“We Built This City” by Starship is a song so wrapped in contradiction, so simultaneously beloved and reviled, so filled with bold hooks and controversial production choices, that its very existence feels like a monument to 1980s excess. Released in 1985 during a time of transition for the band formerly known as Jefferson Starship—and before that, Jefferson Airplane—it wasn’t just a pop single, it was a statement. What that statement means depends on who you ask. Some hear a triumphant anthem of rock-and-roll perseverance. Others hear the gaudy sound of rock selling its soul to corporate radio. But what’s undeniable is that “We Built This City” is unforgettable. It is as much a historical artifact as it is a pop song, and its sonic DNA is woven with both the aspirations and contradictions of a changing music industry.
The track opens with a keyboard fanfare that sounds more like a news broadcast than a rock song, immediately signaling that this isn’t going to be a traditional guitar-driven rock anthem. There’s a synthetic precision to the production, a polish that’s unmistakably mid-’80s. The drums don’t thump—they snap with a computerized punch. The guitars, when they appear, are sleek and processed. And over it all, Grace Slick and Mickey Thomas deliver vocals that are clean, clear, and soaring. They don’t sound like rebels. They sound like professionals. And that’s part of the friction that gives the song its weird power: it talks about rebellious music culture in a language that feels corporate and plastic.
Lyrically, the song is a puzzle box. Lines like “We built this city on rock and roll” are simple, declarative, and anthemic. But what city? And who is “we”? The verses talk about radio stations shutting down, about corporations killing the soul of the scene, about the fading heartbeat of live music. It wants to sound like a protest, but the tone is oddly celebratory. There’s frustration in the lyrics but none of it in the delivery. Instead, you get power chords and shimmering synths and one of the most singable choruses of the decade. There’s a line about Marconi playing the mambo, which doesn’t make a lot of literal sense but sticks in your brain anyway. It’s surreal. It’s nonsensical. It’s magic in a way that’s hard to pin down.
What makes the track even more fascinating is the legacy of the band performing it. Grace Slick wasn’t some manufactured pop figure. She had been part of one of the most politically charged, countercultural bands of the 1960s. Jefferson Airplane was Woodstock, was protest, was raw and psychedelic and anti-establishment. Yet here she is, two decades later, singing about the commodification of rock inside a song that sounds like it was built by a focus group. That’s not an insult. It’s a fact. The song was written by Bernie Taupin (famous for his work with Elton John), Martin Page, Dennis Lambert, and Peter Wolf—not the band itself. It was designed as a pop vehicle, and it worked. It hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and became one of the most recognizable songs of the era.
That level of commercial success is part of what fuels the controversy around it. Critics pounced on “We Built This City” almost immediately. Over the years, it’s been called one of the worst songs of all time by outlets like Blender and Rolling Stone, which cite its hypocrisy and perceived soullessness. How can a song that decries corporate radio sound so radio-friendly? How can a song about the death of rock be so devoid of grit? But this criticism misses something important. The song is doing what a lot of great pop does—it reflects its environment. In 1985, the music industry was in flux. MTV had changed how artists connected with audiences. Radio was consolidating. Synthesizers and drum machines were replacing bands in the studio. And listeners were caught between nostalgia for rock’s raw past and the glossy pull of the future. “We Built This City” isn’t failing to understand that. It’s capturing that tension in full, flashy color.
If you strip away the production and just look at the bones of the song, it holds up remarkably well. The chorus is undeniably strong. The melody soars. The emotional plea underneath the gloss is real: someone is watching their music scene die and trying to make sense of it. There’s heartbreak beneath the sugar coating. But the production—the synth pads, the drum machines, the squeaky-clean vocals—keeps everything at arm’s length. That dissonance is what makes the song so strange and unforgettable. It’s earnest, but also polished within an inch of its life. It’s rebellious, but also manufactured. It’s both pop perfection and a symbol of everything purists hated about where music was heading.
