Auditory Abominations: "I Hate U, I Love U" - Gnash ft. Olivia O'Brien

As much as I don't like covering music from this decade on Auditory Abominations, I figure I should at least mention what I thought of the Hot 100 last year. Okay, first off Justin Bieber made Number 1, immediate problem there. Next, The Chainsmokers, can't stand them, and of course we get the usual crap from our pop idols, talentless new comers and Vine anthems. 2016 is no different in the pop charts than any other year in the mid-2010s, so I kind of just picked a song at random, so I guess I should go through with it.

The song begins with the most boring piano and female singer combination ever. I mean seriously, within ten seconds I wanted to throw on a more interesting song. I mean I'll give "Mr. Blobby" credit, that song may be worse but at the very least it's an interesting specimen, I'm only ten seconds in I can tell this is going to be one of the most boring songs I've ever heard. Getting back to the song itself, the female singer sings with the most uninteresting voice in the world, and she just drones on and on through the beginning of the song, and then there are the drums and snaps that, may have been used before "Royals" but that was the song that popularized them. I haven't even made it to the main part of the song, and I already want to end this review.

Gnash is no better, he also begins the song by droning on and on, because it worked for Drake right? Although considering his style, I think he wants to be a Macklemore, if the only Macklemore song he heard was "Same Love". He does sound like Drake, but has nothing Drake has, essentially he is Drake zero. The piano is also getting on my nerves, it is literally press a key and let it drone, and that is what this song is, drone on the song.

You know what this song reminds me of? "If You Leave Me Now" by Chicago, another song I can't stand for the exact same reason, it is boring, boring enough to put me to sleep. Gnash throws no emotion into his performance, like even some of my most hated vocalists like Austin Josh and Scott Stapp put emotion into their vocals. This is the equivalent of the acting in The Room.

I dislike the lyrics too, although not the extent of the performance, but they do this song no favours. It is some girl stating that she hates and loves our main singer here and that he misses her, and not "Her" as in the female singer, no he is talking about a completely different character in the song. That just makes everything much more confusing. Seriously, the chorus is girl singing "I hate that I love you and I know that you want another girl that I'll never be", and then Gnash sing-speaking "I miss you" to a completely different girl, and I thought "Lips of an Angel" was bad with this kind of relationship song writing, at least that song was clear in who was talking to who.

Olivia O'Brien also has more than the chorus in this song, but she sings with the same amount of charisma and emotion, i.e. NONE. I'll give her this though, at the very least she is actually singing, unlike Gnash who is sing-speaking. This part of the song is also awful, as it is her just saying, "I love you and I watch you watch this other girl and-" seriously? Move on, I understand it can be hard, but if he isn't interested or if he is spending to much time thinking of another girl than you should not be interested in him.

And this song, a song that has no emotion in any of the vocal performances, a Drake wannabe that only sing-speaks, a droning piano and messy lyrics, reached as high as Number 10 on the Hot 100, which means it actually charted, at Number 38 sure, but it still charted. Meanwhile in "Sweater Weather" peaked at Number 14 in 2013 and didn't chart until 2014 at Number 75.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and if you excuse me, I'm going to listen to "Take Me to Church", or as I should call it, Drone-on the song done right.

Ace Audio: "Innocent" - Aurelio Voltaire

The internet is simultaneously the best and worst thing to happen to the music industry. I mean, thanks to stream sites like YouTube and the like, we can literally find any music we want and anyone can share their own music. This is where we get artists like Gotye, and although this does mean that there will be plenty of talentless folks trying to get famous online, there are still a number of talented musicians on the internet that often get overlooked, such as Aurelio Voltaire.

If you know any Voltaire, you will know that two of his songs were bumpers for the Nostalgia Critic, those are "When You're Evil" and "Death, death (Devil, devil, devil, devil, evil, evil, evil, evil song)" or for any fans of Mr. Enter you may know "The Dirtiest Song that Ain't", well that's how I was introduced to him anyway. You may have also heard the song "BRAINS" if you grew up with The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, but I never saw that episode. I would've done any of those songs and any of his others songs, but I chose lyrical content over personal preference this time. I can't say that this is my favourite Aurelio Voltaire song, that would probably be "Raised by Bats" or "Straight Razor Cabaret", but the lyrical content makes this song stand out.

