Auditory Abominations: "Ocean Avenue" - Yellowcard

Goodie, I get to talk about pop punk again. Despite how often the genre gets a bad rap, I honestly don't hate this genre, I like Blink-182, I don't mind Fall Out Boy, I don't hate songs like "The Middle" or "Sk8r Boi", so why does this genre get such hate? Well, because this is one of those "Play it safe" genres, those kind of genres that get you guaranteed success, but aren't really anything challenging, and being honest, nothing really memorable either. You know all those videos that are like "The 2000s summed up in one video" or "These song clips will bring back memories"? Those are filled with nu metal, rap metal, pop punk and the like because those genres plagued the early 2000s, you could not escape the mega giants of Good Charlotte or Limp Bizkit, I assume, I never listened to the radio as a kid because, why would I when I could turn on the TV and watch SpongeBob?

Anyway, most of the pop punk stuff has, done the barest of bare minimums, it showed up, people heard it, people liked it and now people hear it and go "Hey I remember that song!" and then go on to listen to whatever they were listening to before. This is the kind of song someone plays to poke fun of the 2000s, a pop punk "Play it safe" band that nobody outside of the teenagers actually liked, and the only reason they liked it was because it was played on every station at every hour. This is why I listen to Alt. Rock stations!

But why am I looking at this song in particular? Aren't there other worse pop punk songs I could look at? Yes, but this one is sticking out in my mind currently and I want to send this genre off with a swift kick goodbye, unless I decide to look at Good Charlotte.

The opening riff is short, I'll give it that, it wants to get to the song as quickly as possible, but it doesn't sound good, or talented at all. I hear the opening bit and it sounds like a warm-up, and not in the same way "Sweet Child O' Mine" was a warm up for Slash, more like a warm up for someone who hasn't played guitar before.

The largest problem with these "Play it safe" genres is that they really do sound all the same. Ryan Key sounds like most other pop punk frontmen, maybe a bit less nasally, but in general still the same. It also doesn't help when he puts emphasis on a word by dragging it out.

The instrumentals also don't really do this genre any justice, if anything they may be the biggest problem with "Play-it-safe" genres. The instrumentals of this song at least, sound better than they would for a band like Simple Plan, which isn't saying much.

The lyrics are also nothing special, I mean, they're nothing like "Addicted" or hell even "Untitled", they're just about a place the band members grew up. I think that is my biggest problem with the song, it is the very definition of "Play-it-safe", even if that wasn't the intention, it does absolutely nothing with itself, except for the chorus where the frontman is almost drowned out by the instrumentals.

Nothing about this song is "it's own" really. I mean, even a pop-tronic song like "Lights" I can still tell is it'w own song. Even awful Katy Perry songs are at least her own style of music. This is just, pop-punk for the void. It's made and thrown into the ether in hopes that it will find some popularity. I do not like songs or artists or labels that do this, for this is not what music is. I don't think this band is entirely like this one song, that would be dumb to think, but this song itself is just so bland and generic that I legitimately can't hate it, I can hate the things surrounding the song, but the song gives me so little that I can't even muster a strong negative emotion. So with all that said, can I really consider this music?

I'm seriously asking because, even "Mr. Blobby", which I don't even want to dignify as music, technically did give me a strong emotional connection, albeit a very strong negative one. Even "Chained to the Rhythm" at the very least, gave me some emotional connection, even if it wasn't a very strong one. As this song went on, I've lost emotion in it. This song sucks, but even than I can't say that because I can barely feel anything for this song. I have no feelings towards it.

That is something I've very rarely come across in a song before, so I think next time will be a song that did give me a strong reaction.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and let's forget this genre even existed, alright?

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.

Auditory Abominations: "Goodies" - Ciara ft. Petey Pablo

Consider this an early post of 2017.

Pop music hit a major low point in the mid 2000s, and I'm not just saying that because I'm a rock fan, no there is some good pop music out there, but not a lot of it came from 2004. I could do a top 10 worst list of the pop songs that came out of the mid-2000s and still have to make several, really difficult choices. However, I'm fairly certain that this one would make that list in a heartbeat.

To give you some perspective, 2004 was the year Muse released "Absolution", Modest Mouse released "Good News for People who Love Bad News" and The Killers released "Hot Fuss". This was not an awful year for music, but you know what was becoming popular? "The Reason", "Milkshake", and "Hey Mama". Before any of you say that comparing rock music to pop music is comparing apples to oranges, that is the point of comparing things, to look at the differences and see which one people prefer, so let's see what people preferred about this track because it landed at Number 9 on the Hot 100, higher than "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" and "Let's Get it Started".

