Auditory Abominations: "Goodies" - Ciara ft. Petey Pablo

Consider this an early post of 2017.

Pop music hit a major low point in the mid 2000s, and I'm not just saying that because I'm a rock fan, no there is some good pop music out there, but not a lot of it came from 2004. I could do a top 10 worst list of the pop songs that came out of the mid-2000s and still have to make several, really difficult choices. However, I'm fairly certain that this one would make that list in a heartbeat.

To give you some perspective, 2004 was the year Muse released "Absolution", Modest Mouse released "Good News for People who Love Bad News" and The Killers released "Hot Fuss". This was not an awful year for music, but you know what was becoming popular? "The Reason", "Milkshake", and "Hey Mama". Before any of you say that comparing rock music to pop music is comparing apples to oranges, that is the point of comparing things, to look at the differences and see which one people prefer, so let's see what people preferred about this track because it landed at Number 9 on the Hot 100, higher than "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" and "Let's Get it Started".

The song's intro is just repeating the title of the song over and over, because that doesn't get repetitious at all. Then we get a rapper introducing the song. He does not to a terrible job, he has a good voice and is quite tolerable, but the beat in the background is just atrocious. It's as if "Come and Get it" somehow got even more high pitched, and don't even try to defend it as a dance song because dancing requires rhythm and timing that match and follow the beat, I can not imagine dancing to this song without it looking horribly out of place.

So after almost a minute of this (keep in mind that is including the opening bit of the video), we finally get to listen to Ciara sing and dear Anubis and the entire pantheon of death deities is she awful. If you put Mariah Carey, The Gibb Brothers and George Michael in a blender and sucked out all the talent you'd get something like this. This has not only the effect of making me wish the song was an instrumental, which considering the actual beat of the song makes me wish I put a bullet in my head before the song began, but it also has the issue of muddling up the lyrics. However, from what I can hear, and see from online searches, the lyrics are nothing to celebrate either.

The lyrics are basically, "You may think I'm sexy, but I'm more than that." which makes the music video worse because it does nothing except show off Ciara's figure. I don't usually say things like this but, I'd much rather listen to Beyoncé, because even though I'm not a fan of her, she pulls of this "I'm more than sexy" thing so much better because I can actually believe it, mostly because of the power she has in her voice.

Really, the song itself is about as memorable as a dull and boring movie, but the beat just drives me nuts. It's as if somebody mutilated a theremin before sending the sound it produced through an early 90s computer being strangled.

Petey has another rap verse, and again it's tolerable, sans the obnoxious beat. Really, if it wasn't for that beat the song would just be very forgettable.

So what made this song a hit? The beat is obnoxious, the singer is awful, the lyrics are nothing great and the song itself if just kind of bland and forgettable. Is it because that songs like this were becoming the dominate pop song? No, it was mostly songs you could dance to, and this isn't even a good dance tune. If this is the best dance song you've ever heard, listen to Daft Punk, or Die Antwoord or something with more energy and beats that don't sound like Morse Code machines being sat on.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and this is one mystery, I myself don't wish to solve.