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.
The 1970s, in my opinion, is the best decade for music, sure the 60s refined a lot of musical genres and the 80s was just a powerhouse of amazing music, but the 1970s was both. It was the decade that defined Heavy Metal, Progressive Rock, Soul, Funk, R&B, and also Soft Rock, and at the same time we had some pretty awesome bands from Queen to Earth Wind and Fire. What made the 70s amazing was not only that there was a lot of good stuff, but the best stuff was amazing, I could make a top 50 of the best songs of the 1970s and I would still make some very tough choices, I mean seriously, it's tough deciding between Alice Cooper and Boston now try to decide between them and at least twenty-five other amazing bands.
Now, the 70s is a lot like our modern era, the best stuff was really damn awesome, and the worst stuff is pretty mediocre at best. This decade was not immune from crap, and quite frankly, people who say that music from their generation was better, in some respects yes, but I would much rather listen to generic modern EDM than kitschy 70s soft and light rock. The thing is, the big selling genre of this decade was not only disco, in fact it might not even have been disco, it was mostly soft and light rock, and unlike disco, it never went away, it only devolved into the white guy with an acoustic guitar. We've had some bad offenders from Chicago to Foreigner. Chicago may have been the worst offender, but this group comes close, The Starland Vocal Band, because you could not think of a name that didn't scream 70s light rock.
What do you expect from the opening instrumentals? Orchestral backing? Slow guitar strum? light tapping bass drums before the lyrics? Well, you are in luck because that is exactly the opening to this song, I couldn't make a more generic song opening if I tried. The singer also sounds like a generic light rock singer, like if Bob Dylan didn't have any nasal. I really should stop picking on Dylan, but seriously, this is the kind of voice I would imagine Bob Dylan would have if there was no nasal in his singing voice.
the song was written to be enjoyable and hint at sex, and when I say hint at sex, I mean in the 70s, this is not the kind of song you could record today and not have it be shocking. Sex has become one of those things that was Taboo but no longer is because of the internet, so now songs that hint about sex are as good as songs that explicitly have sexual language in the lyrics. Also, some of these lyrics are pretty blatant, like "Rubbing sticks and stones together make the sparks ignite/ And the thought of rubbing you is getting so exciting", those are actual lyrics from the song. I can't really say that I'm to surprised that this got passed censors in the 1970s when "Pour Some Sugar on Me" got passed them in the 1980s. "Pour Some Sugar on Me" is actually a song that is better than this because of it's pseudo explicit lyrics, though both songs have lyrics less explicit than something like "A.D.I.D.A.S.", but are more explicit than "Get Lucky" which also got rather explicit at times.
There are also times that the songs tempo just drops and all the band members sing together. I really have no idea why, but they are pretty dull, even when compared to the rest of the song. There are also times the song repeats the song title again, I guess in place of an actual chorus, some trends never die I guess.
I really can't recommend this song on any merits. I can't think of any reason you would play this song un-ironically, when there are other, better songs for the exact same occasions. It's dull, not very interesting, not explicit enough by todays standards, and quite frankly a bit to explicit for the time, at least until the 1980s when "Physical" came out, but that is for a different review. there is no reason for this song to exist either, because not three years prior, we got "Let's Get it On" by master of being smooth Marvin Gaye which let's face it, is a song that sets the mood better than any other song.
I'm the Entity of Darkness, and listen to "Pour Some Sugar On Me" instead of this.
How is there another one? I did Pat Boone cover heavy metal, how is there another lounge music artist that covers heavy metal? It...I just...I
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, calming down, you may be wondering who this doofy guy in the tiger striped tux is. Well, this is Richard Cheese, a parody lounge singer, who does covers of hard rock, heavy metal and hip-hop songs. Also, say what you will, but at least I could see a lounge cover of songs like "Stairway to Heaven" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy", but "Chop Suey!"? "Closer"? and this? You would have to be a mastermind to not screw it up.