Unlike most of my blogs, I'm not really going to go into the actual music, although whenever I do this, you can pretty much assume that the music itself if really good, since I am much more of a music guy before a lyrics guy. If I don't like the way the song sounds, I will dislike the song as a whole, even if the lyrics aren't to bad, and even then I can stomach some pretty bad lyrics or even a lack of lyrics if the music itself is good. This is what made "She's a Beauty" a song I didn't like as the lyrics mostly just passed my limit of bad lyrics I can tolerate. I will talk about the music and vocals briefly, but the focus of this review is going to be the lyrics, and oh boy what lyrics they are.

This song is about bullying, like the poem "To This Day", which is one of my favourite poems of all time, up there with "The Raven" and "In Flanders Fields". Although this isn't a subject I know well, it's not a subject that is foreign to me, and not just from media portrayals.

The song's opening lyrics set the tone nicely, by describing bullying as evil pushing down on you, and that is actually cutting most of the opening lyrics off. However, I would say that it's the third verse that really gets the ball rolling so to speak. "And all the venom in their words" describing the pure vitriol some bullies spew out, often times going beyond name calling. Aurelio Voltaire then goes further asking "What kind of ignorance/ Causes them to be so, / So sick and vile and evil?" which is a question lots of people ask, and although the song doesn't really delve into this, it isn't a song that analyzes bullying, but more a song that tries to inspire and encourage the victims of bullying.

The chorus of the song is nice, it's nice for people to hear that it is not their fault that they are being bullied, and I feel like this is something that people need to believe, it is never the victim's fault. He goes on to add "It's the world that's wrong" to the chorus, which is a lyric I both like and dislike. On one hand, sometimes yes, the system a lot of countries, especiallyAmerica, use often encouraged people to think they are better than another because of class and wealth mostly, but on the other hand, I don't think it's fair to exactly blame the world as a whole. I don't know, see what you think about it. The second and third chorus add some more lyrics, stating that "Someday the world will belong/ To the innocent", which adds a bit of hope to the song, that someday everything will be alright.

Although, I think my favourite part of the song lyrically is the part after the second chorus. Since Voltaire is a part of the goth scene, he mostly wrote this song with gothic interests in mind and goes on to name a few, wearing black, listening to The Cure and Siouxie Sioux and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. As someone who isn't a goth but loves the gothic culture, I love hearing tiny references like these, and it also let's others know that it's okay to like what you like and be yourself. If you want proof, you can easily replace each of those things with stuff you like, such as Great Big Sea or Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. The song basically still works, whatever you put in there, whether it's your biggest guilty pleasures (for me that would be Aqua) or a song that you legitimately love, I know people who love songs I hate, and I let them know that it's okay because it makes them who they are, and a lot of them, I like as people.

But as I said, I am a music guy before a lyrics guy, let's actually talk about the music because it is beautiful. Voltaire himself is a guitarist and mostly plays acoustic on this track, but the band behind him does and amazing job, especially the violinist. The violin just makes the tone of song and no instrument ever feels out of place, nor sticks out in a negative way. Voltaire himself is a talented singer as well, and he is one of very few singers who can make the "moaning over a microphone" sound actually not sound like utter shite.

As I said, I'm more of a music guy before a lyrics guy, but some songs do have lyrics that really resonate with me, and although this isn't in my list of songs with favourite lyrics, they really did strike a chord with me, pun intended. If all you know from Voltaire is the music you heard from Nostalgia Critic, Mr. Enter, or Billy and Mandy, I must insist you check out more of his work, he is a talent and hosts a pretty cool web series on YouTube as well.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and being serious again, if you see somebody getting bullied, tell somebody because bullying is wrong and should not be tolerated by anyone.

Auditory Abominations: "Heart of Fire" - Black Veil Brides

I wanted a good song from you guys, and what I got was Skillet.

