Hey guys, the Entity of Darkness here, I decided that album reviews would be too time consuming considering school, but I still wanted to look at music. So I decided to look at songs, one group of posts for songs I hate (Auditory Abominations) and the other for songs I like (Ace Audio).
This should be fun.
As much as I hate to say it, Metallica has not been doing well at all in the modern era. Fans have been thrashing (No pun intended) albums since Ride the Lightning, but after ...And Justice For All, it seems that very few fans are ever being pleased. Sure they released some good stuff here and there but many fans were flat out displeased with Load, Reload, and St. Anger and plenty of other things have not been very good on the band. After the entire Napster debate that killed off a good chunk of the band's fan base, it seemed like Metallica was doing nothing but going down hill. To give you some perspective, in 2013 Metallica released a movie called "Into the Never" which costed around $32 Million dollars to make, and it flopped hard, making back only $7 Million at the box office, despite good critical reception. What I'm saying is that Metallica was on a downhill, and whether you like St. Anger or not, we can agree it is nowhere near the quality of Metallica's older stuff like "Master of Puppets", "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "One".
I say this because Metallica decided to release another album, and they have already released a few singles from it, the first one was alright, nothing to amazing, but good. This one is however a much better sounding song.
The opening instrumentals definitely have a Metallica sound to them sounding like "Master of Puppets" but I think that the similar sound is very welcomed here. Really the song just sounds like the Metallica many fans wanted during St. Anger, and I feel like this song can easily fit alongside "Master of Puppets" and "Battery".
I also got to say, the instrumentals are awesome, especially that guitar solo. Hot damn I haven't heard a good guitar solo from Metallica in a while, and James Hetfield's vocals still have the power of the older days.
This is the newest release from their upcoming album, and if the rest of the album has awesome songs like this, I really think Metallica is going in the right direction. I do think this is also better than the previous released track "Hardwired" which to me sounded a bit more like Megadeth. After almost a decade of displeasing fans, Metallica could have and quite honestly should have thrown in the towel after "Through the Never", but they kept pushing and this is the kind of stuff you can get if you keep pushing. I have high hopes for the album when it comes out, I may not get it on release, but I will get it eventually.
Sorry this review came off a bit short, but I really wanted to talk about this song. I wanted to talk about how Metallica are heading in the right direction. Because this song is so recent, I really didn't have a whole lot to say about it, and this also took the place of another review that I was planning on doing. Considering my last Ace Audio, this is kind of fitting as well, and honestly, I think now I can forgive "St. Anger".
I'm the Entity of Darkness, and keep moving, whether it is forward, backward or sideways, just keep moving.
Last time I did an Ace Audio I looked at the Queen song "The Show Must Go On" saying that it was a testament to how good the band was as a whole and saying it was an important song for the band. However, I think if any song or release was important to any band, I think this song is the most important song for AC/DC.
Here's a little history lesson for you, AC/DC was formed in the 70s with Bon Scott as their lead singer, and from then until 1980 they made some of the greatest Hard Rock songs ever like "TnT", "Highway to Hell" and "Jailbreak". But then something happened that could have drastically altered the bands future for the worse. Bon Scott, aged thirty-three, died on February 19, 1980. I don't want to go much deeper into that, because I don't think many of you came here to read about somebody dying, but I will say it could have, and in many other cases would have, meant the end of the band.
Many of the greatest bands in the world broke up because of the loss of certain members, like Led Zeppelin after John Bonham died or The Jimi Hendrix Experience after Jimi Hendrix. This is mostly because there was no real way to replace them. Some bands do indeed push forward like Metallica, The Who pushed on for a while and Lynyrd Skynyrd, but not many bands do and when they do, they are often met with huge backlash, and sometimes not just from fans. To say that Metallica was hard on Jason Newsted is an understatement, they flat out turned off his bass on ...And Justice for All, and we could talk for hours about fans being hard on bands replacing members, who simply just left or got kicked out. People still debate whether Ozzy Osbourne or Ronnie James Dio was the better frontman of Black Sabbath.
The thing is, replacing Bon Scott could not just have ended up badly, it could have ruined AC/DC forever, and for many people it did. However, not only did this change not ruin them for the rest of their fans, Brian Johnson may have saved the band as a whole. These are the kind of reasons I look at a song for Ace Audio, not because it's popular, but because it is important.
"Back in Black" was released in 1980 and three whole decades later, it still holds up, as does AC/DC. Seriously, "Rock or Bust" is one of my favourite songs from the band, right up there with "Thunderstruck" and "Walk All Over You".
People may compare Bon Scott and Brian Johnson, but unless you have real good ears, there is very little distinction between the two vocalists. Brian especially gives this song some power, and it is helped immensely by the guitar. Angus Young was a guitar god and it really shows here, seriously find any rock fan who does not know the opening riff and I will show you a fake rock fan.
The whole album of Back in Black shows that not every change is bad, and sometimes the band can still push forward in the same direction, unlike when Dio took over Black Sabbath.
I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I'm glad that AC/DC has had as long a run as they did.
