Auditory Abominations: "Get Up and Boogie" / "Fly, Robin, Fly" - The Silver Convention

Well, the Ace Audio mini-marathon was fun, now it's time to go back to the awful stuff. You know how I said that the 1970s was the best decade for music? Well, there was a lot of crap in that decade as well, and quite honestly, I think these are two of the worst songs of the 1970s.

Now, normally if I did a blog where I reviewed multiple songs than I would go over the songs one after the other. However, that is not really possible here, not because the songs are the exact same, but they are Abominations for the exact same reason, and that is their lyrics.

I have said before that dance songs don't need the strongest lyrics, nor do they need any lyrics, but even then the lyrics can still completely ruin a song, whether they are repetitious, make no sense or are just not good lyrics. These songs have a new problem, they are too minimal, each song uses six words each and repeats them ad nausea.

But, this issue affects each song differently, so I may as well go into each song on it's own. I'll start with "Fly, Robin, Fly" because it is the better of those two.

This song begins with cymbal tapping, bass and piano. What do you expect, this is a disco tune, and although these instrumentals aren't awful, they are nothing special either, they aren't even that good for dancing. Compare this to something by the Bee Gees, now say what you want about the Bee Gees, but the instrumentals in their music has some funk to it, it's upbeat and easy to dance to. I know I keep talking about this, how songs are not easy to dance to, but that is a large problem because if the song itself is crap, and you can't dance to it, then what good is it?

But how does the lyrical problem effect this song? Well, it mostly just makes the song really boring. Even though they keep repeating the same phrase over and over again, it does not make this song sound any more exciting. I don't even know if this is supposed to be an empowerment anthem, I mean it would make sense, but with this lazy writing, it might be the worst empowerment anthem I've ever heard.

But now let's get to the worse of the two, "Get Up and Boogie", wow, that's a word that immediately dates this song. Let's add "Boogie" to the list of words that need to come back, alongside "Groovy", "Gnarly" and other surfer lingo.

So this one is obviously supposed to be a dance song, and it is one of the worst I've ever heard. Although the instrumentals are better in this song, as they actually sound like something I can dance too, not that I'd want to, it's two things that really kill this song.

The first thing is the vocals, I know live recordings sound different from studio ones, but seriously, these ladies sound like they themselves are bored with this song and are forcing any enthusiasm to make this song just a smidgen more interesting. They quite honestly had to try to make this song sound worse.

The other reason is song fails is, as you guessed, the lyrical content. Although, I will say that "Fly, Robin, Fly" actually sounds more complete. The lyrical content of this song sounds like they grabbed something off of ABBA's cutting room floor without reading it and questioning if the other seven-eighths of this song were necessary.

I've complained about songs that I didn't want to dance to, and I have said that usually, it's because of the instrumentals, but this is a rare case where it's actually the vocals and lyrics, because this song makes me want to turn it off and put on some classic rock and roll.

I stand by saying that the 70s were the best decade for music, it had practically everything from arena rock to singer-songwriter ballads to heavy metal to novelty hits. I'm not letting these songs ruin what makes the 1970s the best decade for music. These songs are minimal, boring and not really interesting at all. I personally don't care for them, it's songs like these that stain the reputation of past decades, remember the 70s gave us "More Than a Feeling" and "Stairway to Heaven", classic songs recognized by music lovers old and new, these songs however, I doubt many people truly remember these songs.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I think my next review is going to be much more interesting.

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: "Time" - Pink Floyd

Very rarely do songs really "Speak" to me, I mean there are songs that have messages and themes I can get behind such as "BYOB" and "Eyes Wide Open", but neither of those songs are really songs that really hit me with how poignant they are, but Pink Floyd's Time does.

Time is not my favourite Pink Floyd song, but I would be lying if I said it wasn't in my top 5, in fact it may be my third favourite followed by "Comfortably Numb". To me, "Time" is one of those Masterpiece Songs that is pretty much perfect and can be enjoyed to anyone of any generation. I've already done one of these songs before with "The Sound of Silence", and normally I wouldn't do a song like that on this blog, but I don't think this song get's the recognition it deserves as a masterpiece.