I like the Black Veil Brides, they have made some great songs like "Perfect Weapon" and "Knives and Pens", but even they were not immune to making a really crap song.

I could tell by the opening riff that this song was going to suck, it's Skillet light, I never thought I'd ever see the day I'd ever have to admit that Skillet is a heavier band than this, and these were the guys who gave us "Knives and Pens", not exactly heavy metal, but still a good song. Hell, the band never struggled with riffs before, especially considering "Perfect Weapon". I swear I could hear this riff from Fall Out Boy, hey at least then we could get something good from them.

Although I can't say that Andy Biersack is an awful singer, on this track he doesn't really sound audible, almost like he's mumbling. Seriously, without looking up the lyrics like I normally do, the only thing I even heard in the opening line was "broken bones", and I get that many bands become much more audible after you learn the lyrics, such as Cradle of Filth, but the Black Veil Brides never really had a problem with that. "Rebel Love Song" is clear in it's vocals, as is "Fallen Angels", this is not. Also, Andy does kind of fall into the trap of being one of those gruff singers that was popular in the 2000s, but he does have a bit of a distinct voice, so I can give it a pass.

The drums are a bit annoying, actually it's mostly just this one drum hit that repeats over and over again, I believe it's a snare, but I could be wrong. It's quite like the each consecutive beat in "Call on Me", it just becomes grating and annoys me a lot, and if only that was the biggest problem to this song.

Remember the Skillet comparison I made earlier? At least one of them? Really, it sounds like Slipknot doing a new song in the style of Skillet, before realising that doing so would be a bad idea and went back to actually recording good music.

The chorus especially gets to me. Andy's voice becomes much more nasally and somehow the song becomes somewhat faster, but doesn't actually change at all, is it me or is that actually the case? And before I forget, let's talk about the lyrics, being honest, they aren't bad. Although, I can't honestly tell if this is a break-up song or a song that is calling somebody to a fight, the chorus makes me point to the former but the actual verses make me think the latter.

After the second chorus, I feel like we could get a really good solo here, but instead we get the same instrumentals underneath Andy moaning, followed by a brief solo that is just alright, but even then it's covered over by more moaning, seriously why?

I don't like this song, considering I actually like the Black Veil Brides I was expecting something better. The song sounds generic, the vocals are messy, the instrumentals are bland, I don't think I recommend this song to anybody. Black Veil Brides fans, if you got into them from their older stuff you are going to be disappointed, and if this is how newer fans are getting introduced, I think they should listen to a song like "The Legacy" instead.

I'm the Entity of Darkness and since we're on the subject of gothic music...

Auditory Abomination: "Funkytown" - Pseudo Echo

No this is not the song you are thinking of, I like that song. This is a cover, a synth rock cover of a disco track.

So, let's talk about covering songs from different genres, again. Although Pat Boone's "Smoke on the Water" was complete and utter cringe, and Richard Cheese's "Guerilla Radio" may just be one of the worst songs I've ever heard in my life, Pseudo Echo's cover of "Funkytown" may be the most depressing case of this. You see, Richard Cheese is not taking himself seriously, but even then, he's covering songs that a lot of people actually know, like "Closer". "Closer" is not a song that was huge on the Hot 100, peaking at number 41, but many people actually know the song, even if just for the crazy music video. Pat Boone did a cover album of hard rock and heavy metal songs that lot's of people knew like "Holy Diver" and "Enter Sandman". Pseudo Echo did a cover of a one-hit wonder, and this was their only hit, there has got to be some irony in that.

Now, the original "Funkytown" is one of my favourite songs of all time, I love how cheery it is and the robotic voice at the end is just so cool. So, what is Pseudo Echo's plan to cover it? Throw in some disco elements? Nope, make it a dated synth pop track, but that is not the biggest problem with the song, after all Johnny Cash took the industrial rock song "Hurt" and turned into a gothic country song, and made it amazing, so anything works.