Why did it take me this long to get to one of the most infamous bands in the world? Well barring the fact that this was one of the bands I just chose a song at random to review (Heads up there are plenty more ahead), I also don't think Nickelback is a bad band. I mean, I acknowledge they have flaws and bad songs, but I think a lot of bands have flaws and bad songs, and I think there are worse music artists than Nickelback. I'd much sooner go to a Nickelback concert than listen to Peter Cetera on record.
I originally wanted to talk about the song "Animals", but then I remembered my dislike for this and I decided to give it a listen to see if it is really as bad as I remember. The short answer is that yes, it is as bad as I remember it.
Have any of you heard "How You Remind Me"? the song that put Nickelback on the charts? I wouldn't say it's a terrible song but it kind of influenced them to the point where a few of their songs were majorly influenced by it, and when I say this is one of those songs, I mean the only difference is the lyrics. I hear that guitar and all I think is that it's a slightly faster version of "How You Remind Me" and how much I'd rather listen to that song.
The lyrics are alright until it gets to the chorus where Someday, Somehow he'll make it alright, but not right now, which is the biggest cop-out in a relationship aside from "I feel just too close to love you", oh I'll get to that one.
To me Nickelback is at their best when they embrace the hard rock sound that they don't actually suck at, I mean I like "Photograph", but it is mostly just because I have a soft spot for songs like it. I mean, "Side of a Bullet" and "Edge of a Revolution" aren't terrible songs and when you compare them to songs like "Far Away" sure they won't be pop chart successful, but "Far Away" is a terribly dull song that isn't helped by Chad Kroeger's sandpaper voice.
And honestly, Chad Kroeger is not the worst thing about this song. His voice sounds alright with the song and the matches the instrumentals, which is fine because it worked in that other song which I'm sure you're all tired of me comparing it to.
Nickelback may not be a band I dislike, but I still acknowledge they have bad songs, and this is just one of them. It doesn't even hide the fact that it "takes influence" from their first major hit, the lyrics are bad and the song itself is flavourless, even the most vile songs ever have some flavour to them, this has nothing.
I'm the Entity of Darkness and I'm done with abominations for now.
Nicki Minaj is, in my opinion, one of the most annoying and frustrating music artists of today. I know she can sing well and I know she can sing better, but most of her songs are the most obnoxious pieces of crap I've ever heard, and this is the guy who listened to "This is How We Do", "We Built This City" and "St. Anger" prior to this, and honestly this may just be the worst of them.
The opening vocals are some of the most grating I have ever heard. They sound like a mix of guttural and nasal vocals, and the lyrics do not help the first impressions at all. If you are so desperate to fill up the song's time slot that you repeat the last sound in a word, your song will suck. Seriously, "let's go to the beach, each" just sounds like lyrical filler, and considering "Dark Horse" that is really saying quite a bit.
After the out-of-breath singer with a sore throat swaps into an out-of-breath singer with a nasal congestion. the song changes with the chorus where it just becomes a generic dance song. This is my biggest problem, with music in general, everything that becomes the most successful, is often generic dance music, recently that has been changing, with artists like Bruno Mars and others making dance songs with actual beats and funk instead of this kind of generic shlock, but in the early 2010s, not really, the most we got was "Safe and Sound" and "Lights", which still have their faux-dubstep beats, but they sound a lot better than this.
Honestly, I think my biggest problem with Nicki Minaj is that I can never tell when her voice is natural or auto-tuned, I've heard auto-tune used as effects, to enhance singing and as a freaking instrumental solo, so I think I'm fairly used to hearing auto-tune but Nicki Minaj, just sounds so unnatural and yet so comfortable with her singing, it's like the rumour that Robert Johnson was actually sped up on the records, you know in the 1930s when the wall of sound wasn't a thing yet, yeah that myth isn't true, but I'd believe it if it was about Nicki Minaj.
The chorus also has issues, the first part is a poor bridge to the actual chorus, where she claims "Starships were meant to fly". The thing is that neither part sounds connected. In fact, the whole song sounds disjointed, after the chorus comes this weird dubstep beat that sounds out of place, like this was just scrapped together from rejected songs by other music artists.
And then we get a completely different song than the one we started with, I mean seriously, what is with the ADD song structure? As much as I hate Katy Perry songs at least they are consistent, it's like if out of nowhere this suddenly became a review on the music video. Then suddenly out of nowhere she sings "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", Top 10 charting song everybody, with the lyrical accomplishment of a toddler's nursery rhyme booklet.
This song is disjointed, mismatched, obnoxious and so far worse than anything else I've heard. I think the only thing that can come close would be "After All" by the musical equivalent of a slap to the face and the musical equivalent of STDs respectively, Cher and Peter Cetera.
And no, I'm not covering that next time, I'm the Entity of Darkness and next time, home country shame.
There are plenty of songs that have received a bad reputation for being so bad, and a lot of these songs I will cover here. Ace Audio may be my excuse to talk about songs I like and analyze them, but as a music fan I should be able to recognize the failures, and oh boy ladies and gentlemen do we have a failure, and it may be my most recognizable abomination, that is actually recognized as an abomination, and this song has quite a bit of history too.
