Ace Audio: "Take Me to Church" - Hozier

If you were to ask me what my favourite song of the decade is so far, I would probably choose "Eyes Wide Open" or one of Aurelio Voltaire's songs. Yet, at the same time I could very well place this song up there as well. Back in my review of "I Hate U, I Love U" or as I call it, "Drone on and on the song", I called this song "Drone on the song done right". Well, the more I thought about the more I thought that this would be a good review to do, because in a decade that gives us so many amazing gems, it's always fascinating how we focus on one gem over many others.

This is going to be a difficult song to talk about because, I know that some people don't like this song, and that it can make some people uncomfortable, and yeah, it does make me a bit uncomfortable too, although I think it is more the music video rather than the actual song. Yeah, if I do a list on the best music videos, telling you right now I'm not going to be talking about this one. However, to me the feeling of discomfort is not a strong one, and dare I say, it is an interesting one.

The sound of this song is very depressing, and that makes sense, as the song came from a place of anger and frustration, with the Catholic Church specifically. This isn't the first song I've talked about with religious themes, I did a review on the musical atrocity "Dorbees - Making Decisions" a while ago, and I've done "Hero" by Skillet as well. However, those were both abominations, as they were both songs I took a dislike towards. The songs from Dorbees were annoying and poorly done, Skillet is bland and dull. Notice how neither of those criticisms were based around the fact that they were religious songs. However, this is my first Ace review where I talk about a song that is against the Catholic Church.

The lyrical content is not entirely based around this though, and if it was then it would most likely be an Abomination. It actually uses clever metaphor of comparing somebody's lover to religion, and when you analyze the lyrics, you see how demanding the lover can be. Lines like "To keep the goddess on my side/ She demands a sacrifice/ Drain the whole sea/ Get something shiny..." are all things people have said they would do for their loved ones, you know "Grenade" by Bruno Mars, but that song tried to use that in earnest, and this song more uses it to show the compassionless lover, or the demanding nature of religion. This is one of those lyrics over music songs like "Innocent".

The great thing about lyrics over music songs is that they are essentially poetry put to music, or maybe even poetry made for music. The problem is that they can usually be either too simple, or too complex, which is tricky to gage because everybody understands things differently. Have any of you read the poem "Introduction to Poetry"? I'm not going to give away what it's about, but it took me until I was eighteen to understand what it actually was about, and I read it while in middle school. It's not that it's a difficult poem to understand, but I can be a bit slow on the uptake. On the flipside, some songs and poems, and even movies get a little too close to home with their metaphors, symbols, and personifications. See the Nostalgia Critic's review of The Matrix to truly understand. I think this song strikes a middle ground, once you get the main idea of the song, the metaphor and meaning come easily.

Since I'm talking about a song and not poetry, I should mention the musical aspect itself, because in honesty, this is the part that really ties it together. I know I criticized the piano in "I Hate U, I Love U", and although it is kind similar here, it works because 1). It is not just one key left to drone, 2). It fits with the mood of the song and 3). importantly, it isn't the only instrument in the song. The piano only opens the song, and then before the chorus, we get some nice drums that come into full swing by the chorus. There is also some kind of droning "Ooh!" in the background, but it adds to the song instead of detracts from it. Letting sounds drone on is not immediately a bad idea, much like how using all your speed boosts at the beginning of a Time Trial is not immediately a bad idea, but it can become one if you don't know what you're doing.

Hozier's voice is very nice on this song, I can't really explain it, his voice just sounds nice on this song. It's also much more different than some of the whispery or whiny male voices we have in pop like Ed Sheeran, Passenger and Lukas Graham.

Although this is not in my top 10, I do think that it's in my personal top 20. If you want to make a song that sounds like it's droning on, this may be a good place to start. On the other hand, if you want a song that has strong lyrical content and some really good instrumentals, than you may want to add this song to your collection, but then again with all the success it has gotten, I think you already have.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I'm feeling in a bit of an 80's mood next time.

Auditory Abominations: "Come and Get It" - Selena Gomez

I know I said I wanted to take the blog out of the 2010s but I could not resist doing this song because it is quite possibly the worst song of 2013, actually that is not true, as I would personally say "Love Me" by Lil Wayne is a worse song. Yeah, when I say that the 2010s are a great decade for music, I mean it in a sense that a lot of the good stuff is really good, same with the 70s and 80s, the top two greatest decades for music, unrivaled at this point in time. However, that does not mean this decade is devoid of crap, like say the 1970s, I mean that decade had "If You Leave Me Now", "Afternoon Delight", "The Way We Were", and the horror of any music fan, "Disco Duck". Yeah the 70s had a load of crap, and if we got into the 80s, well that could be a whole top fifty. The point is, no decade is immune from having crap, so what really makes this decade special? It seems like the crap from this decade is torn apart even worse than the crap from previous decades, I mean what really is the difference between a lame and boring soft rock song of the 70s and a generic and boring electro-pop dance song of the 2010s? The short answer, the genre and that is it.

However, does the decade have worse music? Well, yes and no, I will say that the worst songs of the 1970s are immensely more listenable than the worst songs of this decade, but the worst of the 70s are just kind of boring which makes them unlistenable in there own right, and I can say what I want about a song like this, but it sure ain't boring, or easily forgettable. Pop music today has become somewhat of an earworm, which to some means the same thing as catchy, but there is a difference, namely that a catchy song is something you hum once or twice during the month instead of the entire day for a week like an earworm. A catchy song like "Wild Child" may pop into your head at really inconvenient times, but not anywhere near as often as an obnoxious earworm like this.