So, how does this song start? With an electric guitar riff, granted it's not a bad one, but it doesn't fit the song. The song is about going somewhere that will "Keep me moving/ keep me grooving with some energy." When I hear an electric guitar riff, I don't think shake your hips, move your legs; I think bang your god damn head. but hey, maybe the song will get better.

Or it will just become "Funkytown" almost randomly. The only way this song even transitions into "Funkytown" is by snare drum, and granted this was before "St. Anger", but even in the 80's it should have been known that loud snare drums are not a good idea. The opening instrumentals mix poorly, the synth is dominant, as it should be, but I feel as though the guitar was just kind of pasted in because "We need to make this a rock song!", the snare drum is also there, reminds me a lot of "The Look" actually, which I mean, there are worse things to be compared to.

Although I can't say the frontman Brian Canham is a terrible singer, "Funkytown" is not the song for him. The song itself even is not a fit for "Funkytown", because I believe that "Funkytown" should actually be you know, funky. This song is not funky, it's the equivalent of making a somber and depressing folk song and energized and hardcore Pop Metal song, you're missing the point of the song and why the song works.

Even if you don't like the original, you can at least admit that there is appeal, and yes there is appeal here, but not a whole lot. I don't like this song as a fan of rock music, 80's music or even pop music.

The vibe I'm getting from this song is Boyband, and not a good one like The Jackson Five or The Beatles, I mean one like One Direction.

I won't bother going into the lyrics because "Funkytown" is not a song that prides itself on it's lyrics. However, I will say that when you completely throw the point of a song out the window, especially when the point of the song is practically built into the song itself, you probably should change the lyrics.

I get that a song can be covered in different styles every now and again, Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" for a good example, or hell even Aurelio Voltaire's "Hallelujah", both of those are different styles from the Leonard Cohen original, but they still match the tone. "Hallelujah" is not a happy song, and "Funkytown" is not a head banging song. You have to match either tone, point or style to make a good cover, or barring that you should make a cover that redoes the song and puts a different spin on it, like what Nirvana did with "The Man Who Sold the World", just as long as the different spin works.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I hope this is the last awful cover I talk about.

Auditory Abominations: "Tonight, Tonight" - Hot Chelle Rae

Although I love this decade for music, I must admit there is a yin-yang happening. Since a lot of the good stuff is amazing, many of the duds and failures are much more noticeable. This is nowhere more apparent than the pop scene of the 2010s. Sure, we had plenty of good songs from the 2010s, but that doesn't excuse the massive amount of crap we also get, and although I've covered more good songs from this decade on Ace Audio, that doesn't mean that the majority of songs from the decade are good, although that probably is the case but to contrast, Hot Chelle Rae.

you know, the early 2010s were not a bad year for putting a rock song or two on the chart, I mean sure they don't sound as rock as Led Zeppelin, but by that logic Aerosmith isn't a rock band then. The decade had plenty of good rock songs on the charts including "It's Time", ""Pumped Up Kicks" and "Animal", but there is always a dud here and there, and I'm looking at one of them right now, joy bunnies.

This is one of those songs that pretty much just throws you into the water, kind of like "Basket Case", so there is no instrumental build-up to anything and the song just starts. The opening beat follows the frontman's delivery and it, works I guess but the instrumentals don't sound that great. You know how in some songs I complained about a sound where it could be one instrument making but it sounds like another? Well, this song has that problem too, I really don't like it when songs do this, mostly because I like picking out what the instruments are, is this a bass or a keyboard, or a guitar? I have no clue, and it also doesn't help that the beat is just "daa-daa-DA" in the opening. So how does frontman Ryan Follesé sound? The sound of his voice is hard to nail down, it is nasally but not too much. I don't know, but it sounds Meh, I guess.

The opening lyrics describe how the frontman's week has been, "Seven days of torture, seven days of bitter," So, did he spend seven days in a torture dungeon with the world's worst British pub? I know he most likely means his job sucks, but there really is nothing to go off of. You may as well say, "My week sucked, I did seven days of crap." Then of course, we get the perfect lyrics of any song "La la la, whatever, la la la" That isn't even lazy writing, that's just last second writing.