This song was made by Starship, and unless you lived in the 1980s, or have a large understanding of music history, the name won't ring any bells. Starship, came from the 70s rock band Jefferson Starship, which came from the 60s rock band Jefferson Airplane, so if any of you don't mind, I'm going to lump this with "St. Anger" and "Crush 'Em" as being a bad song, from a good artist. Starship was actually a new band because of some members departing from the band, and the fact that they decided to change genres, and also because of a lawsuit by Paul Kanter, I said there was some history. The suit was settled as both parties could not use either "Jefferson" or "Airplane" in their band names unless the members of Jefferson Airplane agreed.
The song itself earned a bit of a reputation despite it's success topping both the Hot 100 and the Mainstream Rock Charts, so yeah sometimes I wonder what everybody in the 80s was on for a lot of this music to pass.
Right off the bat we are pelted with some annoying vocals from the singer for this song, Mickey Thomas. Now, I've only listened to one full album by Jefferson Airplane and when I reviewed that on my album review blog, I said that Marty Balin was a boring singer, so now I'm dealing with the annoying. I do have to say that, sans the vocals, the build up is pretty good with a nice keyboard opening, I'm not gonna lie, it could've been great, but sadly it went all down hill from there.
The 1980s was a confusing decade for the rock genre, with the success of synth groups like Tears for Fears and Genesis, a lot of rock songs were going more synth and techno based rather than guitar based. Bands like Yes and a lot of the Hair Metal scene were hugely dominated by the keyboard and synth more than guitars, and if you don't believe me look at the rock charts at the time, how many guitar based rock songs topped them? Not very many, the rock charts were dominated with songs like "Owner of a Lonely Heart", "Don't You (Forget About Me)" and even "Hungry Like the Wolf" which I don't even think counts as a rock song.
What I'm saying is that this song is really outdated. The drums sound synthetic, the guitar sounds mixed with the keyboards and the bass is more of a makeshift metronome than anything else. The vocals are really the worst part about this song, they sound synthetic and kind of remind me of "Call Me Maybe" which is one of the worst songs I've ever heard. Grace Slick also offers her vocals, but they are, as usual, drowned out making her pretty pointless.
However, does this song deserve the scorn it has received? I was lead to believe the was one of the worst songs of all time, but what I got was mostly bland, annoying and mediocre at worst. I can't say I hate it, but the song does suck.
Ace Audio is a series where I look at songs that I don't think get enough appreciation, or analyze songs that I think are well loved, so I try to avoid well loved songs like "Stairway to Heaven" or "Run to the Hills". Although, there may be a case or two where I break my rule, I may not do it often but I will occasionally, like now.
Queen needs no introduction, if you don't know Queen you don't know music proper. They are one of the greatest, if not the greatest band who has ever performed with many amazing songs under their belt. Many of their songs are some of the greatest of all time from "Bohemian Rhapsody" to "Radio Gaga" and many more. I decided to go with this song because I really want to emphasise how important the song was to the band and to their fans.
The song is basically about Freddie Mercury and his continuous singing for the band despite his failing health. It was one of the last songs released before his death in 1991. To this, the song itself highly compliments this by having a very symphonic feel to it all, kind of like the end of an opera. It gives the song a very triumphant sound, as if saying this is not the end.
Even though at this point he was terminally ill, Freddie still kills it on the vocals. This is a testament to how amazing of a vocalist Freddie Mercury was, as he still has all that power and range even when dying. This is why Freddie is recognized as the greatest singer in music, because even though others had the range like Ray Charles, and others had the power like Screamin' Jay Hawkins, very few had both, and none to such an impressive degree.
The rest of the band does an awesome job as well, Roger Taylor especially kills it with those drums and John Deacon plays an awesome bass. However, it's Brian May that steals the show when it comes to the instrumentals with his precise guitar playing, it really does add to the whole rock orchestra feel of the song.
When we talk about the best of Queen, yes "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "We Are the Champions" are always going to be in our hearts, but "The Show Must Go On" is a testament to the band as a whole. Sure, this could've been entirely Freddie's doing, and his ultimate final song, but no, this was a whole band effort and they did not pull out any stops.
The song sounds incredible and it was the perfect track to end on. It may be, objectively speaking, the best Queen song ever. It was the bands ultimate song and it gave the fans Freddie's ultimate vocal performance. It is a very important song to all Queen fans.
You know, looking at the whole spectrum of music, the 2010s have actually been a really good decade for music, in fact I'd say it's the second best just below the 70s. I mean, we not only have a whole lot of awesome rock and metal, but many groups from the past have released new material like Megadeth, Disturbed and Iron Maiden. We may be hit or miss with the pop music, but the stuff that is good can actually be really good like "Lights", "Locked Out of Heaven" and "Rolling in the Deep", and a lot of the time we've been getting weird and unusual stuff randomly appearing on the Pop Charts. Why is that?
I mean, when you look at songs that make the pop charts you get your pop princesses, the pretty boy sell-outs, those weird vine songs and internet crazes and other stuff that really doesn't appeal to anybody except for the pop music fans, and yet we get songs like "Pumped up Kicks" and "Somebody That I Used to Know" not only making the charts, but topping them. "Somebody that I Used to Know" was the number 1 song of 2012 and "Pumped up Kicks" topped the Alternative Charts. So, how do these kinds of songs not only make it on to the charts, but stay there?
