Ace Audio: "Always Something There to Remind Me" - Naked Eyes

With my last post talking about two songs that really show the power of music, I thought it would be fitting to talk about a song that, while may not be a classic, really resonates with me on a personal level. I remember the first time I heard this song was when I got a compelation CD of 80's British classics from my step-dad, although it was not the last song on the disc, I usually stopped the CD after it.

Although the song begins with a fast percussion beat, it really starts with a nice ringing of bells and a musical style that accompanies this. This is interesting because the bells could be Church bells, signifying a wedding, a funearl or the passage of time, and neither are surprisingly the less cheery option as you will find as the song goes on.

Lyrically, the singer is remembering someone, most likely somebody he loved. Whether they just drifted apart or if worse happened, it's not clear, but what is clear is that the memory remains, in a sense she'll always be a part of him.

That is the part that resonates with me the most, and this is where the song becomes an Ace Audio for me. This is going to get a little personal.

You see, as a child I moved to three different schools, and I spent the longest time at the second one, that's where I met a lot of friends. Even though it has been literal years, possibly even a full decade since I've last seen them, I'm always going to remember them, my time with them has become mere memory to me, but they are very strong memories and I could never forget them.

I guess this song really brings forth the memories of my friends and the things we did. Although I have made more friends in the past, some of which may be stronger than my friends of childood, I can never let the memory go, and I personally don't want to.

This is what makes the song special to me, and I know that the point of the song is not what I ascribe to it, but that is what the song means to me, and isn't the interpretation of the listener just as valid as the interpretation of the writer?

To give you an idea of how personal this song is to me, it's currently in my top ten favourite songs of all time. To give you some perspective, "Tom Sawyer", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Octavarium" and "Stairway to Heaven" are also in my top ten, they all rank higher than this song yes, but they are still in my personal favourite songs list.

That really goes to show the power that music has, it makes me remember things, feel things, learn things. Music is the mixture of writing, performace and audience centered art, and this is in my opinion, one of the songs that perfectly captures that. It is not a perfect song, hey, it might not even be a good song, but I would be lying if I said it isn't a personal favourite.

I'm te Entity of Darkness, and it's fitting that this is the end to my Ace Audio mini-marathon.

Ace Audio: "Forplay/Long Time" and "More Than a Feeling" - Boston

When this decade ends I plan on doing a worst songs list, this is because there are a lot of songs that I don't think I can really talk about on this blog on their own. I'm telling you this because I also plan to work backwards through the decades and do best and worst songs for each, and there will be two decades that will be near impossible to actually rank properly when it comes to the best list, and those are, unsurprisingly, the 1970s and the 1980s, although, the 70s wil probably be the easier of the two. It's not hard to imagine what songs would make my list of the best songs of the 70s. The 70s was a decade where everything was recorded, Punk Rock, Progressive Rock, Disco, Heavy Metal, and Arena Rock, which I am not the biggest fan of, but there are the songs I think everybody needs to hear, and Boston has two completely amazing songs that everybody needs to hear, and those are "More Than a Feeling" and "Foreplay/Long Time", and the latter is my favourite of the two.

Why is it my favourite of the two? Because of the god damn intro. Holy damn, this is how you begin a song. The escelating keyboard opens this song beautifully, and when the guitars kick in, oh man. Really, the whole song is worth t, just for the intro with the amazing keyboard and guitar work, and the drum work is also nothing to scoff at either. This could have been the whole song and I doubt anybody would have compalined. This is the "Foreplay" part of the song, it only searves to get us pumped for the "Long Time" part. It starts with an amazing guitar, it's so energized and just real. There is a lot of passion in just the guitar work alone that it sounds so, beautiful.

Although the "Foreplay" part is my favourite, the "Long Time" part is also really interesting. It's not easy to pin down what this song is about. The line "Well, I'm takin' my time, I'm just movin' on/You'll forget about me after I've been gone"  always makes me think though, will I be remembered if I'm gone? Not even in death but like, when I leave school, when I leave the city, when I leave my home, will I be remembered. It really goes to show the strength of music to bring such thoughts to my head, even if it is just one lyric.

