Ace Audio: "Forplay/Long Time" and "More Than a Feeling" - Boston

When this decade ends I plan on doing a worst songs list, this is because there are a lot of songs that I don't think I can really talk about on this blog on their own. I'm telling you this because I also plan to work backwards through the decades and do best and worst songs for each, and there will be two decades that will be near impossible to actually rank properly when it comes to the best list, and those are, unsurprisingly, the 1970s and the 1980s, although, the 70s wil probably be the easier of the two. It's not hard to imagine what songs would make my list of the best songs of the 70s. The 70s was a decade where everything was recorded, Punk Rock, Progressive Rock, Disco, Heavy Metal, and Arena Rock, which I am not the biggest fan of, but there are the songs I think everybody needs to hear, and Boston has two completely amazing songs that everybody needs to hear, and those are "More Than a Feeling" and "Foreplay/Long Time", and the latter is my favourite of the two.

Why is it my favourite of the two? Because of the god damn intro. Holy damn, this is how you begin a song. The escelating keyboard opens this song beautifully, and when the guitars kick in, oh man. Really, the whole song is worth t, just for the intro with the amazing keyboard and guitar work, and the drum work is also nothing to scoff at either. This could have been the whole song and I doubt anybody would have compalined. This is the "Foreplay" part of the song, it only searves to get us pumped for the "Long Time" part. It starts with an amazing guitar, it's so energized and just real. There is a lot of passion in just the guitar work alone that it sounds so, beautiful.

Although the "Foreplay" part is my favourite, the "Long Time" part is also really interesting. It's not easy to pin down what this song is about. The line "Well, I'm takin' my time, I'm just movin' on/You'll forget about me after I've been gone"  always makes me think though, will I be remembered if I'm gone? Not even in death but like, when I leave school, when I leave the city, when I leave my home, will I be remembered. It really goes to show the strength of music to bring such thoughts to my head, even if it is just one lyric.

But, I said two songs that everybody needs to hear, and the other one may just be a perfect example of a rock song, alongside "All Along the Watchtower" or "A Day in the Life", yes, "More Than a Feeling" is one of those masterpiece songs that I try not to talk about a lot, but I want to look at what makes this song a masterpiece.

Well, let's begin with that beautiful fade in. The guitar fading in really works and gets you intrigued in the song. It's not a song that quickly goes into the fast and harsh instrumentals though, as even the opening vocals are calm and smooth. It's at the end of the first set of lyrics that the song goes into a more rock volume, but even then it sounds nice, I can not do the instrumentals on either of these songs justice, I reccomend you listen to them yourselves.

I also really love the chorus, I mean, damn is that a chorus I'll be humming or what? It's so simple and yet so powerful at the same time, and that really shows the power of music as well. Both these songs showcase the inherint power in amazing music, that is part of the reason I actually started to look at songs I liked too, because these are songs that not only resonate with me, but also showcase some of the best music has to offer, from a really important song to a song that is just really good, to a masterpiece like this, there is just something magical about music that makes it, as this song goes, more than a feeling.

This song is about the power a good song has, at in the song itself the narrator sings about the memories and thoughts he has when the song plays. It lets me think about the songs that have strong emotions or memories attacthed to them, it's like how I'm never going to listen to David Bowie's "Let's Dance" without thinking of DDR, or how I'm not going to listen to "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" without thinking about that Daft Hands video, or "Living in the Sunlight" without thinking about SpongeBob, these kinds of memories I have made with the music I listen to in some respects make the songs stronger.

These two songs really show off what kind of power music has, and that is what I really love about the medium. Music is a showcase of thoughts, emotions, feelings and stories told within rhythm, harmony and the playing of instruments, and I want to highlight, if not the best, than some of my favourite songs.

I'm going to leave you with a playlist of some of my favourie songs, there are over 300 as of this blog writting, and yes, that is my real username, don't bring it up. By the way, this playlist works a lot better when you shuffle the order around: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtYQf8cnBeCXebDofDyLLeWcwiMW3WBgI

I want to know, what are some songs that resonate with you, either because of memories, feelings or emotions, even if it's a song I can't stand, I still want to know what you see within the song and why it resonates with you.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, see, told you it was my username, and I would like you to comment about what songs resonate with you.

Ace Audio: "Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)" - Scatman John

There are two decades that have some of the weirdest music, the first and obvious is the 1980s, I have done a marathon of 1980s songs and still did not cover some of the weirder songs. The next is the 1990s, although this was more for different reasons than the 1980s. Weird in the 1990s was more the odd one-off hits that were popular for a while but faded as the time went by, see the Latin dance craze for more proof of that. To put this in perspective, in 1996 the number one hit song of the year was "Macarena", it beat out "One Sweet Day" at #2, "You Oughta Know" at #29, and "1979" at #44. Actually, it was a remix that topped the charts, the actual "Macarena" only made #98, six spots below "Until it Sleeps" by Metallica. The 90s were weird, and in the midst of Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, and Hanson, is it any wonder that this is one of the better decades for music? Yeah, there was garbage, but there was Grunge, Heavy Metal became more experimental giving us Marilyn Manson and Rammstein, Daft Punk released Homework, also we got Garbage, and we also got this song, which is one of the best songs released in the 1990s.

This is a Hip-hop, Dance Pop song sung mostly in Scat, only in the 90s right? For those who don't know, Scat is a singing style that is mostly nonsensical and random syllables and improvised melodies. Scat has a long history, dating back to Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway if not further. But don't worry, if that still confuses you, the song itself starts with a good portion of it.

