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: "Girls" - Beastie Boys

"Awful song from an otherwise good artist" counter: 5
Yeah that's right, I'm keeping count now.

I think this is one of those songs that gets a free pass from people because "It's not meant to be taken seriously, it's silly, it's meant to be a joke" but I don't buy those excuses. This song sucks, and here are the reasons why.

For starters, that opening beat sounds like the theme tune to a children's game show got thrown into an NES and was mixed with "Axel F" after it went through the ZX Spectrum. It lasts for seven seconds but it becomes obnoxious at the first. Then it gets worse, the vocals kick in.

This song is sung by Ad-Rock and his voice is high and nasally, but I've heard worse. That is the thing, when you're talking about a song you hate from a band you love, or even just like, there is surprisingly little you can say on the topic of singers. However, I will say that the vocal work combined with the obnoxious beat make me about as happy as having an infected splinter on my foot.

Speaking of obnoxious the songs flow is just that. It's simple sing-speaking with a large emphasis on one word after every sentence. It becomes grating really fast and the word they put the most emphasis on, "Girls", because obviously.

It also makes the song sound repetitive, although it isn't. Still though, the fact is that the beat and flow are so bad that they make the only part of the song that isn't repetitive, sound like it is, that is some kind of feat that I'll give it credit for, I've never heard a song with that problem. I've also never seen a beached whale be mutilated by a fork lift until Family Guy so take that for what it's worth.

But okay, flow is one thing, how are the actual lyrics? Well, they are kind of split on my feelings towards them. The first bit is Ad-Rock talking about his love for women, and I get the same feeling from this bit of the song that I get from a song like "I Want to Know What Love Is", but that may just be me. The second bit is probably the best part of the song lyrically, he's talking about a woman whom he fancied, but she fancied MCA, and honestly, the only thing that ruins it again is the flow and beat. The final part is my least favourite, honestly if the song ended with the final line and how it was sung, sure the song would still be an abomination, but at least it would have ended on something high instead of this sexist group of lyrics.

I've heard that this song was not supposed to be taken seriously, which is fine, but that doesn't stop the song from being awful. If anything it actually makes it worse because when the artists don't take it seriously the song ends up becoming worse than it normally would. For a good example, Weird Al probably doesn't take his song super seriously, but what makes them funny is that he takes the music he makes seriously. It might sound like an oxymoronic statement, but you do have to take what you do seriously, even if you aren't supposed to take the song seriously, that is why I had trouble talking about "Bananaphone" as Raffi, even though made an annoying song, took the song seriously, or at least took it seriously while making it.

Honestly, I'd much rather listen to "Bananaphone" over this, that song was annoying but this was obnoxious. The beat pounded on my ears, the flow made the song worse, the lyrical quality is all over the place, this song is one of the worst to come out of the 1980s, and I completely forgot how awful this song was.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, jus... Just No!

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.

Auditory Abominations: "Chained to the Rhythm" - Katy Perry ft. Skip Marley

You want my opinion on this song? It sucks, there, that is it. No, this isn't going to be so much of a song review, more a sudden realization of what I hated the most about this artist thanks to listening to this song. However, I will be fair and mention this song here and there, after all this is a song review blog. Besides, I needed to do at least one more Katy Perry song before I dropped her from my list entirely, unless she comes out with something that is actually an interesting level of bad.

You see, when it comes to Katy Perry, I always expect each song to annoy me to no end that I start questioning why I even enjoy music in the first place. I was expecting this song to be annoying, loud, obnoxious and so much more and it just wasn't.

Which made me realize what truly made Katy Perry my least favourite music artist, even more so than Limp Bizkit, Peter Cetera, Creed and Simple Plan. This is the one thing that made Katy Perry stand out as my least favourite more than any other band and musician I've covered on this blog thus far. To be clear, there is a strong difference between a musician being my least favourite and my most hated, least favourite, in this context, means I like it the least and that is Katy Perry through and through, whereas most hated, means that it fills me with such strong feelings of anger and loathing that any chance of me liking it has sunk lower than Marianas Trench. Thus far, very few artists have reached my level of most hated, but right now that is being occupied by Lil' Wayne.

Basically, what I'm saying is that, Katy Perry is not my most hated, because she doesn't really deserve being my most hated music artist, she is my least favourite because as her career went on, she became less interesting. I also would like to mention that everything that makes her stand out has been done by other music artists. The genre she is a part of has been defined by the likes of Michael Jackson and Madonna before hand, her outfits have been done by Bjork, Marilyn Manson, David Bowie, Prince, Liberace, Elton John, Michael Jackson again. Nothing about Katy Perry is natural, and her music just isn't that interesting, although "Ur So Gay" and "Dark Horse" are on my future to do list.

If you don't believe that her career became less interesting, I think I can devote a couple paragraphs to this song.

Honestly, everything about the opening bit is boring. The beat sounds boring, Katy sounds boring, not even the lyrics sound interesting. Some bits of it remind of other Katy Perry songs to, and quite frankly, this may just be the most boring song I have ever heard. I mean, "Glory of Love" at least had an interesting history, This song doesn't even have that.

The music video is more interesting than the song, all though that mostly is just because of how damn weird it is, why everybody is wearing 1950s style apparel is beyond me.

Skip Marley has a guest verse, it's pretty short and honestly not that interesting. Just like the rest of the song. Overall, this song wears it's welcome out quickly, and just doesn't give a whole lot, I don't think it's worth listening to, but then again you'll probably forget that you heard it after you listened to it.

You see what I mean? This song had so little to talk about, that I used this time to talk about what I disliked about Katy Perry. This song may have made my list for worst Katy Perry songs, but all in all I don't think it's really worth any of my emotions.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and next time will be something truly interesting.

Auditory Abominations: "Jar of Hearts" - Christina Perri

You know, I really should have dealt with all of these songs in February, but then again, it's better I get them off my plate now so I can cover more interesting things later. yeah this is another one where one of the largest problems with the song is how uninterested it is in itself, but alas, that is not the biggest problem with the song. Shall we do another lyrical analysis?

Before we get into lyrics, let's discuss the song. The opening is soft piano and a pitiful attempt at singing, I think she's trying to convey feelings of pain, loss and stuff, but she ends up sing-speaking instead. Also, I think that this may be, one of the worst piano songs I have ever heard in my life, "I Hate U, I Love U" is thus far the worst, but this comes close. The piano is just so soft and it tugs at your heart-strings and it is such a god damn tool. It is so much a tool that it just fades into the background, in fact I think that is actually what they did, they just faded the piano into the background a bit just so we can hear the singer.

The singer by the way does this song no favours. She sounds like she wants sympathy but all I hear is "I went through this, feel sorry for me". Honestly, I think it's really staying when "Detroit Rock City" is a more depressing song than this, and that song was by KISS!

