Hey guys, the Entity of Darkness here, I decided that album reviews would be too time consuming considering school, but I still wanted to look at music. So I decided to look at songs, one group of posts for songs I hate (Auditory Abominations) and the other for songs I like (Ace Audio).
This should be fun.
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.
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?
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.
So, apparently 2009 is going to be my pick for worst year in music. In some respects this makes sense, every music nerd always says that the 90s died in 1994 after the death of Kurt Cobain, well the 2000s are similar in that they kind of died out around 2007-2008. If you look at the music scene of the early 2000s, yeah there was a lot of pop and electronic, but there was also quite a bit of rock here and there, even if the bands weren't good, they were successful. I've already talked a lot about early 2000s mainstream rock but that scene just kind of faded out in the late 2000s to be replaced with the more marketable pop princesses of Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and the like. Much like how the early 90s was the heyday of the grunge scene, then it shifted into gangster rap and mainstream rock, the early to mid 2000s was the heyday of rap and hip-hop, and mainstream rock before it shifted to pop music. Which brings us to today's specimen!
The song opens with, I don't know if it's a keyboard, a guitar, a bass or what, it's a confusing sound that sounds like all three of them, and yet none of them at the same time. It also doesn't help that the opening lines are "I want to be rich and I want lots of money."
Being fair, I did put the cart before the horse with that one, as the song is a lot like "Royals" in that it's about the problems with the lifestyle celebrities endorse. However, I think I should point out, what made "Royals" a good song was that it was using it's lyrics to mock the lyrics of hip-hop songs that were popular at the time (I say that like it was released a long time ago). This song's lyrics are "here is something in a celebrity based life-style, isn't it awful?" and aside from the chorus, that is really it, it's like "We Didn't Start the Fire" if there was no historical aspect to it.
The chorus itself sounds vaguely auto-tuned, which is odd because Lily Allen is not a terrible singer, being up there with Lorde in not having a beautiful voice, but still sounding good. I can't help but think of Cher's "Believe" when I here the chorus, which was one of the first commercial recordings to feature auto-tune. To give you some perspective, it's like watching a CG animated movie from the mid to late 2000s and saying the animation reminds you of Toy Story, the first movie with movie quality CG animation, except in that case Toy Story actually did look amazing for it's time.
Speaking of crappy club songs, this song uses a lot of electronic effects for I don't know. I mean, I don't think this was supposed to be a club song, and with that strange keyboard/guitar/bass sound that goes with it, it sounds kind of out of place.
The song has a good theme and some decent lyrics here and there, and being fair this isn't the worst song I've ever heard, but when I have a song that came out after this to compare it with, I'm naturally gonna, and I think that "Royals" is the much better song, because unless I was really paying attention, I could easily mistake this song for endorsing the celebrity life-style. However, I think what also makes this song inferior to "Royals" is that this song is boring. Not even comparing it to "Royals" again, I've heard this theme done before in "Californication", the music is something I have also heard a lot of before and even if Lily Allen has a decent voice, she sounds half asleep in this track.
I'm the Entity of Darkness, and next time, something special.
You know, sometimes a song is just so bad that even if you never thought you'd talk about it, it immediately jumps to your mind when the subject of terrible music comes up. I thought this was just going to be another dumb pop song that is simply just a generic thing that would be forgotten in time, but no this had to be one of the most obnoxious and annoying pieces of filth I have ever heard in my entire life.
I remember when Avril Lavigne was still a Pop-Punk princess with "Sk8er Boi" which was not a great song, but truth be told it's still on of my guilty pleasure songs, but then the alluring charm of the succubus of success is intoxicating to all mortals, also the pop-punk scene dying out doesn't help either.
You know how this song begins? with "Mina sako arigato, k-k-k-kawaii." I doubt she knows what any of that means. I think she put on a song called "Mr. Roboto" and found that the Japanese word they used was pretty neat so she took that word a put in this sentence. "Arigato" or "Domo Arigato" is the Japanese way of saying "Thank you" and "Kawaii" is Japanese for "Cute". Aside from that I don't know myself, and Google Translate isn't helping this time. Then it goes into the teen pop style of "I'm an adult but I still make songs about being a teenager" like well, a lot of songs actually. Avril Lavigne was 29 when the album this song was on came out and she's talking about pillow fights and playing Truth or Dare, To give you some perspective Lorde is 20, and Adele is 28, neither of them have had either of those in their lyrics.