The song's intro is just repeating the title of the song over and over, because that doesn't get repetitious at all. Then we get a rapper introducing the song. He does not to a terrible job, he has a good voice and is quite tolerable, but the beat in the background is just atrocious. It's as if "Come and Get it" somehow got even more high pitched, and don't even try to defend it as a dance song because dancing requires rhythm and timing that match and follow the beat, I can not imagine dancing to this song without it looking horribly out of place.

So after almost a minute of this (keep in mind that is including the opening bit of the video), we finally get to listen to Ciara sing and dear Anubis and the entire pantheon of death deities is she awful. If you put Mariah Carey, The Gibb Brothers and George Michael in a blender and sucked out all the talent you'd get something like this. This has not only the effect of making me wish the song was an instrumental, which considering the actual beat of the song makes me wish I put a bullet in my head before the song began, but it also has the issue of muddling up the lyrics. However, from what I can hear, and see from online searches, the lyrics are nothing to celebrate either.

The lyrics are basically, "You may think I'm sexy, but I'm more than that." which makes the music video worse because it does nothing except show off Ciara's figure. I don't usually say things like this but, I'd much rather listen to Beyoncé, because even though I'm not a fan of her, she pulls of this "I'm more than sexy" thing so much better because I can actually believe it, mostly because of the power she has in her voice.

Really, the song itself is about as memorable as a dull and boring movie, but the beat just drives me nuts. It's as if somebody mutilated a theremin before sending the sound it produced through an early 90s computer being strangled.

Petey has another rap verse, and again it's tolerable, sans the obnoxious beat. Really, if it wasn't for that beat the song would just be very forgettable.

So what made this song a hit? The beat is obnoxious, the singer is awful, the lyrics are nothing great and the song itself if just kind of bland and forgettable. Is it because that songs like this were becoming the dominate pop song? No, it was mostly songs you could dance to, and this isn't even a good dance tune. If this is the best dance song you've ever heard, listen to Daft Punk, or Die Antwoord or something with more energy and beats that don't sound like Morse Code machines being sat on.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and this is one mystery, I myself don't wish to solve.

Auditory Abominations: "Untitled" - Simple Plan

When you think of rock in the 2000s what do you think? Gorillaz, The White Stripes, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire and The Killers. But the 2000s was also the decade that rock got whiney with groups like My Chemical Romance, Linkin Park, Hinder and Simple Plan, because this was the decade teenage angst made good song tones. Not that every whiney group was bad, My Chemical Romance has some good songs, Linkin Park was an awesome band, and some of the modern rock today like Imagine Dragons aren't too bad. The reason that a whiny song like this is bad is simple, it sounds awful.

The opening piano is alright, an easily spotted emotional ploy to get you into the mood of a depressing song, but not too bad. The orchestral backing though is a bit generic, it just sounds like the exact same orchestral backing that accompanies every other sappy and or depressing song from the late 1990s up to now.

Of course in the same vein of Linkin Park and My Chemical Romance, the vocalist is as nasally as, oh boy I need to stop picking on Bob Dylan, so uhh.... Arlo Guthrie I guess, my Dad suggested that one. The lyrics include the obvious "I was blind" line to make the situation sappier or more depressing, as well as the "I can't remember" line, and the "I can't stand the pain" line. All of these generic lines were in the opening, giving you an idea of what we are in for with this particular song.

But the song really becomes an abomination with the chorus. The whiny sing-yelling of "How could this happen to me?" is just unbearable. It's like listening to Twenty One Pilots after they were kicked in their crotches and had stuffy noses. It also has some generic lines, the "I'm fading away" line, the "How could this happen to me?" line, the "I've made my mistakes" line, it's all there.

And the song drones on for three whole minutes, with more generic lines like "Hanging by a thread", "I try to hold on to a time" and "I can't explain what happened". Not only are these generic lines, but also lines that have been written and sung better in different songs, these lyrics are as basic and generic as "The Reason".

The song is unbearable, it is highly annoying with basic lyrics, a singer who sounds like if SpongeBob ate the lead block under his hat, and obvious musical accompaniment that sounds more in tune with a soap opera than a depressing song about someone passing.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I think next time I'll do something a bit special.