Even though the opening is Scat, as is a lot of the song, the song itself is not A Capella, there is a synth riff in there and it sounds great. You know "Axel F", well the synth is kind of like that in sound, as in the sound of the synth itself, the actual synth beats are different, but are still energetic and upbeat. The drums in the background also keep a nice discernible rhythm and the Scat singing is actually really catchy. If you want to make a dance song, this is a good song to learn how to do openings.

The song really kicks in around the 21 second mark, and this is where the song becomes really difficult to talk about, since a large portion of the instrumentals are Scat singing, and it is already difficult to describe instrumentals in the first place, this becomes an extra challenge. However, to put this simply, the Scat singing changes in beats and tone and becomes even more upbeat than before, and catchier as well.

Now the lyrics kick in, and if the song itself wasn't awesome before, well it's definitely awesome now. You see, Scatman John was a stutterer, think The King's Speech if that helps. However, singing actually takes place in a different part of the brain from normal talking, so this did not really have much negative effects on his career, and the Scat singing may have actually helped his career. I bring this up because, one, it is amazing to know, and two the first actual lyrical verse is well... "Everybody stutters one way or the other /So check out my message to you /As a matter of fact, I don't let nothin' hold you back /If the Scatman can do it, so can you".

You remember what I said in my "Johnny B. Goode" review, where I said that even though the song had one set of lyrics that meant one thing, the song itself could actually become kind of inspiring? It's kind of the same for this song, it's pretty much saying, "I can do this, so can you", and it is really encouraging.

There are other lyrics, but honestly, I don't think I could explain them if I tried, so I'm not going to bother, which is good because it will let you come to your own conclusions about the song.

Of course, between each bit of the lyrics we get some more really upbeat and really catchy Scat singing and damn does this become one of the most energetic songs ever, seriously this could easily make my list of best party songs.

Honestly, I think that is all I can really say about this song. It's funky, fun and oh so catchy. I seriously mean it, you will be humming the beat to this song after you hear it, it's that catchy. On top of that the instrumentals themselves add to the upbeat tone of the song, and the vocals are solid, not the smoothest, but they are rather nice.

Well, I think next time I'm going to look at a classic, I'm the Entity of Darkness and keep watch, next time I'm thinking about Boston.

Ace Audio: "Stronger Than You" from Steven Universe

This is going to be tricky, Steven Universe is currently my favourite show of all time. I love it's characters, animation, music, even many of the arcs are interesting, but that is not what will make this tricky. You see, when I reviewed that awful SpongeBob song, the largest problem with that song was that it took away from the episode, things that could have made the episode stronger. This song is almost the exact opposite of that, it adds to the episode and adds to the character that is singing it. So, here is my compromise, I will first discuss the song on it's own merits, since this is a song review blog, however, I will also talk about what makes this song work within the episode after all of that, so if you have not seen Steven Universe and you are so interested in it, then let that be your spoiler warning, if you are curious but not to much, well I will still ruin a lot of the surprise of this episode, but hopefully I'll get you interested. Although this is no longer my favourite song from Steven Universe, I may get to my favourite eventually, this was my favourite for the longest time, and I want to do it proper justice.

A large chunk of what makes this song awesome is Garnet, I just love her character in the show, and her awesomeness can be heard in quite honestly, the first line of the song, it shows her determination where the animation alongside the song can show her overall attitude.

I think there is one thing that makes this song work is also Garnet's singing voice, this may be because Estelle does her voice, oh who am I kidding? It is because Estelle does her voice, and I just love her voice.

The instrumental accompaniment is very nice, Steven Universe uses music quite strongly in the series and it can really show-off the best in a musical segment, this is the reason this is not my favourite song in the show, that would be "Here Comes a Thought" because it's music and vocal work were honestly stronger, but in this song, the music itself surprisingly works. I say that because it is not a track you would consider putting on to fight, it begins softly and escalates, but it uses strings rather than full club/house beats or rock, and it sounds nice and different.

The lyrics are going to be tricky to talk about because a lot of them work when you consider the rest of the show and episode, on it's own the song might give you some idea of what happened, but it really becomes stronger when you watch the whole episode. However, there are some lines that are just awesome on their own as well, including the sickest of sick burns "But I think you're just mad 'cuz you're single".

Yeah, but to really elaborate, this song really works because of what happened preceding it. In other words, this is where the spoilers start.

Garnet is not really one person, she is a fusion of two other gems, and this kind of fusion on the gem homeworld is not accepted. Essentially, the lyrics are Garnet saying to Jasper (the orange one), this is who I am, and you can't change me. That is basically said in the song as well, although only half of it was said directly.

I think my only major complaint about this song is that, it technically is an entire episode sub-plot, as you also see Steven save Amethyst and Pearl and have their own confrontation with Peridot. Although this doesn't interrupt the "funky flow" of the song itself, but if you're listening to this song on it's own it does kind of become a little annoying.

Honestly though, that is an issue that can be easily fixed by getting the song from somewhere other than the show, and it is a problem that a lot of music videos have as well. Overall, there really is not that much of an issue with this song, and it goes to show not only how well music can be implemented in any show, not just a cartoon, but it also gives no excuse to people who think they don't need to try because they're writing for a TV Show, much less a cartoon.

I honestly wish I could say more about the song, but this is what it is, a simple song. It is not as lyrically complex as "Take Me to Church", musically interesting as "Road of Resistance", nor as iconic as "Take on Me", but if you're expecting any of that, you are going to be let down. For what this song is, it is pretty amazing, and I may get to "Here Comes a Thought" some other time.

Steven Universe is my favourite show for many reasons, not the least of which is the music, and this song is a good example as to why.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I am so sorry this one was late, I'll make it up by doing a mini Ace Audio marathon, with my next song being a lot of scat... That did not sound right, it's "Scatman" next.