Ace Audio: "Atlantis" - Angel Witch (80's Marathon Part 5/6)

The 1980s were one of the best decades for Heavy Metal. From the beasts of Metallica and Slayer, to the badass levels of Motorhead and Dio, to the delightful hair bands of Def Leppard and Van Halen, to everything else like Candlemass and Manowar. So, inevitably I was going to talk about one of these metal songs during my marathon, but which one though? Well, I decided that I should go with a relatively obscure band to even the playing field a bit, since my last Ace looked at a song everybody knows and loves. This is also one of the times I picked a song literally at random, so if I am not reviewing their best song, that is why. I chose this song because, while listening to the whole album, I was not too impressed by the first song, and this was the song that did get me hooked on the album. Second track too, not bad.

The songs kicks off with a mix of drums and an awesome guitar riff and then kicks into a more early heavy metal sound, not like Steppenwolf or Black Sabbath, more like Judas Priest. The instrumentals themselves are pretty great, and really do add to the song. The frontman Kevin Heybourne doesn't do too bad a job with his vocal performance. Granted it isn't the most metal thing in the world, and it can be a little distracting, but I think it works.

The lyrics do a fine job as well, being about apocalypse, and the rise of Atlantis, one of the more intriguing cities of mythology. The chorus is especially awesome, every time I hear it I also want to chant "Atlantis to rise" along with the band.

We get a pretty good guitar solo, and some of it is actually just the guitar, which is a nice touch. Jay Evans does an amazing job on this track, and Dave Hogg's drum work is also superb.  The song then ends with one more yell of the chorus and some more amazing instrumental work.

The album this song was on received some positive reviews, although one person hated it for it's production and weak vocals. Honestly, neither of those were issues with this song, as the instrumentals were solid, and vocals worked although were not the best, and the chorus was anthemic when it needed to be. Some have even said that this was one of the most important albums of the 1980s, and you can hear some Thrash Metal in this song especially. The funny thing is that this album was released in 1980, and it wouldn't be until 1983 that Thrash Metal would get decent footing with Metallica's Kill 'em All. Although this album wasn't why Thrash Metal took off, Hell it's debatable if it even is Thrash Metal, I can definitely hear it as early thrash and I think it is an underrated gem from the 1980s, a bit rough and maybe needs a bit of polish, but still of some value.

The band is actually still around as of now, although not the same line-up. So if you like what you heard, check out more of their stuff, the album is actually pretty good to, I'm going to have to find a copy. As for this song, I know it isn't the best the band has to offer, so I may come back to them eventually, but this was the point where I knew the album was going to be good, so I felt like this was the right song to choose.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and this marathon is almost over, just one more song to go. I don't even care what song I'm doing, let's get it over with. Wait, what's this...?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Auditory Abominations: "Dance with Me" - Reginald Bosanquet (80's Marathon Part 3/6)

Yes! This is a real thing, and no I did not make this up to troll you. Just like with Richard Cheese and "Mr. Blobby", I'm digging up something that some of you may not have heard of, whether that is a good thing or not I'll leave that up for you to decide. I figured doing this song in the middle of the marathon would be best since I could begin and end with a more well known song that I can actually find footage of. That is the problem with relying on YouTube for videos because even though they are a massive website, they still don't have everything. This little gem came from 1980, by a newscaster. I'm not kidding, the singer of this song, was a newscaster, who was the son of a famous Cricket player, Bernard Bosanquet. Reginald worked at ITN and BBC for a while, and he died in 1984 from Pancreatic Cancer. I'm telling all of this to you, because this is one of the cases where the artist, is actually far more interesting that the art, which happens a lot unfortunately.

The song begins with an okay guitar and bass, not great but not terrible either. This could open a dance song of a decade like the 1980s. This however is interrupted by our "Singer", who sounds like a drunk old man, which at this point considering he was bordering fifty at the time, is quite a possibility. Have you heard the Epic Rap Battle of History between Roosevelt and Churchill? Well, Reginald sounds kind of like an older version of Dan Bull, and kind of drunker too. The YouTube description really says it best though, "...with Reggie seemingly unaware of what day it is, never mind he's supposed to be making a record...".

Reginald doesn't even really sing speak per say, he just talks like a news broadcast, which would be fine if this was a novelty song from the 70s, but then again, the most popular novelty hits from the 1970s were "Disco Duck" and "Convoy", which are both songs on my chopping block.