But honestly, none of that really matters, well it does, but it's nothing compared to this songs biggest problem. The lyrics, oh sweet Dio on a throne of fire, these lyrics are sad. Not sad as in they make me cry, but actually knowing that somebody wrote these lyrics makes me sad.

Honestly, the first set of lyrics are, passable. I do like the line "I'm not your ghost anymore" which brings a pretty good metaphor. Then we get the line "I learned to live, half alive" which makes it sound this was a horrible ordeal. This is a break-up song, and we get a line that would sound right at home in "To Hell and Back", which you know had the line "Let them fall face down if they must die/Making it easier to say goodbye".

The chorus is also pitifully weak, I mean "Who do you think you are?/Runnin' 'round leaving scars/Collecting your jar of hearts/And tearing love apart" will not go down in history as one of the best insults in music. Then again, neither will "You're gonna catch a cold/From the ice inside your soul". Like, that isn't even worth a burn joke, that is just straight up pathetic. Honestly, I'm not really one for the insulting kind of break up songs either, I talked abut why in my "Addicted" review, but comparing this song to "Addicted" makes me shudder because it forces me to say the words "Simple Plan is better", I feel dirty, but it's true, Simple Plan at the very least was memorable for a better reason than having a truly weak insult.

She then goes on to sing the lines "But I have grown too strong/To ever fall back in your arms", and honestly, I don't buy it. She sounds like she wants to go back to him, and forget all the bad things that ever happened. We've all been there, but we've had friends to help us through the confused emotions, this honestly sounds like she was trying to work through these feelings on her own, which doesn't make one strong, it just makes you look like a loner.

Also, a minor nitpick, but one lyric that drives me nuts is this: "You don't get to get me back", it just doesn't sound or look right, and a better way to write it would replace the second "get" with "have" or "take" or any other synonym for "get". I understand what she is trying to do here, but it just doesn't work.

This is also another one of those songs where the majority of lyrical content is mostly just chorus. You know, I hate songs that are so proud of their chorus that they don't bother having more than four lines in their verses. I'm not expecting lyrics from System of a Down, but I am at least expecting you to put more effort into your lyrics. Metal and rock can get away with this because they often give a lot of time to instrumentals, but even then metal tries harder with it's lyrics.

This may be the worst break-up song I have ever heard. The piano is stock, Christina's performance is poor and the lyrics are weak. Nothing about this song works, and it just sounds like a ploy that screams "feel sorry for me!".

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and one more thing to get off of my chest before I can go back to interesting things.

Auditory Abominations: "Fight Song" - Rachel Platten

Music has many double edged swords, becoming more mainstream, making a charity single, becoming twenty-seven, but I think the biggest of these is making a self-empowerment anthem. This may not be the last song in that category that I review, but note that the majority of these songs are awful, it really says something when the best self-empowerment songs are not even self-empowerment songs. I mean seriously, this is why we have the Heavy Metal genre, is it not? However, I'm getting ahead of myself, so let's review "Fight Song" and wish that the only fight song we had was the Marilyn Manson song.

This song starts with a light piano. Honestly, I don't know whether I like it or not, it fits the mood, but it just doesn't sound that... good really. I mean, the piano seems simple enough, but at the very least "Walking in Memphis" and "Don't Stop Believin'" which also have simple piano, have great performances. So how is this performance? Weak as water, actually on second thought, water made the Grand Canyon, so weak as... I don't know, something has to be invented with the sole purpose of being weaker than the opening performance of this song. But hey, this is only the opening, the performance will get better right?

Honestly, Rachel Platten's voice just does nothing for me. Where is it written that every female pop star has to sound the exact goddamn same? I mean, come on, tell me the difference between Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Karmin, Rachel Platten, Kelly Clarkson and Carly Rae Jepsen, just to name a few. Actually, why is this a problem only with pop music? I mean, no women in metal sound the same, Doro Pesch, Brittney Slayes, Lzzy Hale, Joan Jett, they all have distinct voices. In fact, there are some pop artists who do have amazing voice talents like Lady Gaga, but no, what we get is another pop artist who sounds the same as every other wannabe pop artist.

Even in the chorus she sounds bland, like making a self-empowerment song was not enough to actually sound self-empowering. The beat itself tries to sound energetic, but what we really get is a watered down dubstep beat that tries in vain to make the artist sound interesting. It's Katy Perry all over again, but hey at least I could actually believe the message in "Firework", here all I get is, this is the lamest self-empowerment song in the world.

Lyrically this song offers little as well. The first verse is literally just simile about how small things can have large consequences. Which, if you want to write metaphors, first off do not use "like" or "as" those words make them similes and those are the easiest to write, this is something a third grader could do. Also, a better metaphor would actually compare you to a small thing that can actually DO something impressive, like an ant, seriously if you called yourself an ant, I would be invested because Ants are actually some of the most impressive creatures on this planet, but I'm getting side-tracked. But can you blame me? Ants, one of my least favourite animals on the planet, have become one-thousand times more interesting than music, something that I love with all my heart.

The chorus is really lame though, "This is my fight song", lady, I hate to break this to ya, but if this is your fight song, you are gonna lose! I can name you five other songs that are better fight songs than this, should I prove it?

1. "Through the Fire and Flames" by DragonForce
2. "The Pre-Fox for Death" by Necro
3. "Bodies" by Drowning Pool (Obvs)
4. "Aces High" by Iron Maiden
5. "Seek and Destroy" by Metallica

Isn't this why we have the whole power metal genre? So we can have fight songs without explicitly being about fighting?

"Starting now I'll be strong", start by putting some effort into your performance. Do I really need to go on? This is one of the most uninterested songs I've ever heard, no I did not mistype, I do in fact mean that I think that this song is so uninterested in itself that it could drop off the face of the Earth and I doubt anybody would notice.

Nothing about this song is interesting, and this is what I spend my time doing, listening to songs like this, with their dull music, dull lyrics and dull vocal performances that makes these songs so uninteresting to talk about that if it wasn't a self-empowerment song, than I probably would have skipped over it.

People, if this is your self-empowerment anthem, listen to some power/fantasy metal, it will probably make you a lot happier too.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and there are two more of these kind of songs that I have to scrape off my plate. No, not self-empowerment songs, but trust me they are just as bad.

Auditory Abominations: "Hotline Bling" - Drake

I originally thought there was not a whole lot to talk about with music from the 2010s, especially since most songs follow a trend that is popular during the year or decade. However, what surprises me the most about this decade is not that there are few songs that fit this mould, but that there are many songs that do and still have a lot to talk about, case in point "Hotline Bling".

