Two Shows Released In 2025 Incorporated One Of The Worst Songs Ever

The humble 80s rock needle drop is a critical arrow in every showrunner’s quiver. Daredevil: Born Again and Paradise reached for an even more hackneyed gimmick, the weighty cover of a very silly song. Add extremely on-the-nose lyrics to that trick, and fans will hang their heads as they feel a mild, familiar disappointment wash over them. That’s all bad enough, but both of those well-received shows also doubled down by using one of the most hated songs of the 80s. Starship’s “We Built This City” sits comfortably in both a superhero series and a sci-fi drama after 40 years of mixed receptions.

A show’s choice of external music can say a lot about the context. Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy, for example, dropped a needle or two on nearly every episode to varied effects. Other shows are slightly more restrained, like Breaking Bad, which still finds massive impact with tracks like “Baby Blue.” Period pieces can use contemporary music to set the scene or anachronistic songs to play with the audience’s expectations. The laziest examples have little more to say than “Remember this one?” but a clever showrunner can find the perfect balance.

Is Starship’s “We Built This City” the Worst Song Ever?

Many respected music outlets have dubbed “We Built This City” the worst song of its decade, genre, or even its medium. Billboard and other outlets praised the song upon its initial release. It was extremely popular among listeners, earning the #1 spot in the United States and impressive charting positions across Europe. However, over the intervening 40 years, commentators and critics have torn the song apart as a complete failure. The usual complaints note the absurdity of the lyrics, prominently including the line “knee deep in the hoopla,” which named the album. Other critics point out the juxtaposition between the song’s alleged anti-corporate message and its extraordinarily radio-friendly arena rock sound.

Defunct music magazine Blender was among the first to cast widespread aspersions, placing Starship’s classic at the top of their list of “The 50 Worst Songs Ever” in 2004. Then editor Craig Marks described the choice as the unanimous result of several polls. Seven years later, Rolling Stone allowed readers to vote for the worst song of the 1980s, and the magazine’s base overwhelmingly selected “We Built This City.” The song’s closest competitor was Europe’s “The Final Countdown,” but the outlet notes that Starship’s classic won by an unusually massive margin. GQ labeled “We Built This City” the worst song of all time, going so far as to claim that it’s “the most detested song in human history.” Today, many still view it with disdain, but “We Built This City” has its fans. Like a lot of silly things, some enjoy the things that others find objectionable.

How did Daredevil: Born Again use “We Built This City?”

Daredevil: Born Again mostly uses “We Built This City” with a playful nod to its negative current reception. The show splits its time between lawyer/former vigilante Matt Murdock and criminal/mayor Wilson Fisk. While Matt zealously investigates and defends the reputation of his client, Fisk struggles to adjust to the demands of a political career. Fisk’s time as the Kingpin over Hell’s Kitchen required a lot of things, but it never demanded he make himself presentable to the masses. He’s more concerned with optics now, mostly thanks to the staff that guides his hand. In the fourth episode, “Sic Semper Systema,” the show follows Fisk through a few of his appointments, including a visit to a school where a children’s choir belts out “We Built This City.” Reportedly, the scene had to be reshot because the first batch of young performers were simply too in tune. Fisk visibly expresses discontent listening to the children’s rendition, then becomes even more irritated when he attends a Latvian heritage festival and hears another take on the song by another choir. Both iterations are performed a cappella and are only present to illustrate Fisk’s distaste for the actual work of his new career.

How did Paradise use “We Built This City?”

Paradise is a sci-fi political thriller set in an underground bunker after the apocalypse. Creator Dan Fogelman previously attained fame as a writer of comedies and Disney movies, but his most recent defining project is This Is Us, which he created and produced. Paradise follows Sterling K. Brown as Xavier, a Secret Service agent who attempts to investigate the inexplicable killing of the President of the United States. The show frequently fixates on nostalgia, a shining light of familiarity that seems to offer some freedom from the depressing reality of life underground. While Paradise generally lends some fondness to the 80s and 90s rock ballads it packs into its soundtrack, its take on “We Built This City” is simultaneously ironic and brutal. The show depicts Xavier’s son playing the track for his daughter. She playfully suggests that any world that created that song had every right to end. Paradise double-dips on the song, using a slower, more dramatic cover to punctuate a more sincere scene later in the second episode. It both makes fun of the song and uses it as a sincere backing track.

Both 2025 shows that used “We Built This City” referenced the song’s terrible current reception. They both played with the idea of a song that’s so popular that it stands the test of time and so unpopular that everyone who hears it seems to become irrationally enraged. “We Built This City” isn’t exactly a plot point in either show, but it’s clear that their presence makes a statement. Daredevil arguably used the song as a gag, but Paradise attempted to both joke about its impact and use it to add weight. If nothing else, “We Built This City” has proven that it can exist in truly any context.

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