The song begins with piano and cymbals, which make me think this was made in the 50s, but no, this is current, this was made in 2000. Now, like I said when I did review Pat Boone's awful "Smoke on the Water" cover, I mentioned that a good cover song should at least have the tone of the original, or have a tone that better fits the song, see Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt" for an example of the latter. "Guerrilla Radio" is a fast, rough track that is from a band called Rage Against the Machine, emphasis on the band name being RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE. A lounge act is not the best to cover a song like this is what I'm saying.
Everything awesome about the original track, like Zack De La Rocha's rap-rock vocals, and Tom Morello's guitar work are completely scrapped on the song to be replaced by smooth crooning that would make Frank Sinatra vomit, and instrumentals that sound right at home in the background of a fancy dinner party.
And remember the awesome chorus? With the breakdown and Zack just screaming "Lights Out/ Guerilla radio!" with the awesome guitars and drum work, yeah that is awesome. So how does the cover handle it? by not having a breakdown, having the instrumentals be exactly the same as they were in the main part of the song, singing in the same tone as the rest of the song and also singing them as slowly as possible. I mean, if I have not found a song that is the exact opposite of what it was trying to cover than I don't know what I've found.
Oh yeah, and the band name, that is not me poking fun at them, that is there actual band name, it sounds like somebody put up a sign telling people to not lean against the active machine and part of the sign broke off.
I have never heard a song that was both infuriating and really boring at the same time, I just can't believe that there are two awful lounge singers who covered heavy metal classics. Well, at least it stops with this guy, I have not heard any other cover artists like him. Also, why don't people actually cover metal songs that would make nice orchestral lounge songs, like "I Walk Beside You" or "Mr. Crowley"?
Well, I'm the Entity of Darkness, and next time, something else I should have done a while ago.
Considering my previous posts, I figured it was time for me to do a song that I liked. Pat Boone was a lot worse than I thought he would be and I really don't feel like doing another Auditory Abomination for now. Listening to good music really helps me relax after an atrocity of a song like Pat Boone's "Smoke on the Water", it often gets me into a mindset to do an Abomination.
The song begins with one of the greatest drum lines in heavy metal history. This drum line is up there with songs like "Your Betrayal" and "L'Enfant Sauvage", and it is followed by a great opening riff. The opening of this song is awesome, it really does give of a fantasy sound, which yeah, Rainbow was one of the first Power Metal bands. They focused a lot more on fantasy inspired lyrics and lighter guitar work. People often point to Dio as the influential Power Metal band, especially with the album Holy Diver, but I would choose Rainbow.
And hey, speaking of Dio, that is indeed Ronnie James Dio on vocal work. This was the band he did after Elf but before Black Sabbath. As usual his vocal work is incredible, especially those long notes, hot damn I would kill to have a singing voice like Dio's, it's just so majestic, it invokes power, royalty and force, there is no doubt why he is one of the greatest heavy metal vocalists of all time.
I think my favourite thing about the song as a whole is the story within the lyrics. The song is about this group of workers who build this large tower of stone for this wizard who believes he can fly. The lyrics really do focus on the hardship of it all, with the chorus having lyrics like "In the heat and the rain/With whips and chains/Just to see him fly/So many died", it really hits home how rough the situation must be for the workers. Although, I have learned a little interesting thing about the construction of the pyramids, which was probably an inspiration for this song, apparently the construction of the pyramids was seen as holy work and it was a great honour to build them, maybe that is the same thing here.
Although, much like with "Octavarium" my favourite part of the whole is not my favourite piece. My favourite piece of the song if the guitar solo. Oh sweet Dio on a throne of gold and holy fire surrounded by succubi this solo kicks ass. It's just jaw dropping, sometimes when I hear it, I can imagine myself flying over a forest away from a cascading waterfall beneath an orange sky with a flaming rainbow to top it all off. When it ends, I just see the entire scene that the song set up, the large tower of stone, the stargazer, the workers, the dead bodies with their corpses destroyed by heat and rain. The imagery of this song is very clear, you can just picture all of the parts of the scene, and each vision is different, I myself often see the seen in a forest, but another may see it in a desert, or a mountain, I don't think very many other songs do this, create images that are different to other people, the song gives enough details to make the scene easy enough to picture, but not too much as to be overtly specific.