I have kind of a meter for songs I can cover on this blog, on the low end are the songs that seem to be simply outdated, at the very far end are the songs that full on offend me. I try to avoid both extremes if possible, even the worst songs I have covered don't go to far as to offend me, this song doesn't either, but mostly because the music is to mellow and clean to mask what is really wrong with this song. Yeah, this is going to be another lyrical analysis review, much like the atrocities of "Bawitdaba" and "Swalla".

Before I get into any of that though, let's talk about the other aspects of the song. Such as the opening beat, which is four drum machine beats played like it's an actual rhythm. Honestly though, it's not to annoying, but Drake's auto-tune is, I mean what even is that point of the auto-tune here? Seriously, what is the point of it?

When we the actual beat and music of the song, it's not terrible, although it sounds way to much like the Nintendo eShop's theme. Drake's voice also doesn't sound as entirely auto-tuned as the intro, although I would not be surprised if he still used auto-tune. Remind me to go on a large rant about this when I talk about Cher's "Believe", I've just to pick my battles at this point.

Well, it's lyric time, and the first problematic lyric is more of a nitpick than anything else, but I don't think Drake knows what a hotline is. He's using hotline as in ringtone and I can only assume the reason he used that word is because it sounded cooler. He also says that he knows "It can only mean one thing." Granted that one thing is fairly freaking obvious but just because you know what it is, does not mean somebody else knows what it is. A life rule to live by, nothing is immediately obvious.

I don't think this song knows what it wants to be, because it sounds and is sung like it wants to be a sympathetic break-up song, but at no point in the lyrics is there any indication that anybody broke up with anybody. All he says is, "Ever since I left the city" and we have to assume that at that moment she broke up with him and shake our fist saying "Doh, you broke his heart you evil person!" Which is not something I can do at the best of times, but certainly not when Drake is involved, or anybody associated with Lil' Wayne for that matter.

Some other lyrics of note are "You make me feel like I did you wrong/Going places where you don't belong" which makes me wonder, because there are places people don't belong like, the dumpster, the Sahara desert, The Sun, Encyclopedia Dramatica you know those places, but I have doubts that this woman is going to any of those places, so quite honestly, unless she is a goddamn child, she can go anywhere she damn well chooses.

Another large problem is that Drake never specifies how long he was gone, all he says is "Ever since I left the city", which, okay if he was gone for a couple days then maybe he would have the right to be angry, but as far as I know he could have been gone for half a decade, (Five years). In fact, the song becomes worse if you listen to it with that mindset because it makes Drake look so desperate that it almost comes off as abusive, I mean "Going places where you don't belong", "You don't need no one else", "Used to always stay at home, be a good girl", "Right now, you're someone else". You know what time period people would have said this to women? The 1930s, when women still had societal expectations placed upon them that are bullshit. Stay married to one man, bullshit!

Also, the last time I ever called anything a "Good Girl" was when I was comparing one of my cats to her brother, and how by comparison she was a good girl. Only by comparison though.

Break-up songs are everywhere, but I don't even think this qualifies as a break-up song. If it does, than "Breakfast at Tiffany's" also qualifies, and that is literally about two people who work through their relationship because they both kind of liked this movie from the early 1960s.

Looking at the lyrics, I feel like Drake should take OK Go's advice. "Aw, and it ain't real forgiving, it ain't real forgiving sitting here picturing someone else living". Link to that song here!

Honestly, it may have been a good thing this song's lyrics were like this because the song itself is just so dull. If it wasn't for the lyrics this would have been any other hack R&B song by Drake, but this has some of the worst lyrical content I've seen on this blog, not the worst, I still think "Swalla" has the worst, but this is currently in my top three.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I need an Ace after this... What do I have lined up? Power Metal? Alright...

Auditory Abominations: "One More Try" - Timmy T

What the Hell is this?

Well, this was a number one hit from 1991, I'll repeat, this song was a Number One in 1991, the same year "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)" defiled our ears. Being honest here, when people talk about music from early decades, most of the time it's the same as the final years of a previous decade. The only exceptions being the 1970s when the psychedelic era died down, and the 1990s where 1991 was kind of a strange point in music history. I mean, it's like 1989, but not really. I can't imagine songs like "Black or White", "Enter Sandman" or "I Touch Myself" in 1989, but then again it isn't hard to hear a song like "Losing my Religion" in 1989 either. 1991 was kind of a strange point in music history alongside 1982, 1976 and 2012.

This is one of the stranger songs, not because of the song itself but because it got popular enough to top the pop charts, and became the fifth biggest song of 1991. To give you some perspective, Mariah Carey had four charting songs that year, all of them charted lower than this. "Silent Lucidity" was also a chart hitter, landing the number 82 position, even EMF charted just below this song, at number six. This must have been a very good song to become that successful, or so you'd think. The most likely scenario is that this was just another case of a song that was very lucky to get as much airplay as it did, similar to the previously reviewed "Nothing's Gonna Change my Love for You".

The song opens with a preset synth riff, and it has the drum machine and this weird bass thing that sounds artificial mixed in. The synth itself could probably cause a headache, but the other stuff thrown in makes it extra annoying. If this qualifies as "Easy Listening" than I would also include a song like "Raining Blood" in there because that song is easier to listen to than this. Actually, can't I just do a blog about Slayer?

...No, I'm going to be hitting my Heavy Metal quota for the month quickly so probably not.

Anyway, after fifteen seconds of the annoying instrumentals, which feels like an eternity by the way, we get Timmy T here to sing the first line. You know, is it wrong to think of Timmy Turner whenever I hear that name? Maybe he actually wished that he had the voice of the blandest man in the world. Seriously, Peter Cetera has nothing on Timmy T, on blandness alone, he may be the worst vocalist in music, I don't even know if that is his actual voice or if it's auto-tuned. Honestly neither would surprise me.

The instrumentals just drone on, but the only reason the vocals don't is because they don't actually reach the level of drone on that I'm used to. There are speedy singers, then there are the normal singers, than there is this song, then there is "San Francisco", and finally there is "I Hate U, I Love U".

The we have the lyrics, and I will give Timmy T this, he is clear enough that I can hear every single clichéd apology word he sings. "Untitled" is the most clichéd song I've ever heard, but this takes a clear second place. Most of the lyrics are things that anybody would say to a loved one trying to win them back. "I didn't mean it", "It's been a long time since I held you", honestly it's just kind of pathetic.

Well, let's look at the chorus, and see if it offers anymore lyrical depth than the actual verses. Or the first chorus will start pretty much out of nowhere and still offer about as much lyrical depth as a puddle. Actually, a puddle is far more interesting than this.

