Auditory Abominations: "Chained to the Rhythm" - Katy Perry ft. Skip Marley

You want my opinion on this song? It sucks, there, that is it. No, this isn't going to be so much of a song review, more a sudden realization of what I hated the most about this artist thanks to listening to this song. However, I will be fair and mention this song here and there, after all this is a song review blog. Besides, I needed to do at least one more Katy Perry song before I dropped her from my list entirely, unless she comes out with something that is actually an interesting level of bad.

You see, when it comes to Katy Perry, I always expect each song to annoy me to no end that I start questioning why I even enjoy music in the first place. I was expecting this song to be annoying, loud, obnoxious and so much more and it just wasn't.

Which made me realize what truly made Katy Perry my least favourite music artist, even more so than Limp Bizkit, Peter Cetera, Creed and Simple Plan. This is the one thing that made Katy Perry stand out as my least favourite more than any other band and musician I've covered on this blog thus far. To be clear, there is a strong difference between a musician being my least favourite and my most hated, least favourite, in this context, means I like it the least and that is Katy Perry through and through, whereas most hated, means that it fills me with such strong feelings of anger and loathing that any chance of me liking it has sunk lower than Marianas Trench. Thus far, very few artists have reached my level of most hated, but right now that is being occupied by Lil' Wayne.

Basically, what I'm saying is that, Katy Perry is not my most hated, because she doesn't really deserve being my most hated music artist, she is my least favourite because as her career went on, she became less interesting. I also would like to mention that everything that makes her stand out has been done by other music artists. The genre she is a part of has been defined by the likes of Michael Jackson and Madonna before hand, her outfits have been done by Bjork, Marilyn Manson, David Bowie, Prince, Liberace, Elton John, Michael Jackson again. Nothing about Katy Perry is natural, and her music just isn't that interesting, although "Ur So Gay" and "Dark Horse" are on my future to do list.

If you don't believe that her career became less interesting, I think I can devote a couple paragraphs to this song.

Honestly, everything about the opening bit is boring. The beat sounds boring, Katy sounds boring, not even the lyrics sound interesting. Some bits of it remind of other Katy Perry songs to, and quite frankly, this may just be the most boring song I have ever heard. I mean, "Glory of Love" at least had an interesting history, This song doesn't even have that.

The music video is more interesting than the song, all though that mostly is just because of how damn weird it is, why everybody is wearing 1950s style apparel is beyond me.

Skip Marley has a guest verse, it's pretty short and honestly not that interesting. Just like the rest of the song. Overall, this song wears it's welcome out quickly, and just doesn't give a whole lot, I don't think it's worth listening to, but then again you'll probably forget that you heard it after you listened to it.

You see what I mean? This song had so little to talk about, that I used this time to talk about what I disliked about Katy Perry. This song may have made my list for worst Katy Perry songs, but all in all I don't think it's really worth any of my emotions.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and next time will be something truly interesting.

Auditory Abominations: "Jar of Hearts" - Christina Perri

You know, I really should have dealt with all of these songs in February, but then again, it's better I get them off my plate now so I can cover more interesting things later. yeah this is another one where one of the largest problems with the song is how uninterested it is in itself, but alas, that is not the biggest problem with the song. Shall we do another lyrical analysis?

Before we get into lyrics, let's discuss the song. The opening is soft piano and a pitiful attempt at singing, I think she's trying to convey feelings of pain, loss and stuff, but she ends up sing-speaking instead. Also, I think that this may be, one of the worst piano songs I have ever heard in my life, "I Hate U, I Love U" is thus far the worst, but this comes close. The piano is just so soft and it tugs at your heart-strings and it is such a god damn tool. It is so much a tool that it just fades into the background, in fact I think that is actually what they did, they just faded the piano into the background a bit just so we can hear the singer.

The singer by the way does this song no favours. She sounds like she wants sympathy but all I hear is "I went through this, feel sorry for me". Honestly, I think it's really staying when "Detroit Rock City" is a more depressing song than this, and that song was by KISS!

But honestly, none of that really matters, well it does, but it's nothing compared to this songs biggest problem. The lyrics, oh sweet Dio on a throne of fire, these lyrics are sad. Not sad as in they make me cry, but actually knowing that somebody wrote these lyrics makes me sad.