The chorus kicks in and suddenly Ryan's voice sounds auto tuned, it probably isn't because I've heard some bad auto-tune, but it sounds like it. The chorus also tries to make the song sound like a party song, except it sounds like one of the lamest parties ever. I mean even if "Dancing on the edge of the Hollywood sign" sounds awesome, there is no passion behind singing it, so instead of a wild and crazy party with people jumping around and having a good time, I imagine a party where the most dancing you do is like shaking your hips as you move your arms and legs in a circular motion, the dance people do when they don't know how to actually dance.

We also get one of the strangest lyrics I have ever heard, and considering I looked at "Afternoon Delight" previously, that's saying something.
the line is "I woke up with a strange tattoo/ Not sure how I got it, not a dollar in my pocket/ And it kinda looks just like you/ Mixed with Zach Galifianakis." I don't even know what to make of it, it's just so odd.

The chorus also drives me up the wall. It's just so, annoying. I mean, the vocal work mixed with the instrumentals, I can barely even tolerate it, and it's the majority of the song. The song is three minutes and SERIOUSLY! Three minutes and you couldn't write more than a piss poor chorus?

This song is crap, the lyrics suck, the chorus is annoying, the instrumentals blow, the frontman has no passion behind his voice, how this song became a hit I have no goddamn clue. I'm the Entity of Darkness, what's next? Another trip to the 80's alright fine.

Auditory Abominations: "She Hates Me" - Puddle of Mudd

I believe I've stated before that mainstream rock was hit and miss in the 2000s. Although Nickelback is tolerable on some tracks and Hinder isn't terrible, Simple Plan is beyond whiny, Buckcherry is just musical smut, Limp Bizkit was a thing, Creed is a band I would rather forget about and then we have Puddle of Mudd. I've never heard of this band before Rocked Reviews talked about the album Come Clean. Immediately what stood out to me was the vocal work, You know how I said Austin Josh was my pick for least favourite vocalist? Well, Wes Scantlin may give him a run for his money. What was it about the raspy voice that was so big in mainstream rock? It doesn't make the singer sound tortured it makes the singer sound constipated.

Whatever, amazingly this wasn't a song I chose entirely at random, as this song topped the mainstream rock charts. Once again for the cheap seats, this song TOPPED the mainstream rock chart. You know what else topped the chart? a little known song called "Aerials", the exact same year. 2002 was the year Puddle of Mudd reached number one just under a month after System of a Down. Was this song worthy of that accolade? What do you think?

The opening riff is meh, it's strum-along twang that is just boring. I understand basic riffs, some of my favourite opening riffs are basic, "Back in Black", "Smoke on the Water" and "Iron Man" especially, but those riffs got me hooked on the song. That is something that a good riff does, get you hooked on the song before the song truly begins. Wes' opening vocals are like if Austin Josh and Kurt Cobain had a child, which is not the worst sound in the world, but still a clichéd one. This kind of voice was everywhere in rock at the time, Nickelback, Creed, Hinder etcetera. I guess it spawned off from the grunge scene with groups like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, but grunge is an off-shoot of punk with rough sounding instrumentals, mainstream rock is not a clean sounding genre. I guess you can qualify Nickelback as "post-grunge", but all of this? I give bands like Simple Plan and Buckcherry credit, they have vocalists that aren't annoyingly raspy, although with Simple Plan that isn't saying much.

Before the minute mark I'm starting to feel like this is a rip-off of a Nirvana song. I mean it may just be the vocal work but I'm getting major Nirvana vibes from this, the guitar-work even sounds similar.

Although I'll give this to Nirvana, they have written better songs than this. I mean, why have poetic lyrics when you can have "She f*cking hates me/ Trust she f*cking hates me/ La la la love" Alright, "Trust", why write that one word in there? To remove monotony? Well spoiler alert it didn't work, not because the lyrics are repeated a lot in the chorus, no but because there are only two times the lyrics are written. If it isn't for that reason, than why else? To shorten "Trust me"? Well that makes no sense. Also, "La la la love"? Really? you couldn't think of better lyrics to write than "La la la love"? I know La, la's are common to find in lyrics and they can work, but this is not one of those times, a time where it does work is "B.Y.O.B.", and I'm not saying that because I'm still bitter that this made number one alongside my favourite System of a Down song. The chorus ends with that by the way, making it pointless as well.

