M. Croche
Joined: 23 Nov 2007
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 Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2008 11:21 pm Post subject: Re: We Built this City on rock and Roll |
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| extrabastardformula wrote: |
Is this the worst song in the long and storied history of music? Probably not. If only because there has been a LOT of music through the history of music, and a LOT of Pat Boone, and Reo Speedwagon out there. Seriously, and I know this is just my personal taste, etc., etc., etc., but if your BEST SONG is I Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore, I think that there is something very wrong with your band. The fact that I loved that song as a child I think proves that Reo Speedwagon belongs in jail. No one should be able to get away with doing something like that to a child. I was just a kid, man. A kid.
This isn't about Reo Speedwagon, or Pat Boone, or even Jimmy Harnen with Synch. A quick aside: While I can find some lyrics for Jimmy Harnen's one hit, Where are You Now?, I can't find a copy of it anywhere (anywhere, in this case, being iTunes, Amazon.com or Amazon.com's MP3 service), which is probably for the best. When you search for "Jimmy Hernan with Synch", it tells you that there are no matches, but gives you some self-help books instead. Amazon.com is wise. Or at least it does that when I search for them. Amazon.com is probably making snarky value judgments on me personally, and not one everyone who might actually WANT to own a Jimmy Harnen with Synch album, but, y'know, whatever. Fuck you, Amazon.com. Who the fuck are you to judge me, sitting up on your high horse in your ivory tower. I'm a fucking Amazon PRIME member, you smug piece of shit! Or... uhh... smug corporation of shit, I guess.
Okay, listen, we're getting off track here, people. We are talking about We Built This City on Rock and Roll, here, not Amazon.com, my personal problems or how Reo Speedwagon should be ashamed of making innocent kids like crappy music. As I said above, it probably isn't the worst song ever made. Is We Built This City on Rock and Roll so fucking annoying that it makes me want to want to send videos to the members of Starship of me doing horrible, inhuman things to their families while screaming "We Built This City on Rock and Roll did this! It's YOUR FAULT, Starship!"? Wow, that sentence has some horrible use of punctuation at the end there. Someone should take away my license to use punctuation. Anyway, the answer to my question is a resounding 'yes'. It's not that I think that the families of the members of Starship are to blame, but frankly, when there is a song that horrible (and it is, really, that horrible), the blame explodes outwards, like a Molotov Cocktail of pure, undiluted suck.
I'm not going to do that, however, because I'm too lazy to, frankly, and also, I'm too pretty to go to jail.
First, let's take a brief look at Starship. I really want to thank Paul Kantner, who was a founding member of Jefferson Airplane, and then Jefferson Starship. Oh, and Hot Tuna, too, but, eh, fuck Hot Tuna. We really need to thank him because Jefferson Airplane was a pretty good band, and Jefferson Starship wasn't bad. Starship, though... oh my god. Most of the crappy synth-heavy "we prefer little octagonal pads connected to computers to real drums" was somehow at least fun. At least a little fun. Not Starship, though. They managed to pretty much suck all joy out of the music, like they were vampires of happiness. Now, I know that they have several hits, so someone out there, maybe even someone reading this who hasn't heard anything by Starship, might think that maybe this is just my personal opinion, that maybe Starship's music is actually not that bad. Maybe there is someone out there who has actually heard We Built This City on Rock and Roll or Sara or any of Starship's other songs and actually enjoy them, and those people might think I am wrong about Starship sucking horribly. Those people are wrong. Very, very wrong. Starship sucks. Badly. Starship is... well, okay... at the risk of seeming like I'm overstating it... Starship is raping the corpse of Jefferson Airplane, video taping it and selling those tapes to all of Starship's creepy friends. There, I've said it. Well, okay, Starship (by the way, did you all notice that I'm bolding every band name? I don't know why either!) isn't doing it anymore, but it used to. So, why are we thanking Paul Kantner? Well, he was a founding member of Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship (yeah, I know I said that already, but, c'mon, that's like all the way up there, man, near the top, someone reading this had forgotten who the fuck he was, you know they did, so I thought I'd give a refresher) and when he left the band, the rest of the band wanted to continue under the name, but he sued them, saying, "oh no, fuck that shit". Well, that's probably not really what he said, but, you know, that's the gist of it. So, they had to change their name to just Starship. Or, well, they could have named themselves something else, like, I don't know, The Glass Spider's Carnival or Laser Warpface or something, but really, Starship was the obvious choice. I wonder if they could have gotten away with Jepherson Starship or Jeffersyn Starship? Hmmm... Anyway, by doing that, Paul Kantner helped tip off a nation that Starship SUCKED. Judging by the fact that they had several hits, the nation proved itself to be stupid and unbelieving, but, hey, what are you gonna do, right? Kantner did his part, playing the role of a prophet shouting at the deaf and doing Charades (or maybe Pictionary) at the blind, he's blameless.