The song ends with a bit of a downer, there is a good metaphor in this song. The tower is built, as high as it can go and the wizard jumps, but instead of rising, he falls and dies. He had a vision, a dream and he went for it, but failed, or alternatively, he had all of this power and influence and it ultimately lead to his demise. Not a whole lot of songs I know of have these different interpretations, I mean I know people can interpret any song different from another, but with a song like "Purple Haze" there was really only two meanings attributed to the song, and then there are songs like "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Loser" that are given meaning without actually having any. Personally, I see it as the latter, the wizard had all of this power, all this influence and he believed what he was doing was for the greater good or was essentially a holy quest, but what happened was he plummeted towards the ground and had no more power or influence, a metaphor for falling out of power and the danger of gaining to much of it, but that's just my interpretation of it.
I don't know what else I have to say, this is one of my favourite songs of all time, up somewhere in my top 20, top 15 at least. Everything about this song works, from the guitar, to the drums, to the vocals, to the lyrics to everything. What I would give to see this live.
I'm the Entity of Darkness, and Dio, Rock in Peace man. \m/
Considering my last post, I felt like I needed something a bit simpler to cover for this abomination before I went back to doing more unbearable garbage, and I didn't think I could get simpler than Pat Boone.
Pat Boone is a different kind of bad, a bad that is not pure lack of talent like Katy Perry, unbearable awfulness like Foreigner or gross levels of assholery like Axl Rose. No, Pat Boone is a different kind of abomination. I could've gone with any Pat Boone song, but I decided to go with his cover of the hard rock and heavy metal classic "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple, because yes, there is a level of blasphemy you didn't think was possible.
Now, before I tear into the abomination of a cover, I want to talk about Pat Boone and why I don't like him. As I said it's not that he lacks talent, and I can understand why people enjoy his music, although it personally makes my skin crawl. No, to really understand I want to take you back to the 1950s, where it was still legal to cater to only white people.
The 50s was the decade in which rock and roll was emerging, and it was mostly coming from the up tempo Chicago blues scene from the late 40s with guys like B. B. King, Muddy Waters and Elmore James. Now, roll in the 1950s with a decent economy and people buying records from some of these black artists. Now marketers got the idea to appeal to conservative parents by selling them watered down versions of "Tutti Frutti", "Long Tall Sally" and "Ain't That a Shame".
That is really why Pat Boone is here, but at the same time it's why he's been popular in the 50s, because conservative America ate it right up. It wasn't as "vulgar" as Elvis, nor as wild as Jerry, but at the same time it was no Bing Crosby, or Frank Sinatra or anyone with a voice and talent.
Which brings me to Pat's 90s release, In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy, where he decided to cover hard rock and heavy metal classics such as "Paradise City", "Crazy Train", "Holy Diver", "Enter Sandman" and of course "No More Mr. Nice Guy" among others, yes this is a thing. Sad thing is he also got metal legends Ronnie James Dio, Ritchie Blackmore and Alice Cooper by his side with this.
Really, all of that would be enough to justify it being an abomination, but nope, this song has to be as wretched as a Buckcherry song, with twice the unbearableness of it all.
But the thing is, I can't actually put my finger on what I find so wretched about this song. I mean, I have found some songs pretty bad that other people enjoy, I have plenty of those coming up, but this is just awful. It's taking a heavy metal song and making it more jazz and gospel like which would be fine, I like Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra and a lot of the other crooners, but this just makes me shudder. I think it's because the entire tone is changed, the original was rough, uncut and almost punk rock sounding, this was because the song was about a fire burning down a casino where the band was originally going to record, so the tone had to be rough and unclean to match. This one just kind of makes it smoother, which does not work for the meaning of the song, it's like taking "The Sound of Silence" and making it an electro-pop tune, some songs work only in specific genres and "Smoke on the Water" works as a hard rock song, not as a lounge jazz tune.