Have I mentioned that this is a break-up song, or at the very least, supposed to be one? Yeah, it's hard to guess </sarcasm>. The lyrics aren't as generic, but mostly feel woman bashing. I think the best lyrics are "She was queen for about an hour/ After that sh*t got sour/ She took all I ever had/ No sign of guilt/ No feeling bad" which, yeah I agree with Rocked Reviews, it makes Wes sound like a spoiled brat who had his mother take away his PlayStation as a form of punishment. The chorus doesn't help with that either, and the only way to not hear the song that way is to add context to the opening lyrics.

I'll admit the instrumentals get better as the song goes on, but they still have a Nirvana feel to them. I know that Nirvana was a large influence on modern rock, but that doesn't allow any group or artist to just rip the sound and copy it on their own. Marilyn Manson sounds nothing like Nine Inch Nails for a good example.

The music video is also hilarious, almost everybody in the video starts to randomly flip out and act as if they are having a stroke and a seizure at the same time.

Really, that is all there is to the song, Nirvana sound-alike instrumentals, lyrics that are similar to something other than what they are, a boring intro, a singer that sounds like a worse version of every rock singer from the time and clichéd lyrics, with a bafflingly bad music video.

This is not one of the worst songs of the decade, but it is a really bad song, and I'd like to remind you that this made number one alongside "Aerials". I'm the Entity of Darkness and, I'm glad this kind of music is behind us.

Auditory Abominations: "Call on Me" - Eric Prydz

When I did my list of the top twenty worst music videos, I surprisingly found myself liking a couple of the songs on that list, with special mention to "Go West". Of course, there were plenty of songs I hated, but none were more unbearable than "Mr. Blobby", but honestly this came real close.

Dance songs are not the easiest for me to review, mostly because when you make a song specifically so people can dance to it, you don't put a lot of effort into the lyrics and more the beat, that is not saying you can't put lyrics in a dance song, it's what I love about Daft Punk so much, but I would love to think that the lyrics should at least make sense with the beat and tone of the song.

When I talked about this song on the top 20 worst music videos list, I said it made Buckcherry sound good, in truth I almost mistook Buckcherry for actual good music after listening to this.

The opening bit is like high pitched synth. It actually probably is high pitched synth, because it is just as annoying as it sounds. The vocals, and I use that term loosely because they sound as auto-tuned as the song, fade in and when they hit, nothing changes. At the very least Daft Punk changes the tempo and vocal delivery of their songs, like how in "Robot Rock", even though they are just saying the exact same two words the entire time, they never say it the exact same way the entire time, because that would have been monotonous, and that is a really monotonous word to spell, so many O's.

The drum beats pound in my ears like a sledgehammer, I can actually feel my ears throbbing with each consecutive beat, and this goes on for two minutes. I know that doesn't sound like a long time, but it feels much longer with how repetitious it is. Even Daft Punk's "Technologic" didn't feel like it lasted too long, because it to had speed and tempo changes, lyrical breaks and flowed very naturally. I'm sorry, I'd love to compare this song with even more dance songs, but all I can think of is Daft Punk.

Seriously, most of this song you can find in a Daft Punk song. The instrumentals, well you can get these really techno sounds from Discovery, especially in tracks like "One More Time" and "Harder Better Faster Stronger" or you can go with "Contact" one of my personal favourite Daft Punk songs. The repetitious lyrics were done better in songs like "Around the World" and "Robot Rock" and even then they still have better songs you can't even compare to this like "Da Funk", "Face to Face", "Derezzed" and "Digital Love", their songs set perfect moods for dancing.