This song sounds like a left-over from the 1970s, but this was from 1991. It may actually be the worst song from 1991, sure "Everything I Do (I Do it For You)" is more unbearable, but in terms of technicals and any entertainment, that song feels like Queen compared to this. The vocals are bland, the instrumentals are annoying and bland, the lyrics are clichéd and bland, and the whole song is one of the worst break up songs I have ever heard.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and next time is... another break up song. If it is anything as bad as this song, I'm going to snap.

Auditory Abominations: "I Can't Keep My Eyes Off of You (Oh, Baby)" from SpongeBob SqaurePants

Well, this is new. Yes, this is my first time I'm looking at a specific song from a TV Show, I mean I did look at the songs from "Dorbees - Making Decisions", but that was the entire thing, and only one video. SpongeBob SquarePants has over 200 episodes and two feature length movies, and even though the show isn't a musical series, covering all the songs would not be possible because 1). many of the songs are actually pretty good and 2). some of them barely crack a minute. Plus, I am planning to do a similar review for Ace Audio on a song from Steven Universe, have fun guessing it. So yeah, this is going to be a fun experiment.

This "treasure" of a song comes from the season 5 episode "To Love a Patty", an episode that I didn't like, not even as a kid. It was mostly because I didn't think the whole SpongeBob loves a Krabby Patty plot to be entertaining. Yes, you read that right, SpongeBob loves a Krabby Patty. No, not in the same way an artist loves their work, nor is it similar to that joke in "Just One Bite" where Squidward dreams of marrying a Krabby Patty. This is a whole episode where SpongeBob falls in a romantic love, with a burger. Of course this is the episode where we get one of the worst songs from the show.

I should also mention that this was apparently supposed to be a parody of a song from High School Musical, which doesn't work because that would require the audience member to A). Have seen High School Musical, and B). Have liked it enough to know all the songs. C). actually watch SpongeBob, and D). Actually dislikes that particular song to find this parody funny. I have never watched High School Musical, and I have no intents to, so if the audience doesn't get the reference than the parody is dead.

The opening instrumentals want you to know that they are doing this almost IN ERNEST! Having lightly strung instruments and an overall feeling of "whimsy" that is absolutely absent. The opening lyrics are also crap, but not for the same reason.

"Oh Baby/ They may call me a fool/ But I can't help/ Out gravitational pull"
As another music critic would say "NOT A RHYME", and the writer should know this. Tom Kenny doesn't even do anything to make those words rhyme, like pronounce "pull" like "pool" which is a basic technique that you are allowed to do, it is called a half-rhyme and you didn't even do that right.

While I'm on the subject, no SpongeBob is not the worst voice to be put to music, but in this song, he  is somewhere between this:

and this:

With the first video actually being of the better singing.

Almost sporadically does the song actually change into an up tempo pop song. SpongeBob's voice does really lean more towards the annoying side in this song at this point too, but that is not the worst part of this song.

The lyrics are what make this song so unbearable, but that problem with them stems more from the issues with the episode plot. Basically, the plot screws up because they don't personify the object enough for the audience to understand why SpongeBob fell in love with it in the first place. So when SpongeBob sings something like "When I stuff you with cotton candy/ It reminds me you're so sweet", I'm left wondering if SpongeBob sees the object as a sweet girl or if the object itself is just something sweet.

I also really dislike how SpongeBob sings the word "Baby" as he has to drag and emphasize each time. It became really annoying before the first time it happened.

The second verse (or third I really don't care at this point) kicks in and suddenly SpongeBob sounds like he is sing-speaking, when he was doing actual singing before. This only serves to make the song even more confusing rather than mix in an interesting contrast or style. If anything it just sounds like they were being lazy.

I would also be foolish myself to not mention the infamous scene where SpongeBob starts murdering clams. It really is not one of the better scenes of the series and over all it would have been better off removed. You can see why in any review of this episode.

The final line I'd like to touch upon with this song is one of the last lines, "From your pickles to your buns/ It ain't even funny". I mean, I know pickles and buns are used when making a burger, but pickles and buns are euphemisms for body parts, pickles being for a part that is generally seen on males. I have doubts that this was intentional, but I can't believe how that got through the censors, but then again this is the series that had an episode where one of the characters was psychologically tormented to the point of committing suicide. I don't get this show anymore...

This song is crap! It is a parody that very few, if any, people would actually understand, has really obnoxious singing, and lyrics that range from confusing to concerning. However, none of that really matters, sure they make it a bad song, but that isn't why I think this song is awful, or at least not entirely why. If this song was cut, we would have actually gotten more insight into SpongeBob's mind, so we could see what he sees. As far as the audience is concerned, Patty is just a burger, so any insight we could get would really help us. What does SpongeBob see Patty's character to be like? none of that is explained and this song could have explained it in a similar way to how The Nightmare Before Christmas handles its songs, but instead we get this fluff of a song that amounts to nothing and somehow became downloadable content for the Rock Band video game series.

I don't get it. I'm the Entity of Darkness, and if you need me, I'll be knee deep in that magical labyrinth of I. M. Meen. It sounds better than this.

Auditory Abominations: "Addicted" - Simple Plan

Hey, I've already talked about Simple Plan. Yeah, last year I reviewed the song "Untitled", which may just be home to the most generic set of lyrics I have ever heard. Well, see there is a reason I'm looking at Simple Plan again, and that reason is, "Untitled" is only one of their bad songs. I don't think I'm going to do another Simple Plan song after this, although "I'm Just a Kid" is also utterly terrible. The reason is that, "Untitled" is not the norm of bad Simple Plan, much like how "Glycerine" is not the norm of bad 90s music, "Untitled" was a completely different beast to slay than this. Although some of the main problems are still prevalent, the frontman is annoying and the instrumentals never get passed anything other than Meh, it has different problems than "Untitled" does. So, here is my second look at the worst band my country has ever spat out, opinion subject to change of course.

So, how does this song start? With what sounds like the bastardization of "Sweet Child O' Mine". This opening guitar riff sounds horrible and I feel like if it played on repeat it would cause a headache in two minutes. Aside from that, the frontman still sounds like a castrated Bob Dylan with a nasal cold, and the rest of the instrumentals don't really do much. However, that is not the worst part about the opening lyrics.

When they say "Addicted" they have to pause before they finish it, so essentially they are saying "I'm a dick, I'm addicted to you". Which is the worst pick-up line I have ever heard. I mean, "I want to know what love is", "Everything I do, I do it for you", "When I dream, I'm doing you all night", they all got nothing on "I'm a dick, I'm addicted to you", yes, I'm giving apologies to Foreigner, apparently you can sink lower than "I Want to Know What Love Is".

Okay, giving this song the benefit of the doubt in that this song might be a break-up song, no. You should not ever have say, "Hunny, I'm still a dick... Still addicted to you!" If I heard that, I'd cut all ties immediately.