This is one of the worst songs I've ever heard. Yes, alongside some of the other garbage I've done on this blog, alongside "Call Me Maybe" which made me want to pop in the video tape from The Ring, but this made me wish death upon humanity. I don't hate this style of music, but that's because a lot of the music works for that style. This song does not, and quite frankly, Pat Boone is not the best person to even cover a song like "Smoke on the Water" in this style.
I'm the Entity of Darkness and let's forget this ever happened.
Where are the songs from Steven Universe when I need them?
Okay, so disregarding this total breakdown of not wanting to do such an abomination, let's talk about Dorbees, because this is a fascinating lost relic of awful animations. It was made by the son of one of the members of a Christian gospel group. I don't honestly know if these song were written by the group, but I think they were sung by them. Either way I'm not crediting this to anyone, because I don't think they want to have these songs on their discography. This animated waste of potential, has no Wikipedia page and barely has a page on IMDb, so if you want a good understanding of what this is here is the actual video, from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veVPWYNTj00
Of course, I'm not here to talk about the video, just the music, but I will say this; it is awful. Seriously, I've seen very few things that was this level of crap, the animation is awful, the storytelling is all wonky, the plots make no sense, the characters are lifeless, and the songs themselves range from bad to so bad that I actually kind of like them. If you have seen the video, you may think that the songs are the best part of it, and yeah they are, but that does not mean they aren't crap.
This came out the year I was born, so I didn't grow up with it, I instead grew up with what this was ripping off, VeggieTales. Say what you want, but VeggieTales was actually really good, and it had some pretty great songs. This wanted to be VeggieTales, without understanding why VeggieTales worked. But I'm getting off topic, this is a song blog, not an animation blog.
So what better song to start with than the very first song in the video, the theme song!
It's sung in this kind of lounge music style. Where this song really falls apart are the lyrics. The first verse is fine, but the second verse is just confusing, what did the singer say? "Rolling to a crawl"?, "Roll unto a bowl"?, "Rolling to a ball"?, at least it's better than the intro to The Nutshack. Also, I should never hear the phrase "Tiny little balls" in the theme song of a kid's cartoon, that is the fourth verse after the bridge by the way. The bridge by the way, asks "Why don't they go away?". The theme song tells us nothing about the Dorbees, except that they are "Tiny little balls" and that eventually we're going to want the to go away, which can not be any truer. This is however, the highlight of our song selection.
Now the main reason I am not going to cover musicals on these blogs is because there is story in between the songs, but this one has simple stories that I can explain in less than a paragraph. So between the theme song and the next song is a beginning story about a Scandinavian dorbee that needs new clothes and goes to this "groovy, funky" clothing store run by a stereotypical disco dude.
This one definitely has a groove to it, something you can easily get down with on the dance floor. This one isn't too terrible, it's mostly just bland. It never really changes tone or gives us anything within itself. It really only serves as a space filler. Really the only thing decent about this song are the technicals, the vocal work is good and as I have stated prior there is a groove to this one. This is more middle of the road than anything else.
Following this story is another story about two children who skipped school and are about to enter a spooky house. Yes, they also get their own song.
This song is just awful, really bad, but honestly I kind of like it. I generally don't talk about stuff I like ironically on these blogs as I love and hate them, but this one really needs to be seen and heard to be believed. Although, unlike most songs I enjoy ironically, this one probably has the most issues. The first issue should be apparent before the song begins, the character singing should really not be singing. His voice is so nasally, it's like if Gary Oak from Pokémon decided to start a jazz group. The other issue is the lyrics. These two are, as stated in song, eight years old and their complaining about not having credit cards, beards or cars, yeah, because that was all I wanted when I was eight, not more Lego or a pet fish, a credit card and a car were all I wanted.