Is it that these songs are reaching a broader audience because of the internet? Is it because of a fluke in the system? Or is it because they are all just damn good songs? Okay, I doubt it's the second one, but then again "The Fox" made the Hot 100 and by all accounts that song shouldn't even qualify for the list. So, I'm going to find an answer, and I'm going to look at "Royals" because, even though I prefer "Team" myself, "Royals" was the bigger song.
Something that I notice right off the bat is that the beat is much less techno than songs from Katy Perry. I mean, I don't doubt that it was made with some kind of software or mixer, but it doesn't have the faux-dubstep sound, and the drum beats are really nice on top of that, setting the tone for the song.
The song itself is a kind of satirical look at those kind of pop and rap songs, you know the ones like "This is How We Do" that say that this is a good life and something you should have, yeah f*ck those kinds of songs. I can say that the theme of the song is not lost on the lyrics, as the chorus does name a lot of luxurious products and then says "We don't care", pretty much saying "This is not the stuff we need."
Lorde also has one of best singing voices from any pop star I've ever heard. She has good control and range. Whenever I complain about a Katy Perry song where she can't hit high notes, I often compare her to other female singers and Lorde is one of them. "Team" is my favourite song by her because it really does showcase what a talent she is better than "Royals" does.
And I really think that answers most of it. Maybe this song really did make the charts from just being really good and different. I mean, what else reached the top spot in 2013? "Roar", "Wrecking Ball", "Blurred Lines" really boring stuff, so why can't a song like this slip in every now and again? I mean, it's different, and quite frankly it's better than a lot of the things that actually hit the hot 100. I also asked a friend about it and he said that it was because it was easy for enough people to grab on to, and I can definitely hear that, I mean, it's soft but not Chicago levels, it's catchy but not an earworm and it's fun but not mindless.
These kind of non-pop, pop songs are getting much more attention and I'm glad, but then again, do we really need more artists like Lorde and Gotye on the pop charts? I know I would love to have more of their things but at the same time, the rarer a gem the more valuable it is.
I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I have nothing to say here. See you next time!
Originally I was just going to talk about another one of Katy Perry's atrocities that the market and public try to argue qualifies as a form of good music, but there really isn't anything left to say about her. Often when a music artist fails in one particular way, there isn't a whole lot to say about them. For example, a band like Nickelback makes bad songs in two different ways, either a song like "Photograph" or "Animals". An artist like Katy Perry, only makes some of the most obnoxious, repetitious pieces of fluff in pop music, so there isn't a lot to say about Katy Perry anymore. However, I don't want this to be a stone left unturned, so I decided to talk about my ten least favourite songs from her, joy.
I set myself one very specific rule for this list, which was that I could only talk about songs that were either singles, whether commercial or promotional, or the song itself made it onto some chart. She also had to be the lead artist on the song and not the featuring credit. Also, songs I have or might review are not left off the list, so I had a lot of material for this list, 32 songs in fact, yes that many songs have charted and been released. This was no small task either as thirty-two songs is a lot from any artist, I mean I love Daft Punk but I don't think I could marathon thirty-two complete songs from them, and when you also throw on top of the fact that Katy Perry is my least favourite music artist, it just makes things worse, so I just kind of cut a couple of songs from the playlist.
But overall which song do I think sucks the most? well let's find out, this is the top ten worst Katy Perry Songs.
10. California Gurls (ft. Snoop Dogg) (2010)
What we have here is an indication that things are only going to get worse from here. To start off with, I'm fairly certain that I've heard this exact beat and style before, does it still count as a rip-off if you copy from yourself? I'm being serious, this song sounds almost exactly similar to "Hot n Cold" a song I actually don't think is to terrible. That was what really got me, but the lyrics didn't do this song any favours, in fact they may be the worst thing about this song, never mind Snoop Dogg's pathetic rapping that really makes me wonder if he was ever good in the first place.
The lyrics are an atrocity in and of themselves, pretty much just being, "California girls are hot", which, okay yeah point taken, but at the very least you could say something else, the way this song describes Californian girls makes me want to chase other women. Throw in some of the worst auto-tune I've ever heard outside of a Justin Bieber abomination and you have the tenth worst Katy Perry song, oh dark lord why must you make me suffer so?
9. Part of Me (2012)
Okay, first off I can't be the only one to think that this song's beat sounds almost exactly like other songs right? I mean, I may have thought "1901" when I heard it, but I swear there is another song that I can't remember that has almost the exact same beat.
Aside from that, the song is basically a "You can't take away who I am" kind of song, which is a good message for a song to have, but I don't think there really is anything left of who Katy Perry is. She has been dolled up for marketing purposes and almost stripped of her personality, she changes her appearance in so many of her music videos that it's hard to understand what kind of person she really is. I mean in this video she pretty much goes Mulan and joins the army, in another video she acts like a pin-up model, and then out of nowhere she is an Egyptian Pharaoh, at least when Lady Gaga has a costume it's always wild and crazy, when Katy Perry does it, she's pretty much restrained, like she has to have a different costume, but it can never been weird and wild.
I don't know if this song is hypocritical or not, but still it's not something that puts anybody in a good light.
8. Thinking of You (2009)
Because vague-ness is not just reserved for boy bands anymore.