The chorus itself tries to be sort of energized, but it just sounds the exact same as other Simple Plan songs. I mean, what is the difference between this song and "I'm Just a Kid", aside from the incredible line of "I'm a dick... I'm a addicted to you"? The chorus has many moments where the music pauses, and instead of putting emphasis on a specific line, they stop just to start as soon as the frontman begins again.

Also, the chorus makes me realize something I hate about break up songs, most of them are one sided. I get the idea that you only have your own thoughts on how and why the break up went, but I find that the best break up songs are not always the "I want you back" or the "I hope you die and rot alone where you belong" kind of songs, more a song like OutKast's "Ms. Jackson" which actually focuses more on the break up effecting other people within the family, and has some great lyrical contrast between Andre and Big Boy. Another good example is Gotye's "Somebody That I used to Know" as it actually focuses on the post break up, they are glad it's over, but he doesn't want to be cut out of her life. Also, Adele's "Someone Like You" which is a beautiful song about trying to move on, and they were all successful songs as well, each of them topping the Hot 100 in America.

Although comparing the songs success wise, this song peaked at number 45, so the general public all admits that these kinds of songs are not the best love songs either, but then you realize that this was the third single released from the band's debut album. This song, over a song that had one of the members of Good Charlotte that could have given you even more hits.

They chose a song that is at best an even lamer version of The Proclaimer's "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" which has it's charm and it's place in music history. You know what this song is at worst? A generic, par for the course Simple Plan song. I would much rather listen to Eamon's overly angry, rude and trying to hard too offend "F*ck It (I Don't Want You Back)" because even then that is a song that is about moving on, although one of the worst songs in that category.

I knocked out every problem with this song before the song even reached it's two minute mark. Thank whoever invented the pause button, and that is a true testament to a song's poor quality. You see, "Mr. Blobby" and "Starships" both got worse as they went on, "Swalla" and "Bawtidaba" both had so much lyrical problems that I could not end the review at just one minute of the song. A lot of the songs I cover I listen to entirely because they often change, get worse or just have such awful lyrics that I can't ignore them all. This song doesn't sound like it will change, and for three, almost four, minutes we get awful singing, bland instrumentals and a subject that has been before and since in different and more importantly better ways.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and next time I'm going to try something a bit different...

Auditory Abominations: "Swalla" - Jason DeRulo ft. Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla $ign

You know, despite what many people may think, it is not impossible to form an opinion on a song just by listening to one clip of it, in fact that is how many of us find songs we like. When ever we hear a song play in the background of something, or a clip of it played in a video, or as an ad in this song's case, we form an opinion on that small bit, if the opinion is a positive one, we go check out the song, if not, well that is why we have free will. This is part of the reason I have the songs up there if you guys want to listen to it, so if you haven't heard this song before and want to form your own opinion, you can do that.

A Jason DeRulo song has been on my list since I began, and originally I was going to look at "Whatcha Say", and I still might, but I think this takes a bit of priority because, even in 2017, mainstream hip-hop doesn't seem to understand that being obnoxious is not the same as being upbeat. So, here is "Swalla", really? This is going to be like "Bawitdaba" again isn't it?

This begins with a distorted ice cream truck jingle... Okay, that is one of the most random ways to start a song ever, but if it wasn't clear from the title, this lets you know exactly what the song is going to be about. WE ARE NOT STUPID!

The actual song begins with distorted vocals and the most generic beat I have ever heard. Then it gets worse, DeRulo opens his mouth. Jason DeRulo has had some okay tracks, I personally don't hate "The Other Side", but his voice just doesn't work for me on this track, it sounds like he is just doing the song for his next paycheck.

The opening lyrics don't help this song at all, "Love in a thousand different flavors/I wish that I could taste them all tonight", yeah, this is about as subtle as a sledgehammer, incidentally, that song is far more subtle despite being the louder song! Alright, trying to keep my comparisons until the song actually gets going. What's next?
"So you should bring all your friends/I swear that to all y'all my type". Oh goody, one of these songs, mindless background noise about no strings attached sex. Because we don't have enough of these. The bridge before the first chorus has the most annoying voice I have heard yet, DeRulo sounds like he is trying to mix The Weekend with Tiny Tim.

Well, let's look at the chorus, "Shimmy shimmy yay, shimmy yay, shimmy ya/Swalla-la-la (drank)/Swalla-la-la (swalla-la-la)/Swalla-la-la". Seriously, did you not have better lyrics than "Swalla-la-la"? Did that make more sense than "Swallow-low-low"? I mean, seriously, what the actual Hell? This is almost exactly like "Bawitdaba" except it makes even less sense, at least that song was purposefully trying to not make any sense, I hope. I mean, I haven't even gotten half-way through the song and I've already talked about the biggest problem, but I'll humour you, let's see if the song gets at better.

Our next rapper is Ty Dolla $ign, whom I have never heard a single song from, I just kind of assume that the majority of his career is featuring credits. Actually, I assume that about most mainstream rappers and hip-hop artists. He honestly sounds like Lil' Wayne finally finished going through puberty, complete with the voice sounding like auto-tune.

As for his actual verse, well, "Bust down on my wrist in this b*tch/My pinky-ring bigger than his" So, are they now throwing in women who are cheating on their boyfriends or husbands? Or is "pinky-ring" something entirely different? Suddenly, I miss "Afternoon Delight", that song was awful, but at least it's metaphors made some kind of sense, and yeah, it's not very subtle and still tries to be subtle, but you know, it at the very, VERY least sounds tolerable.

Dolla here also mumbles a lot of his lines, so even while I'm following alongside with the lyrics, it's actually very hard to understand him. Either, my theory that most modern pop artists perform while drunk is valid, or this guy is just an awful rapper.

After one more chorus, we get to Nicki Minaj, who I have talked about before. I'll keep this one brief, but her rapping style is speedy, and not in a good way. The speed doesn't sound natural, and doesn't work with her voice.

Anyway, her verse, "Bad gyal no swalla nuttin', word to the Dalai Lama/He know I'm a fashion killa, word to John Galliano".

Actually, that is something I wanted to comment on. "Gyal"? was "Gal" not enough so you had to throw in a completely pointless "Y" in there? Also, what does the Dalai Lama have to do with this? And I don't even know who John Galliano is, hold on let's see... Hmm... A fashion designer, I took Fashion Design in High School why didn't I learn about this? Most of Nicki's lines are just painfully awful metaphors that work about as well as, name dropping a religious figure in a song about sex.

Really, this song has more lyrical problems than that though, and I don't have the time to go into each awful lyric. Aside from that the beat is generic, the singers are all crap and I don't even think there is any hope for this song beyond 2017. If this song is remembered for anything, it will probably be for how awful it is.

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

I'm burnt out.