To be fair, my only nitpick is at the beginning of the song with the bells and alarms, but when they fade out it opens with nice instrumentals. That heavy bass especially gets me hooked, and the keyboard that accompanies it is pretty nice as well, whatever the ticking thing is in the background is slightly annoying, but the song only gets better from here.

"The Dark Side of the Moon" dealt with concepts about greed, mental illness, war and the passage of time, which is obviously what this song is about. Very rarely have I ever found a song with lyrics that hit me hard, and these lyrics do. One of my favourite lyrics of the song is "And then one day you find ten years have gone behind you" which very often I find, describe how time moves fast for my life, like as I am writing this it is the beginning of 2017, and on New Years I was literally thinking about how the year just flew by, Father Time is a strange being. My other favourite line of the song is "The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older / Shorter of breath and one day closer to death." Which again can be very true, not often do we notice how time effects other things, only us.

As much as I love the lyrics, the vocal performance is just as good. David Gilmour has a great voice for this track, although it doesn't sound as raspy as someone like Barry McGuire, they still sound as though the singer has been through a lot and has stood through time, and Richard Wright does some great vocal work on the bridges as well, being a lot smoother.

The instrumentals on this song are also great, with a rock sound in the beginning and main verses that compliment the vocal work very well, and then changing into a slower sound with a choir of "Oooh"s. The instrumental work compliments the vocal performances beautifully and the solos as well are great, seriously Gilmour is a very talented guitarist, but very few people talk about what a talent he is behind the instrument.

The final bit of the song is a completely different tone, more like the track "Breathe (in the Air)" prior to the album, but the instrumentals transition into it nicely and it does have some rather nice lyrics. The overall tone of the song does seem to be "effected by time" with the more rock sounding "morning" parts of the song being the main verses, and the "nighttime" portions of the song being the bridges, and then ending with the final rest, relaxed, tired and being warmed by a nice warm fire. Well, that is how I hear the song anyway, what you hear in it may be something completely different.

I know that when it comes to a band like Pink Floyd everybody is going to have a song they like over another, which is fair, my favourite Pink Floyd song is "The Great Gig in the Sky", but I personally think that "Time" should be recognized as on of those masterpiece songs alongside "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "More Than a Feeling".

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and time may be a strange thing, but even it can't make my Abominations part of this blog easier.

Auditory Abominations: "Afternoon Delight" - Starland Vocal Band

The 1970s, in my opinion, is the best decade for music, sure the 60s refined a lot of musical genres and the 80s was just a powerhouse of amazing music, but the 1970s was both. It was the decade that defined Heavy Metal, Progressive Rock, Soul, Funk, R&B, and also Soft Rock, and at the same time we had some pretty awesome bands from Queen to Earth Wind and Fire. What made the 70s amazing was not only that there was a lot of good stuff, but the best stuff was amazing, I could make a top 50 of the best songs of the 1970s and I would still make some very tough choices, I mean seriously, it's tough deciding between Alice Cooper and Boston now try to decide between them and at least twenty-five other amazing bands.

Now, the 70s is a lot like our modern era, the best stuff was really damn awesome, and the worst stuff is pretty mediocre at best. This decade was not immune from crap, and quite frankly, people who say that music from their generation was better, in some respects yes, but I would much rather listen to generic modern EDM than kitschy 70s soft and light rock. The thing is, the big selling genre of this decade was not only disco, in fact it might not even have been disco, it was mostly soft and light rock, and unlike disco, it never went away, it only devolved into the white guy with an acoustic guitar. We've had some bad offenders from Chicago to Foreigner. Chicago may have been the worst offender, but this group comes close, The Starland Vocal Band, because you could not think of a name that didn't scream 70s light rock.