SO, okay, the song itself. It makes NO FUCKING SENSE! YOU CANNOT BUILD A CITY ON ROCK AND ROLL! It CANNOT fucking be done! Rock and Roll is a genre of music, and music has no physical form, and therefore is a fucking SHITTY building material! Seriously, try it. Build yourself, even something simple, like a stool or a shelving unit or something, out of music. No, seriously, do it... I'll wait. Go ahead, I'll be here when you get back.
You couldn't do it, could you? Assuming you tried, of course, I bet there are a few of you who said "that's stupid, of course you can't use music as a building material", but for those of you who decided to test it out for yourselves, I bet that you have found that music cannot hold up your feet OR your books. Yep... music makes for a damned sub-standard stool or shelving unit. Now, imagine trying to build a home, or even worse, a skyscraper out of music. Could you imagine the headlines? "The construction of the Trump Towers is delayed further, as they ARE TRYING TO FUCKING BUILD IT OUT OF JUMP BY VAN HALEN, now, let's go to Gavin with sports."
Seriously, what kind of horrible city planners, mayors, etc. would you need to have an idea like this go forward? Or, let us flip the coin: Seriously, what kind of awesome city planners, mayors, etc. would you need to have an idea like this get past the public? I mean, really, who is going to fucking believe that building the I-Whatever Expressway out of music is a good idea. Seriously, those motherfuckers are some motherfuckers that I never, ever want to meet. Those guys would have me... well, they could probably convince me that We Built This City on Rock and Roll is a good song. How fucking horrible is that? I'm going to have nightmares about this.
"Oh, bob," someone is probably saying, "its not meant to be taken literally". I know, I do. I realize that not even Grace Slick can be fucked up enough on drugs to really think that music (even rock and roll) could be used in construction. However, we are then left with the fact that what we have is an anthemic song that proudly announces both the band's strong rock heritage, as well as San Francisco's. Except, the song is ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE! I mean, it really, really is. What's worse, the song? The that claims to have "built" "this city" on "rock and roll"? It's not even a fucking rock and roll song! Before someone starts to say it's synthrock or, or pop-rock, or synthpoprock or rocksynthpop or any other combination of words that includes rock at all, let me cut you off at the pass with this witty rejoinder: YOU'RE WRONG! It's not a rock song. It's a shame that "steaming pile of crap" is not an actual genre of music, because it would fit in great there. How can you have a song that's called We Built This City on Rock and Roll and NOT have it be a rock song? I'm baffled. Baffled! Maybe this whole thing is an April Fool's Joke that no one got?
Another thing I dislike is the fact that the songs lyrics speak of the kind of empty rebellion that's pretty common in music in general. Except, y'know, this song sounds about as rebellious as an episode of Full House (hey, italics and bolding were already taken).
Alright, you know what, lyrics? Let's do this!
| Quote: |
Say you don't know me, or recognize my face
Say you don't care who goes to that kind of place
Knee deep in the hoopla, sinking in your fight
Too many runaways eating up the night |
Well, actually, yeah, no, I probably wouldn't know the singer, or recognize his face. I'm not sure "what kind of place" he's referring to. Judging from later lyrics, I'm kind of thinking it's a construction site under the shadows of a bunch of a skyscrapers owned by faceless corporations that's being used as an underground dance club at night. Knee deep in the hoopla, sinking in "my" fight, maybe that's a reference to me losing my rebellious nature under the crush of my work-a-day life as a corporate slave during the day? Maybe? Too many runaways eating up the night, that seems a bit heavy compared to everything else. I mean, hey, man, I'm just trying to forget the stack of Q14's I have to convert to Q14b's AND the 238 page prospectus that Jenkins has me looking and cliff-noting for an IPO he's looking into that has NOTHING AT ALL to do with the company itself. I don't need no homeless people looking for handouts while I'm dancing the night away in a construction site.
| Quote: |
Marconi plays the Mamba,
Listen to the radio
Don't you remember?