The other character has her own verse, this time the lyrics don't start of too bad, actually complaining about things that I can see children complaining about, things like having to curtsey and wear things in your hair, stuff that children would complain about. Granted they still aren't great lyrics, but still a step up from the previous stanza. The song ends with the strangest thing in this entire thing, and considering what's coming up next, that is saying a lot. It ends with rejected scraps from "Yellow Submarine" and then repeating the song's title. Overall, this one is probably the worst quality wise, but I love how bad it really is.
Following this song is the theme song to a German public access show about a superhero and his sidekick and their evil nemesis who is a French cow. The funny thing is you think I'm kidding! The funny thing is I am not kidding, why am I not kidding?
I do not know what to say about this one. The faux German accent and accordion music gets annoying very fast and the lyrics are just beyond basic, I get that is kind of the point, but just adds to the obnoxiousness of this song by making it a total ear worm. This one is the worst of them all, it is highly annoying and is entirely pointless as the entire segment did not need to be in the video, at all.
And to top of the story of the two kids skipping school, one more song to show that yes, these people should not quit their day job. Unfortunately I could not find any footage of this one, so if you want to hear it, the link to the whole video is still there, skip to about 31:58 in the video, the link is still up there if you need it.
Not only is this song entirely random, but it is barely audible. I have no clue what they are singing half of the time, although it sounds as though they are just repeating the same lines over and over again. This song serves nothing to the plot, comes right the hell out of nowhere, throws all logic out the window, is never mentioned afterwards in the epilogue, you know where this is going just show the card.
Yeah, one pointless flavoured Big Lipped Alligator Moment.
On top of the pointlessness and randomness, this song is pretty annoying. The vocal work is in such a pitch it's as if Peter Cetera, Tiny Tim, Barry Gibb and a gospel group of castrato singers were singing it. The Mr. Poe intro song is worse, but this one is the most pointless. Thankfully it's forgettable, which is probably why I can't find footage of the song itself.
So, what was the point of all this? Well, honestly I really wanted to talk about the songs in the piece of trash. I watched this about three times and it wasn't until the third time it really dawned on me how terrible the songs actually were. If I had to choose, my favourite of the bunch would be the "Digg's Duds" song as it has some groove to it and is probably the best song quality wise, sure it's bland and mostly there to fill up space, but it could've been a lot worse.
From that, the list goes like this:
The theme song - Still has some good qualities, but still pretty bad.
"I Wanna be Grown Up" - So bad it's good
"Mr. Poe and Yogul" intro - The worst quality wise, but not my least favourite.
The ending song - The most pointless, needless, forgettable, bland, obvious filler I've ever heard.
Really, this is kind of a testament to how bad a musical can get. I won't do musicals often on this blog, but if I find something with every song as bad as these, oh you better believe I'll be on it.
I'm the Entity of Darkness, and seriously, give this a watch if you're into "So bad, it's good" kind of stuff.
Rock is a shifting style of music. It changes to the times and can be reflective of different scenes, such as the pop scene. Mainstream rock has made some great songs popular, but at the same time, it has had its low points as well. From Starship in the 1980s to Nickelback and Creed of the 2000s. It was these kinds of awful mainstream rock garbage that I made this blog for. Growing up in the 2000s was the heyday of this kind of rock music, so thankful that I never actually listened to the radio until late 2000s, early 2010s.
The song opens up with one of the most generic instrumental openings I've ever heard. You know where the band plays some notes, then stops and plays again and stops before the frontman makes a vocal noise? Yeah, that is the kind of opening we get, because it worked for Metallica. This one doesn't even give us any interesting riffs or beats, it's just notes, nothing, notes, nothing. Granted the actual opening riff is not terrible, but a decent riff means nothing on it's own. I've heard songs that have had amazing riffs from groups that blow Buckcherry out of the water, many of them probably simpler than this.
The song goes downhill, as if there was a bit of uphill at the beginning, it goes downward faster with frontman Josh Todd's voice, sounding like Steven Tyler drank essence of Bob Dylan, and those are two vocalists I actually like. Vocals are not a main issue with a song, but the vocals here do this song no favours at all.