But lyrics are one thing, how is the musical aspect of this song? Terrible, the song is dubstep trying to pass itself off as a pop rock song. When I think of pop rock, I think "Beat It", "Jump", anything from Walk the Moon, you know music that fits in with either genre, this is not a rock song, it is a Pop-tronic song. Avril's voice is just, GAH! It's like if, actually no I can not do a comparison for this one, her voice is just annoying and awful, and a huge step down from her pop punk years.
The song is apparently about her love of the Hello Kitty brand and some sexual content... I thought I was finished this with "Afternoon Delight" explicit lyrics are not necessary but they oddly help. The rest of the song is highly childish, and it's really only the chorus that could remotely have any sexual content, "A.D.I.D.A.S." is a sexier song and that song's title means "All Day I Dream About Sex". Even if this isn't a song with any sexual lyrics, it still has very little to grasp lyrically.
That really is this song's main issue, it's confused, obnoxious, and immature. In interviews she said that the song was supposed to be fun and had the glitchy feel to it, (paraphrasing a lot). But again, that is the problem, just because something is fun doesn't make it good, I find it fun to burn things, but I don't go around setting other people's possessions on fire because I am not crazy. Avril Lavigne needed to either make this song lyrically better, musically better or just scrapped it entirely.
I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I need an Ace Audio...
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.
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.
A lot of my Auditory Abominations are often about pop songs, mostly because a lot of pop songs are just fluff, which is a term of many definitions, but it generally means that the product is really nothing but sugar and air, giving it very little substance to it in the end, but sometimes a fluff product can work. Fluff is not really accepted overall by most people because after a while when whatever fad it is a part of dies off there really isn't any thing to hold on to. A lot of the songs I talk about have many things that fail on their own merits, such as "This is How We Do" (You know, I really need to stop picking on Katy Perry so much), that is a song that has horrid lyrics, awful music and a dreadful theme all of it sung by someone who can't sing. The song on it's own is awful, but when I compare it to a song that has good beats and tempos, good lyrics and a good theme by singers that can sing, it becomes even more unbearable, and that's not even comparing it to heavy metal music I'm just in my head comparing that song to "Face to face" by Daft Punk.
Pop music is going to be a regular on that series, but sometimes there is a good pop song, and for those of you who have been reading my previous posts, you'll know that I have been praising this song pretty much since the beginning. But I don't think that is really enough to describe my thoughts about this song, so I'll say this; this song is in my top 15, on the same list as "Chlorine and Wine" and "Octavarium". That means that I put this song higher on my favourite songs list than most of the other songs I'll cover here.
I'm not saying this song is better than most of the stuff I'm covering, in fact it may be one of the weakest songs I'm covering, but I say you should recognize failures, but you also have to recognize successes. Often because the failures allow you to appreciate some of the lesser successes.
What makes this song different from most pop songs is that unlike most other pop songs like "Starships", I actually understand the appeal. The song has a bouncy beat that is easy to groove and dance to, and Ellie's voice is just beautiful. Even the song's theme is easy to identify with, it's about the fear of the dark, something plenty of us had and have.
A lot of issues I have with pop music is that it is often beyond basic, I mean repeat four chords and sing some song about being famous, in a break-up or just some generic dance song that doesn't hold up after the next big single comes out. This song actually gives me something to hold onto after all this time, allowing me to enjoy it much more than something like "I Knew You Were Trouble".
Is this a good song, or is it just a victim of what some people call the frozen effect? You know where a lot of the other stuff is crap making whatever isn't really bad sounds so much better. I do have to say that around this time I never really heard a lot of music on the radio, most of what I listened to was modern rock so I can say that this is a good song on it's own, and not just because everything else was crap.
I'm the Entity of Darkness and always keep an open mind, you may find something new to enjoy.
Nicki Minaj is, in my opinion, one of the most annoying and frustrating music artists of today. I know she can sing well and I know she can sing better, but most of her songs are the most obnoxious pieces of crap I've ever heard, and this is the guy who listened to "This is How We Do", "We Built This City" and "St. Anger" prior to this, and honestly this may just be the worst of them.
The opening vocals are some of the most grating I have ever heard. They sound like a mix of guttural and nasal vocals, and the lyrics do not help the first impressions at all. If you are so desperate to fill up the song's time slot that you repeat the last sound in a word, your song will suck. Seriously, "let's go to the beach, each" just sounds like lyrical filler, and considering "Dark Horse" that is really saying quite a bit.