We built this city
We built this city on rock and roll!
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll |
Okay, did Marconi actually play the Mamba on the radio? I mean, I guess he maybe could have, but how could I remember that, seeing as I wasn't born yet? Huh? How does that work? Maybe they are wondering if I remember reading that in a history class or something.
Or, perhaps they are wondering if I remember that they/we built this city on rock and roll(!) If this is the case, maybe, maybe I'm NOT the young punk yuppie stuck reading Jenkin's prospectus. Maybe I'M Jenkins, and maybe I used to be a hippy before I started chasing the almighty dollar, and oh, don't I remember when love, and good music and better drugs were all that mattered? Oh, oh, don't I remember? We built this city on rock and roll, man! If this is the case, though, the fact that Starship completely sold the fuck out is ironic, you know? Hella ironic.
| Quote: |
Someone always playing corporation games
Who cares they're always changing corporation names
We just want to dance here, someone stole the stage
They call us irresponsible, write us off the page
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Well, I just think this is a frivolous and silly attitude. I mean, there is a good reason they are calling you ("us"?) irresponsible and write "us" off the page. Has Roger and Me taught us nothing? We need to keep track of these corporations, people. Oh, and anyone who wants to point out that Roger and Me was made several years after We Built This City on Rock and Roll, well, yeah, but, whatever. I wrote like a shit-ton of paragraphs about people literally trying to build a city out of rock and roll, so I'm obviously not that concerned with stupid bullshit like logic or facts.
It also really reinforces the idea of there being a construction site underground nightclub or something. It's also very likely that someone might have stolen their stage, because, y'know, during the day, it's a construction site. I know if I was a foreman at a construction site and I suddenly found some cobbled-together stage that wasn't there the day before, I'd totally steal that shit. Or destroy it, probably. Because, seriously, what the fuck are you going to do with a stage, right?
| Quote: |
It's just another Sunday in a tired old street
Police have got the choke hold, and we just lost the beat
Who counts the money underneath the bar
Who rides the wrecking ball into our guitars
Don't tell us you need us, 'cause we're the ship of fools
Looking for America, crawling through your schools |
Oh fuck! The coppers busted our underground nightclub! Now what am I going to do to keep the corporations from eating my soul?? Well, I guess I'll go to this bar and find out who counts the money. Also, the wrecking ball? It's bigger than the guitars, maybe we should grab your guitars and smash them into the wrecking ball? Also, destroying your guitars, Starship would be awesome, but destroying your synthesizers, double awesome! Believe me, Starship, BELIEVE ME, we don't need you! Also, you are worse than a ship of fools, you are a ship of douches. Also, don't fucking search for America, Starship, that's Simon and Garfunkel's gig, and they are so much better at it than you, it's just humiliating and wrong, like that time when my ex-girlfriend tried to dress and act like my other ex-girlfriend (who was my current girlfriend at the time). It's not cute Starship, it's not sexy Starship, it just makes you look stupid. Oh, and crawling through our schools to do it sounds like a bad plan to me. There is so much more to America than just our educational system. Further, one could take the cynical view that America cares very little about education. Also: the last place you want Grace Slick is around impressionable youngsters. Seriously... she made being fucked up and crazy into an institution.
In summation: We Built This City on Rock and Roll is a horrible, horrible song, and the members of Starship should probably be arrested for creating it. I'm not saying the need to be locked away in some federal 'pound me in the ass' prison, but... seriously, if We Built This City on Rock and Roll isn't disturbing the peace, I don't know what the fuck is.
Shame on you, Reo Speedwagon, shame on you Jimmy Harnen, shame on your Synch, and shame on fucking you, Starship. |
mute |
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