Honestly, the first set of lyrics are, passable. I do like the line "I'm not your ghost anymore" which brings a pretty good metaphor. Then we get the line "I learned to live, half alive" which makes it sound this was a horrible ordeal. This is a break-up song, and we get a line that would sound right at home in "To Hell and Back", which you know had the line "Let them fall face down if they must die/Making it easier to say goodbye".

The chorus is also pitifully weak, I mean "Who do you think you are?/Runnin' 'round leaving scars/Collecting your jar of hearts/And tearing love apart" will not go down in history as one of the best insults in music. Then again, neither will "You're gonna catch a cold/From the ice inside your soul". Like, that isn't even worth a burn joke, that is just straight up pathetic. Honestly, I'm not really one for the insulting kind of break up songs either, I talked abut why in my "Addicted" review, but comparing this song to "Addicted" makes me shudder because it forces me to say the words "Simple Plan is better", I feel dirty, but it's true, Simple Plan at the very least was memorable for a better reason than having a truly weak insult.

She then goes on to sing the lines "But I have grown too strong/To ever fall back in your arms", and honestly, I don't buy it. She sounds like she wants to go back to him, and forget all the bad things that ever happened. We've all been there, but we've had friends to help us through the confused emotions, this honestly sounds like she was trying to work through these feelings on her own, which doesn't make one strong, it just makes you look like a loner.

Also, a minor nitpick, but one lyric that drives me nuts is this: "You don't get to get me back", it just doesn't sound or look right, and a better way to write it would replace the second "get" with "have" or "take" or any other synonym for "get". I understand what she is trying to do here, but it just doesn't work.

This is also another one of those songs where the majority of lyrical content is mostly just chorus. You know, I hate songs that are so proud of their chorus that they don't bother having more than four lines in their verses. I'm not expecting lyrics from System of a Down, but I am at least expecting you to put more effort into your lyrics. Metal and rock can get away with this because they often give a lot of time to instrumentals, but even then metal tries harder with it's lyrics.

This may be the worst break-up song I have ever heard. The piano is stock, Christina's performance is poor and the lyrics are weak. Nothing about this song works, and it just sounds like a ploy that screams "feel sorry for me!".

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and one more thing to get off of my chest before I can go back to interesting things.

Auditory Abominations: "Fight Song" - Rachel Platten

Music has many double edged swords, becoming more mainstream, making a charity single, becoming twenty-seven, but I think the biggest of these is making a self-empowerment anthem. This may not be the last song in that category that I review, but note that the majority of these songs are awful, it really says something when the best self-empowerment songs are not even self-empowerment songs. I mean seriously, this is why we have the Heavy Metal genre, is it not? However, I'm getting ahead of myself, so let's review "Fight Song" and wish that the only fight song we had was the Marilyn Manson song.

This song starts with a light piano. Honestly, I don't know whether I like it or not, it fits the mood, but it just doesn't sound that... good really. I mean, the piano seems simple enough, but at the very least "Walking in Memphis" and "Don't Stop Believin'" which also have simple piano, have great performances. So how is this performance? Weak as water, actually on second thought, water made the Grand Canyon, so weak as... I don't know, something has to be invented with the sole purpose of being weaker than the opening performance of this song. But hey, this is only the opening, the performance will get better right?

Honestly, Rachel Platten's voice just does nothing for me. Where is it written that every female pop star has to sound the exact goddamn same? I mean, come on, tell me the difference between Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Karmin, Rachel Platten, Kelly Clarkson and Carly Rae Jepsen, just to name a few. Actually, why is this a problem only with pop music? I mean, no women in metal sound the same, Doro Pesch, Brittney Slayes, Lzzy Hale, Joan Jett, they all have distinct voices. In fact, there are some pop artists who do have amazing voice talents like Lady Gaga, but no, what we get is another pop artist who sounds the same as every other wannabe pop artist.

Even in the chorus she sounds bland, like making a self-empowerment song was not enough to actually sound self-empowering. The beat itself tries to sound energetic, but what we really get is a watered down dubstep beat that tries in vain to make the artist sound interesting. It's Katy Perry all over again, but hey at least I could actually believe the message in "Firework", here all I get is, this is the lamest self-empowerment song in the world.