The lyrics are just smut, no other ways of putting it, they are find a beautiful girl and take her to bed lyrics because that is what people want to hear, you know, screw themes such as war, drugs, racism, and other deep meaningful themes. Okay, in all seriousness, I have enjoyed songs that have less theme than this, and I do despise songs that have deeper theme, but come on, you're just writing the background music to a teenage romantic comedy.
The chorus is a wreck, the lyrics have swearing, pretty much for the sake of it. "X for the sake of X" is one of my most hated clichés in music and in film. If you want to use something, like profanity or stuff like that, use it for things like emphasis, not for reasons like this, and there is another song that I'll get to with the same issue. Granted, some good songs do have excessive swearing, but there is a point to songs like "F**K You" or "This is the new Sh*t", and not really much point in a lot of the swearing in this song.
The guitar work during the chorus also sounds familiar. "Dah, dah-dah"..., aren't those the first beats off of "Back in Black"? I'm sure these are common beats to use, but this guitar work sounds way to much like AC/DC to really make me think otherwise.
Really that is the whole song in a nutshell, smut lyrics and meh instrumentals, except for a guitar solo that has more feedback than the cursed VHS Tape from "The Ring". It's followed by a breakdown of repeating the song's title because we ran out of lyrics. Screw it Strong Bad, songs that do this are far worse than songs that go "La-la", "Na-na", "Doo-doo" or whatever, I can name good songs that have those, I don't think I can name a good song that just replaces lyrics with the song's title.
This song disgusts me, not so much on the "Love Me" level but really up there. This song is nothing but smut lyrics that are just looking to shock for the sake of shocking, but I'm not shocked, and quite frankly I'm not even offended, I am just disgusted that a song like this was thought to be okay.
I'm the Entity of Darkness, and next time, I want to do something special, very special. Next time will be our first venture into the wonderful world of musicals and show tunes. Where are the Steven Universe songs when I need them?
I don't think it's going to surprise anyone that I'm not a huge fan of the modern rap and hip-hop scene. I understand the appeal of most of it, not all of it, but the genre is not really for me which is kind of ironic when you consider that rock and rap are not that dissimilar to each other. Of course as someone who loves music I am of course going to have to listen to some rap and there is a lot of it I enjoy, I enjoy 2Pac and Biggie and The Beastie Boys, but my favourite rap song has got to be this one.
Knowing my dislike towards the mainstream pop hits of the 2010s, especially in 2012 it's kind of surprising that this would be my favourite rap song, but it is, even taking into account rap-rock songs like "Walk This Way" and "Renegades of Funk".
The opening bit is really cool, sounding like a peaceful dream of floating on water. The muted sounds also give a bit of a contrast to it all, sounding almost haunting. It's kind of like something that would begin a psychedelic song from Jefferson Airplane or Pink Floyd. The beginning vocals sound very auto-tuned, but I think it's more an effect that kind of pushes forth the theme of the song.
The song is kind of looking back on Kendrick's life with the opening lyrics stating he grew up with an alcoholic and then going on to discuss why people drink, stating that some like the feeling of drinking their cares away and others think that it makes them fit in more. This also adds to his own issues, which leads to the chorus.
I really love the chorus, just thinking about the image of a swimming pool full of liquor can bring to me so many questions. I can't really add more to it other than the fact that I like the sounds of the chorus and the vocals, even though they sound auto-tuned.
The second verse is different from the first as it is Kendrick's consciousness speaking to him and him worrying about drowning in some poison, which can be a metaphor for many things, the booze, depression, stress, fear, peer pressure, all sorts of things.
The final verse is spoken almost in whispers, it gives it a kind of bleak sound, like there is no turning back to any thing. The song is kind of dark as it quickly de-escalates into a darker side than it began.
It is this kind of theme and tone that makes a song stand out from the other pop hits of the 2010s such as previously reviewed songs such as "Call Me Maybe" and "Starships" which are more generic upbeat happy songs that just blend together.
I'm the Entity of Darkness, and next time something I should have tackled sooner.
