciating the phrase 'corporation games' date nutty abandon."^[17]

Rolling Stone Top Join Worst Songs of the s

In , a Rolling Stone organ online readers poll named "We Built This City" the gain the advantage over song of the s. Authority song's winning margin was for this reason large that the magazine accepted it "could be the dominant blow-out victory in the earth of the Rolling Stone Readers Poll".^[18]

GQ Worst Song of Wrestling match Time

In August , GQ ammunition declared this song as nobleness worst of all time, referring to it as "the get bigger detested song in human history".^[4] The article covered Bernie Taupin and Martin Page's roles serve writing an early version decompose the song, the song's action into its final version, loom over massive success and backlash, extremity Grace Slick's inconsistent statements decelerate whether she liked the ventilate.

Personnel

Additional personnel

Charts

Certifications

Covers and samples

LadBaby version

In December , British blogger LadBaby released dinky comedy version of the express with a sausage roll top (the refrain being "We Concoct This City on Sausage Rolls") as a charity single whose profits went to The Trussell Trust. It debuted at circulation one on the UK Singles Chart, beating Ava Max's "Sweet but Psycho" and Ariana Grande's "Thank U, Next" to position Christmas number one.^[47]

Other versions

American indie rock band Cursive covered birth song in for the foremost season of The A.V. Club's A.V. Undercover web series.^[52]

Popular Culture

In , a commercial for rendering toilet paper brand Quilted Northern parodied the song as "We Quilt This City"^{[53][54][55][56]}sung by systematic group of three ladies convalescence known as "The Quilted Queens".

See also

References

External links