How Starship's 'We Built This City' Went from No. 1 Hit to 'Worst Song Ever'

Throughout music history, there have been numerous songs to chart as hits despite being mediocre. In 1985, a song from Starship's debut album shot all the way to No. 1, even though in the years since it has popped up on various lists as the "worst song ever."

"We Built This City" topped the charts in the United States, Australia and Canada while cracking the top 10 Germany, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland. In the years since its release, however, the song has become known for different reasons.

The buildup to 'We Built This City'

Starship was the evolution of Jefferson Starship, which in itself was the continuation of Jefferson Airplane. By 1985, only lead singer Grace Slick remained from the band's original iteration.

Starship began recording its debut album, Knee Deep in the Hoopla, in 1984. The album was released on Sept. 10, 1985, two weeks after the debut of its first single, "We Built This City."

A successful song, but that doesn't tell the whole story

Written by Martin Page and Bernie Taupin, "We Built This City" actually received favorable reviews from Billboard and Cash Box following its release. It would be the first of two No. 1 hits, along with "Sara," from Knee Deep in the Hoopla.

However, time has not been kind to "We Built This City." In 2004, Blender named it the worst song ever, lamenting the "truly horrible sound of a band taking the corporate dollar while sneering at those who take the corporate dollar."

Seven years later, "We Built This City" topped a Rolling Stonereaders poll of the worst songs of the 1980s, and in 2016, GQ not only christened it the "worst song of all time," but devoted an entire oral history to the track.

Even Slick admitted in a 2012 Vanity Fair profile that she couldn't stand the song.

"But I was such an a-----e for a while, I was trying to make up for it by being sober, which I was all during the 80s, which is a bizarre decade to be sober in," she explained. "So I was trying to make it up to the band by being a good girl. Here, we're going to sing this song, "We Built This City on Rock & Roll." Oh you're s------g me, that's the worst song ever. I could do it, I could get up and imitate myself, but that doesn't feel right."

So, is it really the 'worst song ever'?

"We Built This City" is certainly bouncy and catchy, but the lyrics are rather corny and far from profound, to say the least. The sound is also very much the antithesis of Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship's counterculture ethos.

There are also clearly a lot of people who think the song is flat out horrible, and deserving of being called the "worst of all time." Still, the song did hit No. 1. Think about all of the other truly bad songs that don't have any commercial success at all.

In my humble opinion, there are worse songs out there, but hey, to each their own.

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on May 6, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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This story was originally published May 6, 2026 at 1:16 PM.