Auditory Abominations: "Bawitdaba" - Kid Rock

I am digging up the oddest things this time around aren't I? Seriously, what kind of song is named after nonsense? ...Does "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" need to be acquainted with this? ...That's what I thought.

So anyway, Kid Rock, or as he introduces himself KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID KID ROCK! yeah, what a strange creation he is, a redneck rockstar cowboy pimp rapper, or at least that is what he likes to parade himself around as. I don't really have a whole lot of thoughts on Kid Rock, I try to avoid listening to music I don't like whenever possible, but this proves that I can't avoid everything forever, so here we go. I'm going with this song because it was the first song on the album that made him big, so why not?

For some reason, this song begins with build-up, or maybe it's just the video. Yeah, thing about YouTube again is, sometimes you get "bonuses" for selecting a video, like an actual music video that plays like a mini movie or something like what Weezer did with "Buddy Holly", the fact that I just mentioned a Disney song and a Weezer song within three paragraphs of a Kid Rock review is sad.

Anyway, the song actually begins with Kid Rock introducing himself as, that up there ^ and giving us the only part of the song we will remember. I can't believe I'm doing this, but I looked up the lyrics to this song, crazy I know. Yeah, the opening lyrics we are given pretty much nonsense, "Bawtidaba da bang, da bang diggy diggy diggy/ Diggy, shake the boogie, said up jump the boogie".
Yeah, that is uh, a group of lyrics or something, but oh well, let's see the actual song.

"And this is for the questions that don't have an answer/The midnight glancers, and the topless dancers/The can of freaks, cars packed with speakers/The G's with the forty's and the chicks with beepers".

Alright, maybe I'm missing something, but so far it sounds as though this is both a shout out track and a call out track. A shout out track is basically a song that is a shout out to someone or a group of people usually people who inspired the writer or artist, a call out track is essentially the opposite of that. Hold on, let's go to the glorious interwebs to find what this song is actually about, I'm am researching deep meaning of a Kid Rock song, what has my life become?

Okay, this is apparently a Mosh Pit anthem. Yeah, you know forget the glorious "Ten thousand Fists" this is all you need to get into a mosh pit. Especially one with topless moshers, oh wait shirtless dudes, right. Unless he actually meant strippers, I'm confused again.

Yeah, if this is supposed to be a mosh pit anthem, then the first group of lyrics are basically just shout outs to hookers and meth. So, you know, it has that going for it?

We get another chorus, and seriously, if you want your chorus to be nonsense, at least have your nonsense make some kind of sense. I get that "Bawitdaba" somehow gets people pumped, but then again so does "Break Stuff" and we all know how well that song works. Seriously, what does "Bawitdaba" supposed to even be? "Bawitdaba da bang da bang diggy diggy diggy/Shake the boogie said up jump the boogie"?

We get one more lyrical group of call outs or shout outs (honestly I don't know which), and apparently D.B. Cooper is in the crowd. Either that or he just had to write in one infamous criminal and Charles Manson just wasn't iconic enough.

After this, we get an okay instrumental solo. It has the guitar just being played and it doesn't sound awful, even the snippets of the other instruments being played sound okay. This should have been the opening, not the cheap build-up crap. It is however, ruined by one thing, a stupid vocal sample being played over it, it is under the instrumentals, but it is kind of annoying. Then we get one final chorus, and I'm suddenly realizing that I wasted three minutes on a Kid Rock song.

Yeah, this isn't the worst song I covered, but I do think it's one of the worst. It's just lyrical trite, I don't even think anybody was sober when it was written. Honestly, everything else about the track is alright, the instrumentals and vocals work, but the lyrics are this songs biggest failure. And what even is "Bawtidaba" supposed to even mean? I've said nonsense and made-up words but I at least prescribed meaning to them.

Really though, there is just one thing I can say about this song that sums up all of my thoughts.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and next time I don't think I'll have to use so many more pictures.

Auditory Abominations: San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in your Hair) - Scott McKenzie

What? The 60's is far enough from the 1980s. Also, I needed to add another song to my 1960s category, so I figured I may as well.

Let's be fair here, the 1960s were one of the most important decades for music. Although I stand that the 70s is still the best decade, the 60s were when multiple genres really took off. We had early heavy metal with Steppenwolf and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, in fact many of the earliest heavy metal bands like Black Sabbath, Rush and Led Zeppelin formed in 1968. We had the Billboard charts in full effect this decade, listing the top 100 and still doing a poor job of doing so. The British invasion happened and the British were inspired by American up-tempo blues artists like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, who were arguably the god fathers of rock and roll. Also on that note, many important landmarks of rock and roll history happened, Woodstock, The Summer of Love, Altamont, even the shifting political scene was important to music. This gave rise to the protest song, made popular by Bob Dylan.

Of course, the 1960s gave us so many staples of music that we still use today, one of those topics is making a song that reflects the times, and also have them not be as unbearable as a sawblade running through our ears. Before we got the classic about Woodstock, aptly titled "Woodstock". We got the song about The Summer of Love known as "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)". Which I'm going to get extremely tired of typing out, since there is also the title of this blog, any time I have to type it down for track records, yeah I put a lot of effort into these blogs, so from here on in I'm just going to refer to it as "San Francisco" or better yet "That song that makes San Francisco wish The Summer of Love was somewhere else." Okay, I'll be very honest, the one place I want to see more than any other place is the corner of Haight and Ashbury where The Summer of Love was held. So, I get it, I understand the appeal of this song at the time, but this is another victim of a song that has aged about as well as cheese with fly larvae living inside of it. It's an acquired taste to put it lightly, and apparently goes great with wine, and in this case, lots of it.

The opening instrumentals of this song are, fluffy, little actual substance and mostly just air. Which, you know, fine 1960s hippie track, summer of love I get it, but it's just so bland on top of that, even when things are genuinely fluffy and full of air, there is still something of flavour there. Anyone else feel like a mousse or something?

Song first! Anyway, the instrumentals are definitely better than the opening vocals, which just seem to drag on the first line in the song. You can emphasize certain things in your song, like "San Francisco" it's pretty much the subject of the song, but why do you have to emphasize the word "Going"? Yeah, people headed to San Francisco, but I think that most of the people headed to the Summer of Love, were already there when the song was made, even if not, it's still a weird word to put emphasis on, it's almost as if they didn't have enough lyrical content to fill out a three minute song. but that would just be ridiculous right? Even the following line drags, like seriously from the opening instrumentals and the first two lines of the song, we have already spent twenty-five seconds here, I mean, by this point in "Summer in the City" we not only got our first verse, but we were already two lines into the chorus, and that is two minutes, two and a half even. I get that this is a feel good song, but even then a feel good song shouldn't feel like it drags.