What do you expect from the opening instrumentals? Orchestral backing? Slow guitar strum? light tapping bass drums before the lyrics? Well, you are in luck because that is exactly the opening to this song, I couldn't make a more generic song opening if I tried. The singer also sounds like a generic light rock singer, like if Bob Dylan didn't have any nasal. I really should stop picking on Dylan, but seriously, this is the kind of voice I would imagine Bob Dylan would have if there was no nasal in his singing voice.

the song was written to be enjoyable and hint at sex, and when I say hint at sex, I mean in the 70s, this is not the kind of song you could record today and not have it be shocking. Sex has become one of those things that was Taboo but no longer is because of the internet, so now songs that hint about sex are as good as songs that explicitly have sexual language in the lyrics. Also, some of these lyrics are pretty blatant, like "Rubbing sticks and stones together make the sparks ignite/ And the thought of rubbing you is getting so exciting", those are actual lyrics from the song. I can't really say that I'm to surprised that this got passed censors in the 1970s when "Pour Some Sugar on Me" got passed them in the 1980s. "Pour Some Sugar on Me" is actually a song that is better than this because of it's pseudo explicit lyrics, though both songs have lyrics less explicit than something like  "A.D.I.D.A.S.", but are more explicit than "Get Lucky" which also got rather explicit at times.

There are also times that the songs tempo just drops and all the band members sing together. I really have no idea why, but they are pretty dull, even when compared to the rest of the song. There are also times the song repeats the song title again, I guess in place of an actual chorus, some trends never die I guess.

I really can't recommend this song on any merits. I can't think of any reason you would play this song un-ironically, when there are other, better songs for the exact same occasions. It's dull, not very interesting, not explicit enough by todays standards, and quite frankly a bit to explicit for the time, at least until the 1980s when "Physical" came out, but that is for a different review. there is no reason for this song to exist either, because not three years prior, we got "Let's Get it On" by master of being smooth Marvin Gaye which let's face it, is a song that sets the mood better than any other song.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and listen to "Pour Some Sugar On Me" instead of this.

Ace Audio: "Stargazer" - Rainbow

Considering my previous posts, I figured it was time for me to do a song that I liked. Pat Boone was a lot worse than I thought he would be and I really don't feel like doing another Auditory Abomination for now. Listening to good music really helps me relax after an atrocity of a song like Pat Boone's "Smoke on the Water", it often gets me into a mindset to do an Abomination.

The song begins with one of the greatest drum lines in heavy metal history. This drum line is up there with songs like "Your Betrayal" and "L'Enfant Sauvage", and it is followed by a great opening riff. The opening of this song is awesome, it really does give of a fantasy sound, which yeah, Rainbow was one of the first Power Metal bands. They focused a lot more on fantasy inspired lyrics and lighter guitar work. People often point to Dio as the influential Power Metal band, especially with the album Holy Diver, but I would choose Rainbow.

And hey, speaking of Dio, that is indeed Ronnie James Dio on vocal work. This was the band he did after Elf but before Black Sabbath. As usual his vocal work is incredible, especially those long notes, hot damn I would kill to have a singing voice like Dio's, it's just so majestic, it invokes power, royalty and force, there is no doubt why he is one of the greatest heavy metal vocalists of all time.

I think my favourite thing about the song as a whole is the story within the lyrics. The song is about this group of workers who build this large tower of stone for this wizard who believes he can fly. The lyrics really do focus on the hardship of it all, with the chorus having lyrics like "In the heat and the rain/With whips and chains/Just to see him fly/So many died", it really hits home how rough the situation must be for the workers. Although, I have learned a little interesting thing about the construction of the pyramids, which was probably an inspiration for this song, apparently the construction of the pyramids was seen as holy work and it was a great honour to build them, maybe that is the same thing here.

Although, much like with "Octavarium" my favourite part of the whole is not my favourite piece. My favourite piece of the song if the guitar solo. Oh sweet Dio on a throne of gold and holy fire surrounded by succubi this solo kicks ass. It's just jaw dropping, sometimes when I hear it, I can imagine myself flying over a forest away from a cascading waterfall beneath an orange sky with a flaming rainbow to top it all off. When it ends, I just see the entire scene that the song set up, the large tower of stone, the stargazer, the workers, the dead bodies with their corpses destroyed by heat and rain. The imagery of this song is very clear, you can just picture all of the parts of the scene, and each vision is different, I myself often see the seen in a forest, but another may see it in a desert, or a mountain, I don't think very many other songs do this, create images that are different to other people, the song gives enough details to make the scene easy enough to picture, but not too much as to be overtly specific.