The first sign of the total earworm levels of the song start right from the electro-pop beat, which is to say it has no real beat or rhythm. A five year old banging on pots and pans has better rhythm than whoever assembled the beat to this. It quite frankly sounds like a dentist drill going off in your ear, which is reason enough to have it feature on this blog, but it goes an extra mile. If you thought "I Knew You Were Trouble" had a simple chorus, you will be begging to have a chorus like that after this. It follows the great logic of songs like "All The Small Things", "She Hates Me", "Lovin' You" and the theme song to The Brothers Flub and does not even trying to have lyrics. After the one verse in the entire chorus it just goes into going "Na na na na" because apparently sodium is the most popular of all the elements.

I want to also note the odd intro to the music video as it seems like it's building up this massive operatic song or heavy metal anthem or something that would require the lightning, eagle and "Whooh" sound effects. Then the weird bit with the drumming and chanting that sounds out of place with the rest of the song.

Selena herself does not do this song any favours. She does not sound as invested in singing the song as someone like Lorde, Lady Gaga or even Miley Cyrus, yeah Miley Cyrus sounds more interested in singing than Selena Gomez does. You can pretty much get all the substance you can from the song by the first stanza as well, all though being fair, I find that is the same with most songs about sex.

The song also has a lot of repetition of syllables and verses and a couple echo effects. I can only assume that it is either to make the song sound more artsy, which most likely isn't because this is pop music, or just for the sake of effects, which I've complained about before.

The actual lyrics are not too bad, they do get the point of the song across, although they are not helped at all by that drum machine that is set to "Generic". Also, I really have to ask, who does this song appeal to? the song uses that "Speak to vague person" cliché that boybands use to get the attention of pre-teen girls, so if this appeals to girls, why? I doubt it's because of the "Vague person" cliché, and I know for certain that this is not a dance song nor a sexy song. I can't think of any reason this would appeal to anybody.

Also the Music Video sucks, not really important, just want to mention that the music video sucks.

I don't want to make it look as though this entire decade is crap, it really is not as we have got a lot of great stuff from this decade, "Swimming Pools (Drank)", "Locked Out of Heaven", "Chlorine and Wine", Disturbed's cover of "Sound of Silence", "Upside Down, Inside Out", this is an amazing decade for music, but so was the 1970s and there was still a large amount of shovel ware in that decade. It's the same with every decade, there is always the stuff that is just crap, this and the other stuff from the 2010s I've done an Auditory Abomination are examples of that, but there is still a lot of really good stuff out there, just dig a bit deeper.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I think I'll just do more songs I should have done at the start of this blog.

Ace Audio: "Royals" - Lorde

You know, looking at the whole spectrum of music, the 2010s have actually been a really good decade for music, in fact I'd say it's the second best just below the 70s. I mean, we not only have a whole lot of awesome rock and metal, but many groups from the past have released new material like Megadeth, Disturbed and Iron Maiden. We may be hit or miss with the pop music, but the stuff that is good can actually be really good like "Lights", "Locked Out of Heaven" and "Rolling in the Deep", and a lot of the time we've been getting weird and unusual stuff randomly appearing on the Pop Charts. Why is that?

I mean, when you look at songs that make the pop charts you get your pop princesses, the pretty boy sell-outs, those weird vine songs and internet crazes and other stuff that really doesn't appeal to anybody except for the pop music fans, and yet we get songs like "Pumped up Kicks" and "Somebody That I Used to Know" not only making the charts, but topping them. "Somebody that I Used to Know" was the number 1 song of 2012 and "Pumped up Kicks" topped the Alternative Charts. So, how do these kinds of songs not only make it on to the charts, but stay there?

Is it that these songs are reaching a broader audience because of the internet? Is it because of a fluke in the system? Or is it because they are all just damn good songs? Okay, I doubt it's the second one, but then again "The Fox" made the Hot 100 and by all accounts that song shouldn't even qualify for the list. So, I'm going to find an answer, and I'm going to look at "Royals" because, even though I prefer "Team" myself, "Royals" was the bigger song.

Something that I notice right off the bat is that the beat is much less techno than songs from Katy Perry. I mean, I don't doubt that it was made with some kind of software or mixer, but it doesn't have the faux-dubstep sound, and the drum beats are really nice on top of that, setting the tone for the song.

The song itself is a kind of satirical look at those kind of pop and rap songs, you know the ones like "This is How We Do" that say that this is a good life and something you should have, yeah f*ck those kinds of songs. I can say that the theme of the song is not lost on the lyrics, as the chorus does name a lot of luxurious products and then says "We don't care", pretty much saying "This is not the stuff we need."

Lorde also has one of best singing voices from any pop star I've ever heard. She has good control and range. Whenever I complain about a Katy Perry song where she can't hit high notes, I often compare her to other female singers and Lorde is one of them. "Team" is my favourite song by her because it really does showcase what a talent she is better than "Royals" does.

And I really think that answers most of it. Maybe this song really did make the charts from just being really good and different. I mean, what else reached the top spot in 2013? "Roar", "Wrecking Ball", "Blurred Lines" really boring stuff, so why can't a song like this slip in every now and again? I mean, it's different, and quite frankly it's better than a lot of the things that actually hit the hot 100. I also asked a friend about it and he said that it was because it was easy for enough people to grab on to, and I can definitely hear that, I mean, it's soft but not Chicago levels, it's catchy but not an earworm and it's fun but not mindless.

These kind of non-pop, pop songs are getting much more attention and I'm glad, but then again, do we really need more artists like Lorde and Gotye on the pop charts? I know I would love to have more of their things but at the same time, the rarer a gem the more valuable it is.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I have nothing to say here. See you next time!