This song starts of slow and boring, she doesn't really sound that interested in what she's saying, which is what not to do when singing what I can comfortably guess is a break-up song. DoI need to restate the obvious, when singing a song that is fueled by emotion, sound like you at least pretend to care.
I don't honestly know which I hate more, early Katy Perry with the more indie instrumentals, or modern Katy Perry with the pop-tronic stuff. I'll say that I may hate the pop-tronic stuff more, it is more forgettable and background noise than anything. This song sounds like Katy is putting in all the emotive efforts of one of Bob Dylan's nostrils and sounds just as appealing. Maybe the shift to Pop-tronic stuff was a better move for her as I don't know if anybody remembers this song or even knows that it's Katy Perry. Maybe Katy Perry's personality was always that she had none in her music.
Oh and these songs were all the tolerable stuff on this list, the next few entries are the real crap is next, starting with...
7. I Kissed a Girl (2008)
The song that put Katy Perry on the charts and it still is an atrocity. I may do a future review on this song, but for now I can put my thoughts on here.
The majority of this song is basically just Katy saying "I kissed a girl, and this is my reaction". It's mostly annoying with Katy Perry's obnoxious singing with not a very deep subject matter. I don't think the song really says anything like "I think I liked her more than him" but all we got is "I hope my boyfriend didn't mind it" which kind of reminds me of "Girl Crush", which is another song that goes "I like a girl, but want a guy", which does not really open itself for a song about change and LGBTQ rights.
6. Wide Awake (2012)
Remember in my "To Hell and Back" review where I said that the meaning behind a song is not the be all or end all? I said that some songs with little to no important meaning can be songs I like and songs with good and important messages can be songs I don't like. Well, the meaning I'm getting behind this song is that Katy Perry is now awake and realizes this is not the life she really wanted. I like the meaning of the song, but I think it got ruined because there really is no indication that she actually feels this way and was most likely saying this to tell others to not follow dreams of being famous just because, which is still a good message.
So if I'm okay with the probable message, than why is the song so high? Literally, the first line of the song sums up my problems. If you want the worst of auto-tune, just listen to Katy Perry sing "I'm Wide Awake". I'm not going to complain about the fact that this is the only thing we get for a chorus as I think a song like this can get away with it, and for that matter the lyrics aren't to bad, neither is the music video for that matter although I think the imagery can be obvious at times. Really my biggest gripe with this song is the fact that they spliced in the auto-tuned sample of "I'm Wide Awake" in between the song, which is an issue with good songs as well, such as Enya's "Diamonds on the Water" with that song's obnoxious sound effect.
At the very least, I don't think this song is to hypocritical, unlike so other filth that I know.
5. Ur So Gay (2007)
Umm... Wow! The title really says a lot huh. From the singer who gave us "I Kissed a Girl" and "Firework" comes a song that uses Gay as an insult towards some kind of hipster dude.
I think I could really leave it at that, but let's also talk about the music. It's pretty much her making an indie folk-rock song, which may have worked out to her favour (As this was a promotional single), if it was released in the 2010s, after the rise of groups like Mumford and Sons and The Lumineers. Really I can't say more because this song's problem can really be summed up by the title alone.
4. Birthday (2014)
If Katy Perry sang this at my Birthday, I'd throw her down a well.
The first problem with this song is that I can tell it's trying desperately hard to be a good party song, something to play at a dance show or God forbid a teen's birthday. However, the problem is that there are most likely millions of better songs to play, but one of those better songs is already a Katy Perry song, called "Hot n Cold" which I recommend over this. The next problem is that Katy tries to sound happy and energetic, but sounds more winded and forcing joy than anything else. That really is the biggest problem with this song, never mind the less than subtle lyrics and "metaphors" that don't fool anybody into thinking this actually a birthday song, it's just obnoxious and a bad party song.
Also don't play this for my birthday.
3. E.T. (ft. Kanye West) (2011)
I don't think this song is even Katy Perry's fault. Don't get me wrong she doesn't do this song any favours, but I think the reason for this song being so bad falls mostly on Kanye here, who proves he can be as good as a rapper as Vanilla Ice. Aside from his nasally, "I am pretty much a God" opening, he also has a verse before the song ends, which is slightly more tolerable than the opening verse he has, just slightly. Without Kanye here the song would really just be a boring mess that wouldn't have gotten anybody's attention.
2. Dark Horse (ft. Juicy J) (2013)
I think this is without a doubt, the most boring Katy Perry song I have ever heard. The beat is slow and dull, Katy Perry sounds half asleep in the normal verses, and the lyrics are either generic love song or generic break-up song. And speaking of the lyrics, what are they even about, cause at one point she wants you to make her your Aphrodite, which also makes me question why she went with the Egyptian motif instead of a Greek one, and the chorus claims she'll be coming at you like a dark horse. What dark horse is she referring to? Airon? Hengroen? The Trojan Horse? or maybe one of the horses that the ghost riders chase the devil's heard on.
Forgetting Katy Perry's confusing lyrics, Juicy J has a guest verse. I've never heard of Juicy J before this, and quite frankly I don't want to hear anymore. He makes references to Jeffery Dahmer, somebody that no pop song should allude to, much less even name drop. Other than any of that, this song is boring.