And yet, it endures. People still play it. Still argue about it. Still sing along, unironically or otherwise. “We Built This City” is a staple at retro dance nights, in nostalgic movies, on throwback playlists. It’s a meme, a punchline, an earworm, a guilty pleasure, an anthem. The fact that it can be all those things at once is a testament to its strange power. No one feels nothing about this song. That’s rare. That means something. A truly forgettable song disappears. This one keeps coming back.
Part of that is due to its production value. Say what you want about the lyrics, the arrangement is undeniably tight. Peter Wolf’s studio work ensured that every note hit with precision. The song is engineered to be memorable. It’s got hooks in every line, from the pre-chorus to the bridge to the chorus itself. It knows exactly what it’s doing. Whether that makes it brilliant or cynical is up to the listener.
And Grace Slick’s presence adds a layer of gravity that a lesser vocalist couldn’t match. She’s not phoning it in. She delivers her parts with conviction, even if the material seems at odds with her past. In a way, that contradiction is what makes it compelling. Here’s someone who once screamed psychedelic truths over acid rock, now delivering polished pop lines with the same intensity. There’s a sadness in that, but also a kind of evolution. Maybe “We Built This City” isn’t a sellout anthem. Maybe it’s a requiem. A final dance for a version of music culture that was already fading. It waves a banner for rock and roll even as it watches the lights dim.
The song’s influence has extended far beyond the '80s. It has been covered, sampled, mocked, and celebrated. It’s appeared in commercials, video games, films, and TV shows. Its staying power is undeniable. And younger generations, who don’t carry the same baggage about authenticity or genre purity, are often more willing to just enjoy it as a piece of pure pop. They don’t hear betrayal—they hear a catchy song. And that, ultimately, may be its greatest revenge.
There’s also something to be said for how “We Built This City” speaks to the illusion of permanence. Cities aren’t really built on rock and roll. They’re built on compromise, on money, on deals and development. But music gives cities their spirit. The song understands that. It’s less about literal construction and more about emotional scaffolding. Rock and roll gave people identity, rebellion, release. The song is mourning a city that’s losing its soul—not its skyline. That emotional undercurrent gives it unexpected depth. Beneath the synths and radio-friendly sheen is a real fear: that the culture that gave rise to the band’s entire career is being erased by corporate control.
In hindsight, “We Built This City” is a better document of its time than people often give it credit for. It captures the moment when rock stopped being underground and started being business. When radio DJs lost power to executives. When image started outweighing sound. The song doesn’t resolve that conflict—it embodies it. And that’s why people can’t stop talking about it.
Every line is a piece of that confusion. “Someone’s always playing corporation games,” the lyrics say, and they’re right. But they’re also part of that system now. The band is singing about their own obsolescence from the inside. It’s not hypocrisy—it’s existential dread with a dance beat. That’s the genius of the song. It wears its contradictions proudly. It wants to be a protest song and a pop hit at the same time. And somehow, it succeeds at both.
Ultimately, “We Built This City” is one of those songs that can never be separated from the culture it came from. It’s not just a track on a playlist. It’s a mirror. It reflects an era of glossy production, rising commercialization, and the uneasy fusion of art and commerce. It’s as complicated as the decade that birthed it. And whether you love it or hate it, you can’t deny its impact.
Grace Slick once called the song "awful," and many critics have agreed. But that doesn't change the fact that millions of people danced to it, sang along with it, and still do. It lives on because it hit a nerve, even if it did so with a perfectly styled mullet and a shoulder-padded jacket. It's a song that dares to shout about the death of authenticity while drowning in studio gloss. And maybe that's exactly why it works.
“We Built This City” was never meant to be subtle. It was meant to be heard—loud, proud, and unmissable. Decades later, it still is. It's a song about music’s place in the world, even if it got tangled up in its own contradictions. And in those contradictions lies its strange, undeniable power. Whether you call it a disaster or a classic, one thing is clear: we’re still talking about it.