Lyrically this song offers little as well. The first verse is literally just simile about how small things can have large consequences. Which, if you want to write metaphors, first off do not use "like" or "as" those words make them similes and those are the easiest to write, this is something a third grader could do. Also, a better metaphor would actually compare you to a small thing that can actually DO something impressive, like an ant, seriously if you called yourself an ant, I would be invested because Ants are actually some of the most impressive creatures on this planet, but I'm getting side-tracked. But can you blame me? Ants, one of my least favourite animals on the planet, have become one-thousand times more interesting than music, something that I love with all my heart.

The chorus is really lame though, "This is my fight song", lady, I hate to break this to ya, but if this is your fight song, you are gonna lose! I can name you five other songs that are better fight songs than this, should I prove it?

1. "Through the Fire and Flames" by DragonForce
2. "The Pre-Fox for Death" by Necro
3. "Bodies" by Drowning Pool (Obvs)
4. "Aces High" by Iron Maiden
5. "Seek and Destroy" by Metallica

Isn't this why we have the whole power metal genre? So we can have fight songs without explicitly being about fighting?

"Starting now I'll be strong", start by putting some effort into your performance. Do I really need to go on? This is one of the most uninterested songs I've ever heard, no I did not mistype, I do in fact mean that I think that this song is so uninterested in itself that it could drop off the face of the Earth and I doubt anybody would notice.

Nothing about this song is interesting, and this is what I spend my time doing, listening to songs like this, with their dull music, dull lyrics and dull vocal performances that makes these songs so uninteresting to talk about that if it wasn't a self-empowerment song, than I probably would have skipped over it.

People, if this is your self-empowerment anthem, listen to some power/fantasy metal, it will probably make you a lot happier too.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and there are two more of these kind of songs that I have to scrape off my plate. No, not self-empowerment songs, but trust me they are just as bad.

Ace Audio: "General of the Dark Army" - Unleash the Archers

I find that Heavy Metal is one of the most divisive genres of music ever, maybe more so than Nightcore and Dubstep, but it is often times an acquired taste, and some times it's a taste you actually can acquire on your own. I remember the song that made me a metal head, which was "Enter Sandman", and since then I have been listening to lots of metal bands, Even some of obscurer metal bands, such as Dir en Grey. Although I would not really say Unleash the Archers is really obscure, I don't hear many talk about them. I'm going to take a look at one of their songs, and hope this gets some people to listen to their other stuff.

I think the first thing I should mention is that this is a power metal group leaning more on the fantasy /medieval metal side, which should be obvious by the band name. However, the soft opening should also be obvious to this. It actually sounds nice, a touch cliché for power metal, but it still sounds nice, especially when the electric guitar kicks in. Then of course, the harsher instrumentals kick in, but it doesn't sound jarring like it did with "Doris", it actually sounds natural. Although I can't help but feel like I've heard this opening bit in other songs, maybe by Helloween or Iced Earth or something I don't know, but then again it may be power metals equivalent of the Gallop.

Then we get the opening vocals, which are gorgeous. Seriously, Brittney Slayes has an amazing voice, and the way she sings "Beware the general" is just gorgeous. While I am on compliments, Scott Buchanan does amazing work on those drums, and the unclean vocals from Brayden Dyczkowski and Grant Truesdell mesh perfectly with the music and clean vocals. Unleash the Archers may have some of the best mix of clean and unclean vocals I've ever heard.

The lyrics are, fantasy metal, I can't describe them in anyway because there is no clear answer to what this song is about. The heretic executions of the dark ages, witch huntings, or maybe it is just about this badass general of a dark and damned army, or the Grim Reaper. The lyrics do set the song up for that interpretation, but then goes into "Stone the innocents/ Know they deserve it". Despite this, the lyrics are pretty cool, describing this general as a badass.

In fact, let's talk about that bit, because it's quite different from the rest of the song. The song itself transitions into that part so well that it doesn't bother to change notes or tempo, which is something that a lot of songs do when they change the way they sing the lyrics. That isn't a bad thing, but that just makes it more impressive when it can be done without changing anything major about the instrumentals.