Before I reveal my most hated song, I want to go through a few honourable mentions: 1. Roar (2013)
It's pointless and annoying, but I didn't think it was terrible, just kind of background noise more than anything.
2. Firework (2010)
Katy can not get high notes, and that is nowhere else showcased better than this song, but the meaning isn't too bad and the music video is alright.
3. Unconditionally (2013)
This one was just meh, but it was when the chorus hit that it really annoyed me.
5. Rise (2016)
Maybe this wasn't the best pick, for my first Auditory Abomination, but I still think that it's a terrible song. It's mostly just dull and boring and offers nothing that you can't get out of any other song by any other artist.
Alright enough stalling.
1. This is How We Do (2014)
You know what kind of songs I really hate? The songs that are, "My life is perfect", or "this is a special day for me", these kind of songs just say, "look at me, aspire to be me" and it's just obnoxious. This isn't even a good version of that song. The faux-dubstep beat starts off really annoying and is coupled with an even more annoying, random auto-tune sample that repeats the song's title over and over again. The lyrics are pretty much just listing things that are most likely everyday occurrences for Katy because after the "verses" (Which really remind me of the intro to Pickle and Peanut) the song kind of drops for a bridge where she says "It's no big deal", which makes me question, if this stuff is not a big deal, than why did you not only make a song essentially about them, but also make it a single?
Also, the chorus itself is pretty much repeating the title with a "Do-Do" in place of actual lyrics. I know very few music artists that can get away with "la-las", "Do-dos", or "bah-bahs" instead of using actual lyrics, and the lyrics to this song suck.
Somehow this song is both the most annoying Katy Perry song, and the most bland. I might not be a fan of "Wide Awake" but at least it wasn't boring.
I'm the Entity of Darkness and next time, I'm doing an Ace Audio.
War has always been a subject in music, especially since the Vietnam war in the 1960s and the protest shootings, giving us some of the most notable protest and anti-war songs. A lot of these songs focus on the inhumanities of war, how we are doing wrong and should spend more time with loved ones. Not to bash songs like "War Pigs" or "BYOB", but they really only look at one part of war, enter Swedish power metal band Sabaton and their song "To Hell and Back".
Where many war songs talk about things like the bombings and attacks on innocent people, this song talks about a different victim, one that is often glossed over by the public. The soldiers themselves, often they return to their home country, they just want to go home and spend time with their families, only some of them can't and many of them suffer from PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and it really messes people up.
This is the angle the song looks at and it is much better off because of it, because if it didn't it probably would have fallen by the wayside to songs like "Holy Wars... The Punishment Due" and others like it. The song itself is based off of the life and writings of Audie Murphy who fought in World War II and is a well known sufferer of PTSD, the title of the song is a reference to his autobiography of the same name, which I haven't read, but it's been made into a film, which I haven't seen. War is not really my interest when it comes to history.
The song is also a really good song if we take out the meaning. Even though the meaning of a song is highly important, to me it isn't the be all or end all of a song. There are songs I like that have very little important meaning and songs I despise that have fair and well-meaning messages.
The song itself is really well made, with some great instrumentals and an awesome guitar solo, and it even includes some whistling, which opens the song. The lyrics also add to the song, with one of my favourite lines being "Let them fall face down if they must die/Making it easier to say goodbye" which says far more than "War/What is it good for?/Absolutely nothing!".
In my opinion, this is one of greatest Heavy Metal songs of the decade, while it isn't in my top ten, it is in my top twenty favourite songs. I don't want to here more songs about he evil of war on the countries we attack, but more on the horrors that it has on the people who fight the war, they need our help just as much as the countries do.
I'm the Entity of Darkness, and not every victim of war dies in battle.
Music is one of my favourite things, and with Auditory Abominations, I feel like I'm just talking about one half of what I enjoy. I really do enjoy music and I wanted to talk about the music that I liked, almost since I started Auditory Abominations. I felt like starting with my favourite band, but anybody who has read my review of Octavarium, will know that I think that it is a perfect album, so I decided to look at my favourite song from that album.
"Octavarium" starts off almost orchestral and has a beautiful build up. The song does kick up a little before it dies down and enters the first of five lyrical movements. This first one is subtitled "Someone Like Him" and tells the story of someone who wishes to not be an ordinary person and succeeds, but he looks back and wishes that he was an average person instead. It is a beautiful part of the song and it has some nice soft vocals from James LaBrie. The vocals don't stay soft though and they kick up when James sings "As far as I could tell" and it drops again.
Each movement starts with an instrumental solo and each one is beautiful, from the opening lap steel guitar solo to the elastic sounding bass in the second part. This second part is called "Medicate (Awakening)" and also tells a story, and is the last movement that tells a coherent story that reflects the theme of the song. This was also the only movement written by James LaBrie himself, where the other movements were written by John Petrucci and Mike Portnoy, the guitarist and drummer of the band respectively.
My favourite movement is definitely the third movement as it is Mike Portnoy's ode to progressive rock and it really shows. There are many references within the song to other songs and bands including Genesis, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Doors and Yes. The movement is called "Full Circle" and is in reference to the bridge it has where it is the final line of it. This is also the last movement to have this kind of bridge, the other being "Medicate (Awakening)". This movement also feels more lively than the last two and adds to the build up of the song as it transitions perfectly into the next movement "Intervals".