After the out-of-breath singer with a sore throat swaps into an out-of-breath singer with a nasal congestion. the song changes with the chorus where it just becomes a generic dance song. This is my biggest problem, with music in general, everything that becomes the most successful, is often generic dance music, recently that has been changing, with artists like Bruno Mars and others making dance songs with actual beats and funk instead of this kind of generic shlock, but in the early 2010s, not really, the most we got was "Safe and Sound" and "Lights", which still have their faux-dubstep beats, but they sound a lot better than this.
Honestly, I think my biggest problem with Nicki Minaj is that I can never tell when her voice is natural or auto-tuned, I've heard auto-tune used as effects, to enhance singing and as a freaking instrumental solo, so I think I'm fairly used to hearing auto-tune but Nicki Minaj, just sounds so unnatural and yet so comfortable with her singing, it's like the rumour that Robert Johnson was actually sped up on the records, you know in the 1930s when the wall of sound wasn't a thing yet, yeah that myth isn't true, but I'd believe it if it was about Nicki Minaj.
The chorus also has issues, the first part is a poor bridge to the actual chorus, where she claims "Starships were meant to fly". The thing is that neither part sounds connected. In fact, the whole song sounds disjointed, after the chorus comes this weird dubstep beat that sounds out of place, like this was just scrapped together from rejected songs by other music artists.
And then we get a completely different song than the one we started with, I mean seriously, what is with the ADD song structure? As much as I hate Katy Perry songs at least they are consistent, it's like if out of nowhere this suddenly became a review on the music video. Then suddenly out of nowhere she sings "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", Top 10 charting song everybody, with the lyrical accomplishment of a toddler's nursery rhyme booklet.
This song is disjointed, mismatched, obnoxious and so far worse than anything else I've heard. I think the only thing that can come close would be "After All" by the musical equivalent of a slap to the face and the musical equivalent of STDs respectively, Cher and Peter Cetera.
And no, I'm not covering that next time, I'm the Entity of Darkness and next time, home country shame.
Originally I was just going to talk about another one of Katy Perry's atrocities that the market and public try to argue qualifies as a form of good music, but there really isn't anything left to say about her. Often when a music artist fails in one particular way, there isn't a whole lot to say about them. For example, a band like Nickelback makes bad songs in two different ways, either a song like "Photograph" or "Animals". An artist like Katy Perry, only makes some of the most obnoxious, repetitious pieces of fluff in pop music, so there isn't a lot to say about Katy Perry anymore. However, I don't want this to be a stone left unturned, so I decided to talk about my ten least favourite songs from her, joy.
I set myself one very specific rule for this list, which was that I could only talk about songs that were either singles, whether commercial or promotional, or the song itself made it onto some chart. She also had to be the lead artist on the song and not the featuring credit. Also, songs I have or might review are not left off the list, so I had a lot of material for this list, 32 songs in fact, yes that many songs have charted and been released. This was no small task either as thirty-two songs is a lot from any artist, I mean I love Daft Punk but I don't think I could marathon thirty-two complete songs from them, and when you also throw on top of the fact that Katy Perry is my least favourite music artist, it just makes things worse, so I just kind of cut a couple of songs from the playlist.
But overall which song do I think sucks the most? well let's find out, this is the top ten worst Katy Perry Songs.
10. California Gurls (ft. Snoop Dogg) (2010)
What we have here is an indication that things are only going to get worse from here. To start off with, I'm fairly certain that I've heard this exact beat and style before, does it still count as a rip-off if you copy from yourself? I'm being serious, this song sounds almost exactly similar to "Hot n Cold" a song I actually don't think is to terrible. That was what really got me, but the lyrics didn't do this song any favours, in fact they may be the worst thing about this song, never mind Snoop Dogg's pathetic rapping that really makes me wonder if he was ever good in the first place.
The lyrics are an atrocity in and of themselves, pretty much just being, "California girls are hot", which, okay yeah point taken, but at the very least you could say something else, the way this song describes Californian girls makes me want to chase other women. Throw in some of the worst auto-tune I've ever heard outside of a Justin Bieber abomination and you have the tenth worst Katy Perry song, oh dark lord why must you make me suffer so?
9. Part of Me (2012)
Okay, first off I can't be the only one to think that this song's beat sounds almost exactly like other songs right? I mean, I may have thought "1901" when I heard it, but I swear there is another song that I can't remember that has almost the exact same beat.