The only time the instrumentals really change after the song begins is before the last chorus, where it goes softer again, but it is welcomed. It offers a brief (And I do mean brief), pause before you get another full blast of pure energy.

I think that is the perfect way to describe this song, a full blast of energy. Very little about this song takes a break, the instrumentals, singing even the ending goes on to hit that perfect note. I find that metal often tries to end with a perfect note and will go on indefinitely to reach it, this song does it well, but others do it poorly. Essentially, doing that is a gamble if it will work or not, but this definitely worked.

What can I say about this song? It's badass, it kicks ass and it showcases some real talent. The guitar work and drums are just plain jaw dropping, but the vocal work is what steals the show. It's really all of that stuff that makes this song truly admirable, and definitely one of the best metal songs of the decade, yes this is recent, the album this song is on was released in 2011. Whoever said metal was dead is clearly listening to too much Limp Bizkit.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, rock on! \m/

Auditory Abominations: "Hotline Bling" - Drake

I originally thought there was not a whole lot to talk about with music from the 2010s, especially since most songs follow a trend that is popular during the year or decade. However, what surprises me the most about this decade is not that there are few songs that fit this mould, but that there are many songs that do and still have a lot to talk about, case in point "Hotline Bling".

I have kind of a meter for songs I can cover on this blog, on the low end are the songs that seem to be simply outdated, at the very far end are the songs that full on offend me. I try to avoid both extremes if possible, even the worst songs I have covered don't go to far as to offend me, this song doesn't either, but mostly because the music is to mellow and clean to mask what is really wrong with this song. Yeah, this is going to be another lyrical analysis review, much like the atrocities of "Bawitdaba" and "Swalla".

Before I get into any of that though, let's talk about the other aspects of the song. Such as the opening beat, which is four drum machine beats played like it's an actual rhythm. Honestly though, it's not to annoying, but Drake's auto-tune is, I mean what even is that point of the auto-tune here? Seriously, what is the point of it?

When we the actual beat and music of the song, it's not terrible, although it sounds way to much like the Nintendo eShop's theme. Drake's voice also doesn't sound as entirely auto-tuned as the intro, although I would not be surprised if he still used auto-tune. Remind me to go on a large rant about this when I talk about Cher's "Believe", I've just to pick my battles at this point.

Well, it's lyric time, and the first problematic lyric is more of a nitpick than anything else, but I don't think Drake knows what a hotline is. He's using hotline as in ringtone and I can only assume the reason he used that word is because it sounded cooler. He also says that he knows "It can only mean one thing." Granted that one thing is fairly freaking obvious but just because you know what it is, does not mean somebody else knows what it is. A life rule to live by, nothing is immediately obvious.

I don't think this song knows what it wants to be, because it sounds and is sung like it wants to be a sympathetic break-up song, but at no point in the lyrics is there any indication that anybody broke up with anybody. All he says is, "Ever since I left the city" and we have to assume that at that moment she broke up with him and shake our fist saying "Doh, you broke his heart you evil person!" Which is not something I can do at the best of times, but certainly not when Drake is involved, or anybody associated with Lil' Wayne for that matter.

Some other lyrics of note are "You make me feel like I did you wrong/Going places where you don't belong" which makes me wonder, because there are places people don't belong like, the dumpster, the Sahara desert, The Sun, Encyclopedia Dramatica you know those places, but I have doubts that this woman is going to any of those places, so quite honestly, unless she is a goddamn child, she can go anywhere she damn well chooses.

Another large problem is that Drake never specifies how long he was gone, all he says is "Ever since I left the city", which, okay if he was gone for a couple days then maybe he would have the right to be angry, but as far as I know he could have been gone for half a decade, (Five years). In fact, the song becomes worse if you listen to it with that mindset because it makes Drake look so desperate that it almost comes off as abusive, I mean "Going places where you don't belong", "You don't need no one else", "Used to always stay at home, be a good girl", "Right now, you're someone else". You know what time period people would have said this to women? The 1930s, when women still had societal expectations placed upon them that are bullshit. Stay married to one man, bullshit!

Also, the last time I ever called anything a "Good Girl" was when I was comparing one of my cats to her brother, and how by comparison she was a good girl. Only by comparison though.