Which brings me to the biggest problem with this song, for a dance song, I don't want to dance to it. I mean, compare this to a song like "Stamp on the Ground" which is not an amazing song, but a song that makes me want to dance, because it not only had an infectious chorus, the beat was not obnoxiously loud and the song flat-out demanded you stamp on the ground. This song, oh man, the beat makes me want to hack off my ears, the song is a very obnoxious ear-worm and the music video is so awkward that I want to scoop out my eyes with a melon baller.

I'm of the belief that a good dance song, should also work as a song on it's own right, but if not than it should demand you dance, you know "Stamp on the ground", "Everybody dance now", "Celebrate and dance so free" you know those are not suggestions, they are commands, and hot damn are those songs some of the best dance songs ever. This crap, it demands nothing, it makes me want to cover my ears and dancing to it feels like an after thought for me, and this is one of the best dance songs ever apparently.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and seriously speaking, the music video really is f**king awkward.

Auce Audio: "Lazarus" - David Bowie

I'm gonna be honest, when people tell me to "get over 2016" I will always reply to them, "Sure, let's see you how you handle the loss of one of the people who inspired you." I understand that everybody dies, right now anyway, but that doesn't mean that we can not feel sad about it, especially if that person helped you become who you are, even if indirectly. 2016 stands to me as a year that many of the most iconic musicians died, but the year began with the passing of one of my biggest inspirations, one of my idols and the one artist who kick started my passion for music, I don't think I'll get over David Bowie's passing.

I've wanted to review a song by David Bowie for a while, but the problem was picking the song. Remember, Bowie is often called a 'Musical Chameleon', meaning that he often switched musical styles between albums and songs, we get more pop sounding songs like "Let's Dance", punk with "Rebel, Rebel", funk with "Fame", and a more slower style with "Life on Mars?", all of them amazing tracks. However, Bowie is not the first musical chameleon I've talked about, as by definition, Queen and Pink Floyd are also musical chameleons and I've looked at both of the previously, and that actually helped me decide on a song to talk about.

Previously, I talked about the Queen song "The Show Must Go On", talking about how it was like Freddie Mercury's Epitaph, for although he was dying, he still knocked the ball out of the park with the song, which made it Queen's best song looking at it from a technical point of view. So, I felt that it was fitting to look at one of Bowie's last singles for this blog, which in some ways is similar, but different in the right ways, so let's talk about "Lazarus".

The beat does begin familiar, sounding like "1901", but "1901" had a more electronic beat to it where this is more slow rock, kind of like something from Coldplay's Viva La Vida. The instrumentals at the opening are actually pretty good despite this, and there is some trumpet or something that kind of drones adding a very melancholic sound to it. As for the opening vocals, they sound very much like Johnny Cash's "God's Gonna Cut You Down" in tone, like this guy who lived this full life and is ready to lay down, he may have been ready, but we weren't.

There is this kind of cool, but also kind of distracting electric guitar sound that happens almost every time Bowie sings a verse. I don't know what it is, but it just kind of adds and also takes away from the mood, but that is just one bit. The instrumentals almost entirely make this song by setting the mood and atmosphere of the song nicely. However, the other thing that makes this song are the lyrics. Lyrically, this is more like Johnny Cash's "Hurt", a more depressing look upon life and quite melancholic. The opening lyrics also help with the mood and tone of the song brilliantly, with the line "I've got scars that can't be seen" being one of those lyrics that can mean many things, I feel it more means that he has pains we never focused on, which at the time could have been his cancer, but could go further than that.

I also don't know what it is about drums and drum machines, but they somehow add to the really melancholic sound. I mean "The Sound of Silence" and similar songs always somehow seem to benefit from having soft drum beats, I don't know why.

I feel like this was David Bowie's epitaph, similar to "The Show Must Go On", although where that one was more "I accomplished this and I'm not going down easy" tone-wise, this one is more "I'm ready" tone-wise, again similar to Johnny Cash's "Hurt". It's so weird to think that it's already been a full year since his passing, but Major Tom has sadly taken off, and although I wouldn't call "Lazarus" his best song, it was definitely a good song to leave on.

I'll miss ya Bowie. I'm the Entity of Darkness, and my best music memory, is playing "Let's Dance" on DDR.