Aside from that, the song is basically a "You can't take away who I am" kind of song, which is a good message for a song to have, but I don't think there really is anything left of who Katy Perry is. She has been dolled up for marketing purposes and almost stripped of her personality, she changes her appearance in so many of her music videos that it's hard to understand what kind of person she really is. I mean in this video she pretty much goes Mulan and joins the army, in another video she acts like a pin-up model, and then out of nowhere she is an Egyptian Pharaoh, at least when Lady Gaga has a costume it's always wild and crazy, when Katy Perry does it, she's pretty much restrained, like she has to have a different costume, but it can never been weird and wild.
I don't know if this song is hypocritical or not, but still it's not something that puts anybody in a good light.
8. Thinking of You (2009)
Because vague-ness is not just reserved for boy bands anymore.
This song starts of slow and boring, she doesn't really sound that interested in what she's saying, which is what not to do when singing what I can comfortably guess is a break-up song. DoI need to restate the obvious, when singing a song that is fueled by emotion, sound like you at least pretend to care.
I don't honestly know which I hate more, early Katy Perry with the more indie instrumentals, or modern Katy Perry with the pop-tronic stuff. I'll say that I may hate the pop-tronic stuff more, it is more forgettable and background noise than anything. This song sounds like Katy is putting in all the emotive efforts of one of Bob Dylan's nostrils and sounds just as appealing. Maybe the shift to Pop-tronic stuff was a better move for her as I don't know if anybody remembers this song or even knows that it's Katy Perry. Maybe Katy Perry's personality was always that she had none in her music.
Oh and these songs were all the tolerable stuff on this list, the next few entries are the real crap is next, starting with...
7. I Kissed a Girl (2008)
The song that put Katy Perry on the charts and it still is an atrocity. I may do a future review on this song, but for now I can put my thoughts on here.
The majority of this song is basically just Katy saying "I kissed a girl, and this is my reaction". It's mostly annoying with Katy Perry's obnoxious singing with not a very deep subject matter. I don't think the song really says anything like "I think I liked her more than him" but all we got is "I hope my boyfriend didn't mind it" which kind of reminds me of "Girl Crush", which is another song that goes "I like a girl, but want a guy", which does not really open itself for a song about change and LGBTQ rights.
6. Wide Awake (2012)
Remember in my "To Hell and Back" review where I said that the meaning behind a song is not the be all or end all? I said that some songs with little to no important meaning can be songs I like and songs with good and important messages can be songs I don't like. Well, the meaning I'm getting behind this song is that Katy Perry is now awake and realizes this is not the life she really wanted. I like the meaning of the song, but I think it got ruined because there really is no indication that she actually feels this way and was most likely saying this to tell others to not follow dreams of being famous just because, which is still a good message.
So if I'm okay with the probable message, than why is the song so high? Literally, the first line of the song sums up my problems. If you want the worst of auto-tune, just listen to Katy Perry sing "I'm Wide Awake". I'm not going to complain about the fact that this is the only thing we get for a chorus as I think a song like this can get away with it, and for that matter the lyrics aren't to bad, neither is the music video for that matter although I think the imagery can be obvious at times. Really my biggest gripe with this song is the fact that they spliced in the auto-tuned sample of "I'm Wide Awake" in between the song, which is an issue with good songs as well, such as Enya's "Diamonds on the Water" with that song's obnoxious sound effect.
At the very least, I don't think this song is to hypocritical, unlike so other filth that I know.
5. Ur So Gay (2007)
Umm... Wow! The title really says a lot huh. From the singer who gave us "I Kissed a Girl" and "Firework" comes a song that uses Gay as an insult towards some kind of hipster dude.
I think I could really leave it at that, but let's also talk about the music. It's pretty much her making an indie folk-rock song, which may have worked out to her favour (As this was a promotional single), if it was released in the 2010s, after the rise of groups like Mumford and Sons and The Lumineers. Really I can't say more because this song's problem can really be summed up by the title alone.
4. Birthday (2014)
If Katy Perry sang this at my Birthday, I'd throw her down a well.
The first problem with this song is that I can tell it's trying desperately hard to be a good party song, something to play at a dance show or God forbid a teen's birthday. However, the problem is that there are most likely millions of better songs to play, but one of those better songs is already a Katy Perry song, called "Hot n Cold" which I recommend over this. The next problem is that Katy tries to sound happy and energetic, but sounds more winded and forcing joy than anything else. That really is the biggest problem with this song, never mind the less than subtle lyrics and "metaphors" that don't fool anybody into thinking this actually a birthday song, it's just obnoxious and a bad party song.