Although "Full Circle" is my favourite movement of the song, "Intervals" may have my favourite part of the song. It is when the movement is almost finished and James is just repeating the line "Trapped inside this octavarium." However, each time he says it, he puts more strain on his vocals and the last time he says it, the music cuts out during the word "This" and pretty much explodes at the end, creating a nice piece of falling action and transitioning to the final movement "Razor's Edge".
The whole song's theme is that everything comes around full circle, the story ends where it begins, we are born in a hospital, we die in a hospital. "Razor's Edge" is where the message really sinks in as it ends as soft and as slow as the opening movement. It does lose some points with subtlety as the last lines of the song are "This story ends where it began" but the ending instrumentals add much to the song as they are also a reference to the album as a whole, being the same note that the album's first song "The Root of All Evil" started with.
To me, there is no other perfect song than this. I have been feeling that in looking at songs I don't like, I'm really not doing my passion any justice. It's songs like this, and bands like Dream Theater, Pink Floyd, System of a Down, Gotye and Megadeth that I love music, and I feel like I should look at the songs I like as well as songs I don't like. I should look at why songs don't work as well as songs that do work and why they work as well as songs that aren't known as much about as others.
I'm the Entity of Darkness and this has been Ace Audio.
Let's talk about mixing genres, such as rap and metal. This is not a new concept, in fact if you consider the old school 70s hard rock bands as heavy metal, than Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" is kind of the frontrunner to it all, and than we also had Anthrax doing their crossover with Public Enemy and other bands like Rage Against the Machine and Old school Linkin Park. The idea of mixing genres has always been around and it often creates some odd combinations, such as P.O.D.
P.O.D. is a Christian Rap Metal band with a touch of reggae. So this is technically the first religious abomination, but as I said when I reviewed the album, nothing is bad on it's own because of the fact that it is religious, there are some songs by religious groups that I actually like. I say this now as a statement to save my own behind because, I think P.O.D. is one of my least favourite metal bands, alongside groups like Skillet and a few Grindcore bands.
The song I chose is Satellite, which I don't think is their worst song, but was the only song I thought was worth remembering off of the album.
Immediately we are hit with drums and guitars and they don't sound bad, a little generic but not terrible, unfortunately the same cannot be said about the rapping, as it sounds ubber generic. In fact that is the problem with the song on it's own.
The whole song feels like one of those songs you'd have in a video game soundtrack that just kind of blends in with what's happening, but unlike something like "Pedal to the Metal", it wouldn't stick out and just be over when it stops, you know the ones that I'm talking about they plague a lot of racing games.
Really I think the biggest problem with the song isn't even the song itself. This was the sixth track on the album and it was the point where a lot of the songs and instrumentals especially, started to sound very similar and generic.
Really this song is just dull and boring. It offers nothing and the chorus is just repeating the song title, BecauseThatWorkedOutWellBefore*
I think maybe I'll take another crack at this group at a later time, but right now I'm finished with Metal Abominations. What's Next?
God, Damn it all.
I'm the Entity of Darkness and I really hate the upcoming song.
Like I said, this review will be a Megadeth song, not just because I want to discuss this song, but also the comparison to Metallica they get. Honestly, I don't think either band is really better, because although Metallica doesn't hit the highs of Megadeth's "Symphony of Destruction", Megadeth doesn't really hit the lows of Metallica's "St. Anger", although I would think this song comes close.
The problem with "St. Anger" was mostly Lars Ulrich's drumming and the lyrics that made very little sense, if any at all. However, I can say this about "St. Anger"; even though it was a terrible song, it still sounded like Metallica. That is the first problem with "Crush 'Em", it doesn't sound like a Megadeth song.
The opening sounds pretty close to something like a song The Police would do, and when the song does pick up, it doesn't really have a whole lot of energy to it. I mean, compare this song to a Megadeth song like "Peace Sells" or "Tornado of Souls" which have awesome guitar solos and sound way better than this, because they don't sound restrained, giving them a natural sense of energy.
Thankfully the Lyrics aren't a big problem, they're just kind of generic anthem lyrics, right down to the most basic of choruses. Seriously, was "Roll the dice, Don't think twice/and we crush, crush 'em" really the best chorus you could write? From the band that gave us "Just like the Pied Piper lead rats through the streets" and "if there's a new way, I'll be first in line/but it better work this time" comes "And we Crush, Crush 'Em".
When people talk about the worst of the big four, they usually only talk about "St. Anger" and I can see why as I do think it is a worse song, but I still think that this is one of the worst Heavy Metal songs of all time, mostly because it sounds so watered down and dull.
I will say that the instrumentals did not annoy me like "St. Anger" did, but they didn't add a whole lot to the song, again from the group that gave us "Tornado of Souls" and "Holy Wars... The Punishment Due" we got this generic, boring schlock.
This was intended to be a sporting anthem, but honestly there are so many better songs that can be and are used as sports anthems that this kind of falls into the background. I get the idea and even the audience, but it has to be good for other people as well, which by the way is often why religious music doesn't work either, because it only really works for people of that religion.