The song, as mentioned prior, is about the Summer of Love, so it goes on about all the nice things you can find there, like gentle people, and gentle people with flowers in their hair, and you will know that you will find a love-in, which is actually a term used to describe gatherings like The Summer of Love, so you know, points in that regard, but the lyrics are repetitive. The line "People in Motion" is said thrice, as is the phrase "Summertime will be a Love-in there", look, I'm not asking for much, I'm not asking for "BYOB" or "Octavarium", but I am at least asking for something that does not repeat the same damn line three times, and no those are not parts of the chorus, this song doesn't have one.

About the third stanza is when there is an actual shift in the sound of the song. It sounds different, and that's really it. Like, the guitar is gone and given to light tapping of drums, and even Scott himself sounds a little different, he isn't dragging the majority of the lyrics. This is, okay I guess.

Well, since I am on positives, Scott himself does a decent job singing. I mean, his voice doesn't sound too bad. He kind of reminds me of the guy from The Killers.

However, that doesn't save this awful song, which became one of the biggest selling singles in the world. The vocals drag the lyrics, the lyrics themselves are repetitious, the instrumentals are fluff, over all this song is one of the most pointless songs I've ever heard, and also one of the most dated in the worst ways possible.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and have a good Easter, or at the very least, try to.

Auditory Abominations: "Mickey" - Toni Basil (80's Marathon Finale)

Alright, last song of this marathon. After this I'm going to go to a song far from this decade.

Anyway, Hey Mickey! Yeah this song is um... something. Okay, look the 80s were weird. From our punk rap song, to that news reading dance song and also to odd songs like "Mexican Radio" and "Throw the 'R' Away". I like to say that the 1980s was the decade you could get away with anything in music. In fact, there is still so much 80s weirdness I haven't even looked at yet. I will end up doing a review of songs like "Dog Police" and I dunno insert weird obscure song from the 1980s here.

I think that it is only fair that I look at one of the more well known weird songs, and this one is not exactly weird for the same reasons something like "Dog Police" is weird, it's weird in a different way, to put it simply, if this song was released in the 2010s, sure it will still be shite, but it would have been a touch less weird. Remember, this was the 1980s, when we had the music video for "Land of Confusion", Kenny G had a number one hit this decade, and The Proclaimers released their first two albums in this decade as well. So, what makes this song so weird? Well, it may have completely kick started the 1980s. what do I mean by that? I mean that 1980 and 1981 were just like the left-overs of the 1970s, I mean what was popular at that time? "Cars", "Rock With You", "Celebration" you get the idea, songs that sound more at home in a decade like the 1970s, in fact a lot of it actually was from the 1970s, and then 1982 happened, when we got this, The Human League, and the best song of the early 80s, "Physical". 1982 may just be the oddest year of the 1980s.

But that is all why this song is weird, why is song bad? Well, there is one major reason, and the song opens with that major reason. Cheerleader chanting! Cheerleaders only work in high sporting events because the energy is already high there, and even then nobody really likes their cheering, their pretty much just there because eye candy. Also, the opening drum beat is... I don't want to say it's repetitive, especially since most drum beats are, but that is why they are not the prominent instrument in a song, and when they do open a song, they often change the drum beat in the song like with Quiet Riot's "Cum on Feel the Noize".

The opening synth isn't terrible, it's annoying but that is just my disdain for synth speaking. There are some good and stylized synth songs out there, this isn't one of them, but it is passable for what it is.

You know, aside from that this is not really the worst song of the 1980s, I mean it's mindless and annoying, but it is not as annoying as "We Built This City". It's uninteresting but not as much as "Glory of Love". Essentially, this is just an upbeat pop song of the 1980s, although there is something interesting to talk about. This song is a gender bent cover!

A "Gender Bent Cover" is a cover song that swaps the gender around, think Aretha Franklin's cover of "Respect" and even Joan Jett's cover of "I Love rock and Roll". Essentially take a song from one gender, and reverse it, like Soft Cell's cover of "Tainted Love".

The original song was not called "Mickey" it was actually called "Kitty" by the band Racey in 1979, and was absent from having a cheerleader chant. Now, this song also sucks, but it is not as obnoxious and at the very least "Oh Kitty what a pity" sounds better than "Oh Mickey what a pity". So yeah, I'd much rather listen to this version than the cover. So how many awful covers does that lead me up to? Really, only four? Hmm... I'm doing better at avoiding awful covers than I thought.

Anyway, the lyrics in both are general lovey dovey crap, "You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand", how mushy. That really is it, like I said, not the most interesting of songs.

So, final verdict? "Mickey" is the worse version, since it added in an obnoxious cheerleader chant. Even then, the song is just a dull love song that is only remembered because of said cheerleader chant.

And that concludes my 80's marathon. Despite the choices I picked, this was kind of fun, I loved looking at a lot of these songs almost forgotten to time. I don't think I can pick out one worse song from my Abominations list, although right now "Funky Man" is taking the top spot.

Well, let's step away from the 1980s for a bit, and go back even further in time! I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I'm glad this 80's marathon is finally over!

Also, one last note, the music video is actually pretty fun.

Auditory Abominations: "Glory of Love" - Peter Cetera (80's Marathon Part 4/6)

All the way back in my third review ever, I talked about the band Chicago, and their abomination of a song "If You Leave Me Now". Is Chicago the worst thing to happen to music? Hell no, since then I have heard a bad novelty song from a character everybody hated, The blandest metal in the world, and of course the nightmare that is Limp Bizkit. However, one thing I will say is that something terrible did indeed come from Chicago, and did indeed become one of the worst things to happen to music, "Look Away" which became the number one hit of 1989, but that's not the subject today. Today is another one of the worst things to happen because of the band Chicago, Peter Cetera's solo career. Yes, the frontman of Chicago has a solo career, he hasn't released anything since 2005, but he struck it big in the 1980s, and released this song to massive success. This song entirely blows, and is one of the worst songs of the 1980s, I wouldn't say it's worse than the previous songs I looked at, but it's worse than "Funkytown" and that song really got on my nerves. So, why is this song a glorious suckfest? Well, let's have a listen. Glorious suckfest, that doesn't sound right.

This track begins with piano, or at the very least a Casio. Right off the bat we are given an introduction to how god damn bland this song is going to be. I mean, "Walking in Memphis" has some pretty basic keyboards, but that song actually has some life to it, and I just figured out the main problem with this song within six seconds didn't I? Yep, this is going to be about as emotional as the acting from the Star Wars prequels, Hell I give those credit they at least had Ewan McGregor.

Can I end this review right here? I mean, this is practically going to be the exact damn thing as Chicago right? Well, I chose this song for my 80's marathon. Instead of something like, "Agadoo" or "Dog Police", but hey, maybe this song will give me something else to talk about, like how not to go solo.