Also don't play this for my birthday.
3. E.T. (ft. Kanye West) (2011)
I don't think this song is even Katy Perry's fault. Don't get me wrong she doesn't do this song any favours, but I think the reason for this song being so bad falls mostly on Kanye here, who proves he can be as good as a rapper as Vanilla Ice. Aside from his nasally, "I am pretty much a God" opening, he also has a verse before the song ends, which is slightly more tolerable than the opening verse he has, just slightly. Without Kanye here the song would really just be a boring mess that wouldn't have gotten anybody's attention.
2. Dark Horse (ft. Juicy J) (2013)
I think this is without a doubt, the most boring Katy Perry song I have ever heard. The beat is slow and dull, Katy Perry sounds half asleep in the normal verses, and the lyrics are either generic love song or generic break-up song. And speaking of the lyrics, what are they even about, cause at one point she wants you to make her your Aphrodite, which also makes me question why she went with the Egyptian motif instead of a Greek one, and the chorus claims she'll be coming at you like a dark horse. What dark horse is she referring to? Airon? Hengroen? The Trojan Horse? or maybe one of the horses that the ghost riders chase the devil's heard on.
Forgetting Katy Perry's confusing lyrics, Juicy J has a guest verse. I've never heard of Juicy J before this, and quite frankly I don't want to hear anymore. He makes references to Jeffery Dahmer, somebody that no pop song should allude to, much less even name drop. Other than any of that, this song is boring.
Before I reveal my most hated song, I want to go through a few honourable mentions: 1. Roar (2013)
It's pointless and annoying, but I didn't think it was terrible, just kind of background noise more than anything.
2. Firework (2010)
Katy can not get high notes, and that is nowhere else showcased better than this song, but the meaning isn't too bad and the music video is alright.
3. Unconditionally (2013)
This one was just meh, but it was when the chorus hit that it really annoyed me.
5. Rise (2016)
Maybe this wasn't the best pick, for my first Auditory Abomination, but I still think that it's a terrible song. It's mostly just dull and boring and offers nothing that you can't get out of any other song by any other artist.
Alright enough stalling.
1. This is How We Do (2014)
You know what kind of songs I really hate? The songs that are, "My life is perfect", or "this is a special day for me", these kind of songs just say, "look at me, aspire to be me" and it's just obnoxious. This isn't even a good version of that song. The faux-dubstep beat starts off really annoying and is coupled with an even more annoying, random auto-tune sample that repeats the song's title over and over again. The lyrics are pretty much just listing things that are most likely everyday occurrences for Katy because after the "verses" (Which really remind me of the intro to Pickle and Peanut) the song kind of drops for a bridge where she says "It's no big deal", which makes me question, if this stuff is not a big deal, than why did you not only make a song essentially about them, but also make it a single?
Also, the chorus itself is pretty much repeating the title with a "Do-Do" in place of actual lyrics. I know very few music artists that can get away with "la-las", "Do-dos", or "bah-bahs" instead of using actual lyrics, and the lyrics to this song suck.
Somehow this song is both the most annoying Katy Perry song, and the most bland. I might not be a fan of "Wide Awake" but at least it wasn't boring.
I'm the Entity of Darkness and next time, I'm doing an Ace Audio.
It's now or later. Honestly I'd much rather choose later.
I hate this song, despise it, loathe it, with the passion of every god of war summoned forth to wage war against every god of death. I hate it that much.
The whole song can really just be summed up as, "Oh look a cute guy, here's my number, call me!" That's it, that is the extent of the lyrical content, but then again I also like songs with just as shallow if not shallower lyrics, I mean "Lights" by Ellie Goulding is just about her having a fear of the dark, "Animal" by Neon Trees is kind of a love song at a rave and John Cage's "4'33" is literally silence, it is a piece of post-modernism that gives those snobs that pay thousands of dollars for someone painting a goddamn line on paper to talk about.
However what sets those three songs apart is that they all had some good quality about them, "Lights" is a pretty fun dance song and Ellie Goulding has a good voice, and "Animal" is also a good party song that also has good instrumentals. "Call Me Maybe" has neither of these qualities, it is not a good dance number because it does not sound naturally energetic, and I might not be a big fan of Dubstep, but I can give it this, by design it sounds naturally energetic.