The song ends with a bit of a downer, there is a good metaphor in this song. The tower is built, as high as it can go and the wizard jumps, but instead of rising, he falls and dies. He had a vision, a dream and he went for it, but failed, or alternatively, he had all of this power and influence and it ultimately lead to his demise. Not a whole lot of songs I know of have these different interpretations, I mean I know people can interpret any song different from another, but with a song like "Purple Haze" there was really only two meanings attributed to the song, and then there are songs like "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Loser" that are given meaning without actually having any. Personally, I see it as the latter, the wizard had all of this power, all this influence and he believed what he was doing was for the greater good or was essentially a holy quest, but what happened was he plummeted towards the ground and had no more power or influence, a metaphor for falling out of power and the danger of gaining to much of it, but that's just my interpretation of it.

I don't know what else I have to say, this is one of my favourite songs of all time, up somewhere in my top 20, top 15 at least. Everything about this song works, from the guitar, to the drums, to the vocals, to the lyrics to everything. What I would give to see this live.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and Dio, Rock in Peace man. \m/

Ace Audio: "Black Sabbath" - Black Sabbath

Opinions change overtime. Some people can look back on something they said and consider it a moment in their life that they were being stupid. That is the problem with doing these reviews as well as my opinion may change and something will cease to be an Ace Audio or an Auditory Abomination. Something that was at first hated by many, can soon become one of the best things in that particular medium. The Nostalgia Critic did a video about when critics are wrong, and you should definitely check it out before you read this blog. [Link]

Bands that are some of the biggest names in the world started off as bands that were panned by critics, such as AC/DC, The Sex Pistols and even Led Zeppelin didn't get the best reviews when they released their first albums, and although AC/DC tops my list of bands that critics got wrong initially, Black Sabbath is definitely my second pick.

Now, when I talk about changing opinions, I have to ask one very simple question: Why was this song, and album for that matter, critically panned and a commercial failure?

Remember, this is from 1970, the year that followed the 1960s with the race riots, protest shootings, the summer of love, John's misunderstood quote about Christianity and Rock music, The Vietnam War, the dreadful Altamont Free Concert, Woodstock and plenty of other historical events. This could've been a victim of poor timing, remember this was still at the end of the 1960s. It can also be noted that a band like Black Sabbath just was not ready to really be listened to, remember the earliest form of heavy metal we got before this was "Helter Skelter" and "Born to be Wild", and this was a far cry from both those songs.

This song has tuned down guitars, slow almost moaning vocals and dark lyrics. The tuned down guitars are actually pretty cool, giving the song a horror vibe that makes it more chilling. It did not sound like the upbeat "Born to be Wild". The subject matter itself is also very dark being about a weird figure the band's bassist Geezer Butler saw one night.

When we ask why the song was hated at first, we can not say for sure, although I myself guess that 1970 was not the year to introduce a genre like Heavy Metal.

However, we also have to ask the question: What changed? Why did a song that was originally hated, become not only recognizable, but celebrated? It's hard to say because people often praise the band's second album Paranoid on bringing heavy metal to a mainstream audience. The times have changed and with it our ideas of what is acceptable in music. From Black Sabbath we got amazing bands and songs from the thrash metal scene to the grindcore scene, so in some respects it can be said that Black Sabbath doesn't qualify as heavy metal anymore.

I guess it wasn't the attitude towards the song that changed, but the times that have, because there is always going to be somebody discovering this song for the first time, and whether they like the song or not is their own choice.

When I'm talking about a highly important or well known song it's hard for me to talk about the song itself, because many people have heard it before, so it's hard to say something that other people don't know, so I often have to tie Ace Audio posts to a single theme. However, I know that there is somebody out there who has never heard these songs before and makes their own judgment themselves.

Black Sabbath helped create a genre that brought many of us together, and we have all heard their influence, from the tuned down doom metal to the fantastical power metal. Times are different from 1970, and some people enjoyed this song at the time, and some people enjoy it today. It makes me wonder how many songs I liked or disliked at one point ended up being a song I loved or hated, I guess it can be the same with bands as well.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I have nothing to say here so, Happy Halloween.

Auditory Abominations: "If You Leave Me Now" - Chicago

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.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I'm done.