Break-up songs are everywhere, but I don't even think this qualifies as a break-up song. If it does, than "Breakfast at Tiffany's" also qualifies, and that is literally about two people who work through their relationship because they both kind of liked this movie from the early 1960s.

Looking at the lyrics, I feel like Drake should take OK Go's advice. "Aw, and it ain't real forgiving, it ain't real forgiving sitting here picturing someone else living". Link to that song here!

Honestly, it may have been a good thing this song's lyrics were like this because the song itself is just so dull. If it wasn't for the lyrics this would have been any other hack R&B song by Drake, but this has some of the worst lyrical content I've seen on this blog, not the worst, I still think "Swalla" has the worst, but this is currently in my top three.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I need an Ace after this... What do I have lined up? Power Metal? Alright...

Auditory Abominations: "One More Try" - Timmy T

What the Hell is this?

Well, this was a number one hit from 1991, I'll repeat, this song was a Number One in 1991, the same year "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)" defiled our ears. Being honest here, when people talk about music from early decades, most of the time it's the same as the final years of a previous decade. The only exceptions being the 1970s when the psychedelic era died down, and the 1990s where 1991 was kind of a strange point in music history. I mean, it's like 1989, but not really. I can't imagine songs like "Black or White", "Enter Sandman" or "I Touch Myself" in 1989, but then again it isn't hard to hear a song like "Losing my Religion" in 1989 either. 1991 was kind of a strange point in music history alongside 1982, 1976 and 2012.

This is one of the stranger songs, not because of the song itself but because it got popular enough to top the pop charts, and became the fifth biggest song of 1991. To give you some perspective, Mariah Carey had four charting songs that year, all of them charted lower than this. "Silent Lucidity" was also a chart hitter, landing the number 82 position, even EMF charted just below this song, at number six. This must have been a very good song to become that successful, or so you'd think. The most likely scenario is that this was just another case of a song that was very lucky to get as much airplay as it did, similar to the previously reviewed "Nothing's Gonna Change my Love for You".

The song opens with a preset synth riff, and it has the drum machine and this weird bass thing that sounds artificial mixed in. The synth itself could probably cause a headache, but the other stuff thrown in makes it extra annoying. If this qualifies as "Easy Listening" than I would also include a song like "Raining Blood" in there because that song is easier to listen to than this. Actually, can't I just do a blog about Slayer?

...No, I'm going to be hitting my Heavy Metal quota for the month quickly so probably not.

Anyway, after fifteen seconds of the annoying instrumentals, which feels like an eternity by the way, we get Timmy T here to sing the first line. You know, is it wrong to think of Timmy Turner whenever I hear that name? Maybe he actually wished that he had the voice of the blandest man in the world. Seriously, Peter Cetera has nothing on Timmy T, on blandness alone, he may be the worst vocalist in music, I don't even know if that is his actual voice or if it's auto-tuned. Honestly neither would surprise me.

The instrumentals just drone on, but the only reason the vocals don't is because they don't actually reach the level of drone on that I'm used to. There are speedy singers, then there are the normal singers, than there is this song, then there is "San Francisco", and finally there is "I Hate U, I Love U".

The we have the lyrics, and I will give Timmy T this, he is clear enough that I can hear every single clichéd apology word he sings. "Untitled" is the most clichéd song I've ever heard, but this takes a clear second place. Most of the lyrics are things that anybody would say to a loved one trying to win them back. "I didn't mean it", "It's been a long time since I held you", honestly it's just kind of pathetic.

Well, let's look at the chorus, and see if it offers anymore lyrical depth than the actual verses. Or the first chorus will start pretty much out of nowhere and still offer about as much lyrical depth as a puddle. Actually, a puddle is far more interesting than this.

This song sounds like a left-over from the 1970s, but this was from 1991. It may actually be the worst song from 1991, sure "Everything I Do (I Do it For You)" is more unbearable, but in terms of technicals and any entertainment, that song feels like Queen compared to this. The vocals are bland, the instrumentals are annoying and bland, the lyrics are clichéd and bland, and the whole song is one of the worst break up songs I have ever heard.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and next time is... another break up song. If it is anything as bad as this song, I'm going to snap.