When I say "Naturally Energetic" I mostly mean if the music itself sounds like there is energy behind it, some pop songs like "Safe and Sound" and "One More Time" are not perfect songs, but they have a form of energy that makes them fun party songs, where as a song "Roar" or "Come and Get it" not only don't sound like that, but they also don't have a good beat to dance to. I mean, how are you supposed to dance and have fun to a song that sounds like if Daft Punk was a group of pre-teen girls? Actually I take that back because if Daft Punk was a duo of pre-teen girls, that would sound better than this. What I'm saying is, I like Daft Punk, a lot.
Of course annoyingly generic beat aside what is also important to a song is the singer, some songs that could've been amazing like pretty much anything off of "Surrealistic Pillow" by Jefferson Airplane have been ruined because of the singer and Carly here is not a good singer. I mean, I have heard even worse singers like Peter Cetera, Scott Stapp, Katy Perry etcetera, and yes Carly Rae doesn't make my top ten list of worst singers, but she does not do this song any favours.
You know what she reminds me of, one of those Katy Perry wannabes and I'll get to one of them later, I have a list. Yeah, when a singer reminds me of one of my most hated artists, that is not a good sign.
I can just stand barely over a minute and a half of this song, and it made me feel like I had a lobotomy with a Spork and a pair of chopsticks. The fact that this song is three minutes is torture, and it really makes me wish I was in the 1950s when pop music was on average two minutes in length.
This song is just fluff and no real substance, and fluff is fine but there has to be something to hold on to because fluff doesn't hold on it's own very well.
And to top of the blasphemy, I got into a comment war over somebody who said that Carly Rae was a better music artist than Rush, you know the band that put Canadian music on the map, that Rush. Well, at the very least I only have one more pop princess to deal with and...
What? Chicago is fronted by a man?
I'm the Entity of Darkness, and next time I'm posting an album review on my other blog.
New blog, yeah! I thought that even though I enjoy listening to albums, I will run out eventually, plus listening to songs is just easier, so I have decided to just review songs I don't like. Welcome to Auditory Abominations, because Todd in the Shadows does not upload weekly.
To Start this blog series, I decided to look at the music artist I despise the most, Katy Perry. Katy Perry to me is the opposite of a music artist, nothing about her seems to be natural in anyway, her voice, her songs, her outfits, it's like she took a bunch of aspects from other, better artists and poorly sewed them on her own image. Of course, I will cover other songs by artists I don't like, such as Creed or Chicago, but I think it's wise to discuss why I don't like Katy Perry, and the song "Rise".
Now for all of those who want to hear the song I put it above so you can listen for yourself although sometimes I have no clue why you would want to. Also I should mention that it is okay if you like any of these songs, I am not here to judge you as a fan or person, just the song.
With that said, the song itself is just a slow Katy Perry song about, rising above the situation. A simple concept, but the execution of the song is the real problem. This isn't the best song to show Katy Perry's weaknesses, but this does showcase a good chunk of her worse problems, such as her voice. Katy Perry may have power and a presence with her voice, but that is nothing impressive. If you want a female singer that has vocal power, I recommend listening to "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane or Heart's cover of "Stairway to Heaven". That actually is my biggest problem with a lot of pop music, it has to be restrained as safe to appeal to a mass audience, but it can't be to safe by hiding behind metaphors. So often pop music has no real defined sound, which is often why I prefer rock and metal myself, as those genres have defined sounds, it is not a metal song without showing off the strengths of the instrumentalists.
Katy Perry's "Vocal Power" is pretty much just singing a bit louder than before, I mean say what you will about Lady Gaga, but she actually has vocal power, which you can hear in a song like "Edge of Glory", so Katy Perry really doesn't have a whole lot of vocal power, which is fitting because Katy Perry is also a pretty boring singer. In this song especially, she sounds like she's tired and forcing a lot of her singing, which really means she should probably take a brief break from music.
The music itself doesn't help matters either, as it is a simple pop-tronic beat, you know one of those faux dubstep-ish beats that tries to be a dance beat, but is over shadowed by other, better dance songs like Ellie Goulding's "Lights", plus who the hell would dance to this slow, boring, dull, kind of downer of a song?
This is not my most hated Katy Perry Song but I think overall it's just a dull, boring mess of auto-tune and generic pop-tronic beats. However, I will give it this, this is not the worst song I've ever heard.
I'm the Entity of Darkness and this song sucks, the end.