I can't say that this was one of the worst songs I have ever heard, I can honestly say that it is not in my personal top 10, but I still think that this is the worst Megadeth has to offer, but hey, we still got "Peace Sells" right?
I'm the Entity of Darkness and speaking of religious music and heavy metal, oh yeah, I looking at them again.
With my previous posts, I've been complaining about general pop music. Sure Pop music has some of my least favourite songs of any genre, but that isn't the entirety of it, so for this and the next two posts, I'm going to look at the worst that my favourite genre has to offer.
I don't think I really stated that I love Heavy Metal before, it is really a combination of the instrumentals and the lyrics. Often the lyrics are deep and have some meanings and the instrumentals have power and skill behind them and aren't just some faceless person on a keyboard making the rhythm. My dislike towards a lot of Pop Music, is not spawned from my love of Metal, but I won't say that it is helped by it either.
Now we are looking at one of the worst metal songs of all time, and I got to say, there is good reason for it to be called that. You can hear the problems of all the song at the beginning. Actually, you can hear every problem this song has at the start, such as Lars Ulrich's obnoxious use of cymbals and snares and how poorly structured the song is.
I'll get to the first problem later, but I really want to talk about the song's structure and flow. If you want to know how bad it is, the verses are usually fast paced with James Hetfield's raspy singing voice, the chorus does not sound like that at all, it is slow and calm, which does not seem to be the tone the song is going for since the lyrics describe a suicide and the music video takes place in a prison.
Also, while I'm on the subject, the lyrics don't do this song any favours either. If the repeat of the words "Flush it out" don't annoy you, I think you'll enjoy this song. Also "I'm Madly in Anger with you"? What does that even mean? It's like a whiny teenage emo kid wrote this song about his first break-up, which I doubt is the theme of this song.
Really, the song gives me nothing to grab on to. Like when I look at some of the best metal songs of all-time there is a meaning I can grab, such as System of a Down's "BYOB", talking about the middle eastern war, or Sabaton's "To Hell and Back", which focuses on the damaging effects of war on the people who fight it, or Metallica's "Master of Puppets" which is about drug abuse and how damaging it can be to one's psyche. I have no idea what this song is about, nor what it is even possibly about.
And yes, Lars' drumming is the worst part of this song. It sounds like he is drumming on kitchen pots and pot lids. It's even worse because I'm fairly certain that the drumming is above the actual music, so I can't tell if the guitar or bass work is actually solid or anything.
With some rewriting, and more bass drums than snares, I think this could be a decent track, not one of Metallica's best, but better than the song we actually got. It's a shame when a good band like Metallica gives us a song that feels rushed and broken. It's the equivalent of a jackhammer pounding in your ears. I'll give Chicago this, at least they didn't give me a headache like this song did.
But thankfully, no other amazing group as popular and long lasting as Metallica has given us anything worth calling an Auditory Abomination... well, except for maybe Megadeth.
I'm the Entity of Darkness, and yes, next time will be a Megadeth song.
So, with my previous review being one of my most hated songs of all time, I thought for a follow up I'd take a look at the song that almost gives it a run for its money.
Whereas "Call Me Maybe" was obnoxious and repetitious, "If You Leave Me Now" is Boring and repetitious. The song seriously sounds like the most half-assed lullaby you will ever hear, and considering Peter Cetera's vocals, that is an accomplishment.
The song is supposed to be a break-up song, which fails miserably, because a break-up song should sound emotional, you know something like Adele's "Someone Like You" or something like Meat Loaf's "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" which are both looking at the sad aspects of a break-up, or you could have something like Cee-Lo Green's "F**K You" which focuses on more of the angry and confused parts of a break-up. This song feels like it wants to be a sad break-up song, but it fails by being so emotionless and soulless. "Jar of Hearts" is a sadder break-up song than this, and that is another song that qualifies to be an Auditory Abomination.
The instrumentals also don't do this song any favours. You know those slow songs that were everywhere in the 70s and early 80s? Well, times the blandness of the worst of them all by about ten and you have the dull and uninteresting instrumentals this song has, although they perfectly match Peter Cetera's high pitched squeal of a singing voice.
Yeah, there is a reason I called Peter Cetera a Pop Princess in my last review, and it isn't even that it's high pitched, it's that it's bland. The Bee Gees sound manlier than Peter Cetera, and they were known for their voices.
This is a dull song that is a product of its times in the worst ways. Just like how "Eve of Destruction" is a product of the 60s and how "Eye of the Tiger" is a product of the 80s, this song is such a product of the 70s although where as both "Eve of Destruction" and "Eye of the Tiger" are awesome songs, this belongs on the list of Auditory Abominations. It's like if you mixed a Bee Gees song with a 50s Doo-wop song.
But which song is worst, this or "Call Me Maybe"? Well, to me it is like comparing Apples to Freight Trains, there are entirely different things, but really it depends what you think is worse, a song that is obnoxious and repetitive, or a song that is boring and represents all the worst music of that respective decade, I think "Call Me Maybe" is worse because I can't even sit through a minute and a half of it, but I think a boring song is always worse, because a boring song has no reason to exist.