Amazingly, I can actually find the lyrics to this song, and umm... they're lyrics alright. Again, dance songs don't really need complex lyrics, but when you sing your opening lyrics with little to no enthusiasm whatsoever, and your opening lyrics are "Move up, move down, move round, move side" I don't think that one can excuse the poor grammar and writing in the lyrics. There are other lyrics that should be sang with any enthusiasm or charm, but they aren't, I never thought that I'd ever hear the phrase "Dance doowop, doowop all week" sang with no enthusiasm.

I also get the strange feeling like there is trying to be sexy or something, which is impossible considering the way he is "singing" this song. Yeah, if you want to pull of sexy, you got to have the voice to match. Marvin Gaye, Prince, they pulled of sexy so perfectly that some of their most well known songs are about the subject. What really kills any idea of sex appeal to this guy though is his singing style. Who wants to dance to this? The music is good, but much like Limp Bizkit, the problem is the vocalist.

Reginald Bosanquet is such a bad "singer", that I don't even think he gave any vocal work to this track, I think that this is just a prank that somebody pulled by recording his voice and adding it to music. Although, technology was not that advanced in the 1980s, but it was advanced enough.

It's songs like this, "Disco Duck", and "Mr. Blobby" that give the novelty song a bad name. Novelty songs can be done well, especially in the hands of people like Weird Al, Flight of the Concords, The Arrogant Worms, hell even Aurelio Voltaire has done a fair share of silly songs that aren't supposed to be taken seriously. Seriously, next Easter, play "Bunnypocalypse". Don't let songs that miss the point of being a novelty cloud your judgment on novelty songs in general.

Being a novelty song is not just doing something weird or wacky, you do have to put effort into being funny. These are not just the kind of songs that people play for a good laugh, if done well, these songs can actually take on a life of their own. There are many people who are fans of Weird Al and have probably never even heard of the original songs he is parodying. Hell, sometimes I myself play a goofy song by bands like Moxy Fruvous and Aurelio Voltaire because I'm in the mood for them.

This is not a funny song, it is not a song I can take seriously, but it is a song that exists. That is really all I can say about it.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I need to listen to "Safety Dance".

Ace Audio: "Black in Back" - AC/DC

Last time I did an Ace Audio I looked at the Queen song "The Show Must Go On" saying that it was a testament to how good the band was as a whole and saying it was an important song for the band. However, I think if any song or release was important to any band, I think this song is the most important song for AC/DC.

Here's a little history lesson for you, AC/DC was formed in the 70s with Bon Scott as their lead singer, and from then until 1980 they made some of the greatest Hard Rock songs ever like "TnT", "Highway to Hell" and "Jailbreak". But then something happened that could have drastically altered the bands future for the worse. Bon Scott, aged thirty-three, died on February 19, 1980. I don't want to go much deeper into that, because I don't think many of you came here to read about somebody dying, but I will say it could have, and in many other cases would have, meant the end of the band.

Many of the greatest bands in the world broke up because of the loss of certain members, like Led Zeppelin after John Bonham died or The Jimi Hendrix Experience after Jimi Hendrix. This is mostly because there was no real way to replace them. Some bands do indeed push forward like Metallica, The Who pushed on for a while and Lynyrd Skynyrd, but not many bands do and when they do, they are often met with huge backlash, and sometimes not just from fans. To say that Metallica was hard on Jason Newsted is an understatement, they flat out turned off his bass on ...And Justice for All, and we could talk for hours about fans being hard on bands replacing members, who simply just left or got kicked out. People still debate whether Ozzy Osbourne or Ronnie James Dio was the better frontman of Black Sabbath.

The thing is, replacing Bon Scott could not just have ended up badly, it could have ruined AC/DC forever, and for many people it did. However, not only did this change not ruin them for the rest of their fans, Brian Johnson may have saved the band as a whole. These are the kind of reasons I look at a song for Ace Audio, not because it's popular, but because it is important.

"Back in Black" was released in 1980 and three whole decades later, it still holds up, as does AC/DC. Seriously, "Rock or Bust" is one of my favourite songs from the band, right up there with "Thunderstruck" and "Walk All Over You".

People may compare Bon Scott and Brian Johnson, but unless you have real good ears, there is very little distinction between the two vocalists. Brian especially gives this song some power, and it is helped immensely by the guitar. Angus Young was a guitar god and it really shows here, seriously find any rock fan who does not know the opening riff and I will show you a fake rock fan.

The whole album of Back in Black shows that not every change is bad, and sometimes the band can still push forward in the same direction, unlike when Dio took over Black Sabbath.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I'm glad that AC/DC has had as long a run as they did.