Well, here is a first rule for going solo, don't sound like auto-tune, I hate how artists use auto-tune when they don't know why they should use it. This isn't being used for effects in this song, unless the effect is to make Peter Cetera's voice sound tolerable, which good luck on that front. Seriously though, Peter's voice sounds so artificial that Siri sounds more human.

Unfortunately though, that is really all there is to say, I mean what do I say about the lyrics? They're just a cheesy love song, filled with more sap than a Canadian brunch. Although I do take a lot of joy in the idea of Peter Cetera singing "I am a man who would fight for your honor/ I'll be the hero you're dreaming of" to a crowd of people who laugh him off stage because they can't take this line seriously. But then I realize that this was a Number 1 hit, and I remember that "I Want to Know What Love Is" was also a Number 1 hit. What was with the 80s and people taking cheesy, sappy love songs like this seriously?

The Instrumentals? Bleh, I mean they do their job, albeit poorly, but they do it. The faux drums don't sound awful and the keyboard just kinds of takes a back seat to Peter Cetera's auto-tuned dog whistle vocals. So, what else do I say about this song? Do I talk about the album it came from?
Actually, where did it come from?

From an album released to coincide with the theatrical release of... KARATE KID PART II? And it was originally written to end Rocky IV? This song, this fluffier than mousse, substance free, lighter than Helium waste of time, was written for an adrenaline pumping sports movie like Rocky? Then was used for a similar movie like The Karate Kid? You know what their previous movies used for themes? Rocky III had "Eye of the Tiger" one of the best pump up anthems ever, and The Karate Kid had "You're the Best Around" similarly one of the best pump up anthems ever. This was the song they thought could follow up "You're the Best Around"? I mean, if this was a Goonies song than maybe I'd understand, but then again maybe that would have made The Goonies so unbearably boring that it wouldn't even be worth it.

Granted, I never have seen Karate Kid Part 2, but I have seen the fourth movie, or a bit of it. It was meh if you're wondering. However, I think I'll steer clear of Part 2 if this is the theme. Like what do I even say about it? The singing just sounds auto-tuned, the instrumentals are bleh, the lyrics are cheesy and it was made to be the main theme to a movie that didn't fit with it.

Oh well, I'm the Entity of Darkness and, I need some old school metal.

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".

Auditory Abominations: "Funky Man" - Dee Dee King (80's Marathon Part 1/6)

You know what? Let's do a marathon. Yeah, I've been more interested in the 1980s this year, so I figure I may as well do a bit of an 80's marathon, which should consist of four Abominations and two Aces. The 80s as I have stated previously, is both the best and worst decade for music, the best because of all the awesome music that we got from this decade, to numerous to name but for a small list, "Master of Puppets", "Learning to Fly", "Tom Sawyer", "Take on Me" and "Welcome to the Jungle", amazing classics that every fan of music at least know. It is also the decade that gave us the four chord pop song, the decade that gave us Synth Pop and the decade that gave us plenty of stinkers from "I Want to Know What Love Is", "Nothing's Gonna Change my Love for You" and "We Built This City". Since I already covered those songs, I think I'm going to branch out a bit, and start with a terrible song, from an artist who should know better, this is Dee Dee King, or as he is better known as Dee Dee Ramone.

Yes, Dee Dee Ramone had a hip-hop career, and no, we are just getting started with how bizarre the 1980s were for music. My next abomination is going to be a dance song that is sung like a news report, the funny thing is you think I'm kidding! However, staying focused, this is only one of the weird pieces of crap from the 1980s, you know, the decade that gave us "Physical" and "Agadoo" and yes I am going to get to those songs eventually. However, I want to start with this one because, the Ramones were one of the most important bands in the world, and one of the members, decided to start a rap career. It's just bizarre and I won't get over that fact, you can say that punk rock is overrated, but we can all agree that this song is shite.

The opening drum beats are simple, I hate it when drums are used this way. When used correctly drums can add a new layer of mood to the song, think "Lazarus" or "The Sound of Silence" (either version). The other opening instrument, which I'm going to assume is some kind of guitar, doesn't work for me. It may be the sound, but it just doesn't work. Also, there those effects like from the opening of "Tom Sawyer" which is an actual good song and one of my favourite songs ever. This kind of sound worked their because they only used it once.

I'll give the instrumentals credit though, they sound a hell of a lot better than Dee Dee does. His voice is raspy and nasally, like if Marilyn Manson and Bob Dylan were singing coaches to the same person. The vocals also nearly drown out the instrumentals, but on other times Dee Dee's rapping style moves to fast it's like he is mumbling his lyrics. For comparison, Macklemore and Busta Rhymes both rap fast, but they're style is smooth and flowing. Dee Dee Ramone sounds like he is forcing every word out of his mouth, and the lines are delivered about as smooth as a nail bed.

The lyrics are also utter shite, and not just the part where he goes "fu-fu-fu-fu-funky!". No, Dee Dee sang worse lyrics than that, arguably though that may just be the best line in the whole song though because, Dee Dee King is a bit of an egocentric. He loves to tell people he was the bassist in a punk rock band, and his name is Dee Dee Ramone. Yeah, I know he calls himself Dee Dee King, but even he just says he is Dee Dee Ramone. Does he want to be called his stage name, or by his original stage name, wow this just got confusing.

The instrumentals somehow deteriorated. This is a large problem with doing these kind of text reviews because, I can't describe with 100 percent accuracy how bad the song actually sounds, so if you want to hear the guitar work around this portion, that is the reason why the song and video are posted up at the top. So, if you want me to describe the instrumentals, you know that trick that some guitarists do, where they play a not but it sounds kind of blocked or something, that's what is happening. I could end this review here, but we aren't even two minutes in, and this is a four minute song.

There is this odd part of the song (Saying a lot I know), where it almost sounds like somebody else is singing. Which begs the question, if he can lower his voice like that, than why does he sing with all that rasp? The song does practically end with him doing the same thing, with the same lyrics over and over again.

This song was awful. If Dee Dee Ramone wanted a rap career, fine more power to him, but he did so in such a horrible way that he never released another single afterwards. Everybody knew this song was terrible, and it was still released. Dee Dee's poor vocal work, painful flow, the awful instrumentals and the bad and repetitious lyrics, Dee Dee King definitely made one of the worst songs of all time.

Look, the 80s were an amazing time for music, but this is the kind of garbage you would get if you tried to make fun of the 80s by mixing together two genres that should not go together, punk rock is a very messy, rough and uncut genre, hip-hop is a stylized and smooth genre that requires rhythm and flow, the two can be mixed as we have seen with Rage Against the Machine, but the band knew what they were doing and how to properly mix the two genres, and they aren't even punk rock.

I'm done, next time will be an Ace on one of the most iconic songs of the 1980s.