But, I said two songs that everybody needs to hear, and the other one may just be a perfect example of a rock song, alongside "All Along the Watchtower" or "A Day in the Life", yes, "More Than a Feeling" is one of those masterpiece songs that I try not to talk about a lot, but I want to look at what makes this song a masterpiece.

Well, let's begin with that beautiful fade in. The guitar fading in really works and gets you intrigued in the song. It's not a song that quickly goes into the fast and harsh instrumentals though, as even the opening vocals are calm and smooth. It's at the end of the first set of lyrics that the song goes into a more rock volume, but even then it sounds nice, I can not do the instrumentals on either of these songs justice, I reccomend you listen to them yourselves.

I also really love the chorus, I mean, damn is that a chorus I'll be humming or what? It's so simple and yet so powerful at the same time, and that really shows the power of music as well. Both these songs showcase the inherint power in amazing music, that is part of the reason I actually started to look at songs I liked too, because these are songs that not only resonate with me, but also showcase some of the best music has to offer, from a really important song to a song that is just really good, to a masterpiece like this, there is just something magical about music that makes it, as this song goes, more than a feeling.

This song is about the power a good song has, at in the song itself the narrator sings about the memories and thoughts he has when the song plays. It lets me think about the songs that have strong emotions or memories attacthed to them, it's like how I'm never going to listen to David Bowie's "Let's Dance" without thinking of DDR, or how I'm not going to listen to "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" without thinking about that Daft Hands video, or "Living in the Sunlight" without thinking about SpongeBob, these kinds of memories I have made with the music I listen to in some respects make the songs stronger.

These two songs really show off what kind of power music has, and that is what I really love about the medium. Music is a showcase of thoughts, emotions, feelings and stories told within rhythm, harmony and the playing of instruments, and I want to highlight, if not the best, than some of my favourite songs.

I'm going to leave you with a playlist of some of my favourie songs, there are over 300 as of this blog writting, and yes, that is my real username, don't bring it up. By the way, this playlist works a lot better when you shuffle the order around: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtYQf8cnBeCXebDofDyLLeWcwiMW3WBgI

I want to know, what are some songs that resonate with you, either because of memories, feelings or emotions, even if it's a song I can't stand, I still want to know what you see within the song and why it resonates with you.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, see, told you it was my username, and I would like you to comment about what songs resonate with you.

Ace Audio: "Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)" - Scatman John

There are two decades that have some of the weirdest music, the first and obvious is the 1980s, I have done a marathon of 1980s songs and still did not cover some of the weirder songs. The next is the 1990s, although this was more for different reasons than the 1980s. Weird in the 1990s was more the odd one-off hits that were popular for a while but faded as the time went by, see the Latin dance craze for more proof of that. To put this in perspective, in 1996 the number one hit song of the year was "Macarena", it beat out "One Sweet Day" at #2, "You Oughta Know" at #29, and "1979" at #44. Actually, it was a remix that topped the charts, the actual "Macarena" only made #98, six spots below "Until it Sleeps" by Metallica. The 90s were weird, and in the midst of Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, and Hanson, is it any wonder that this is one of the better decades for music? Yeah, there was garbage, but there was Grunge, Heavy Metal became more experimental giving us Marilyn Manson and Rammstein, Daft Punk released Homework, also we got Garbage, and we also got this song, which is one of the best songs released in the 1990s.

This is a Hip-hop, Dance Pop song sung mostly in Scat, only in the 90s right? For those who don't know, Scat is a singing style that is mostly nonsensical and random syllables and improvised melodies. Scat has a long history, dating back to Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway if not further. But don't worry, if that still confuses you, the song itself starts with a good portion of it.

Even though the opening is Scat, as is a lot of the song, the song itself is not A Capella, there is a synth riff in there and it sounds great. You know "Axel F", well the synth is kind of like that in sound, as in the sound of the synth itself, the actual synth beats are different, but are still energetic and upbeat. The drums in the background also keep a nice discernible rhythm and the Scat singing is actually really catchy. If you want to make a dance song, this is a good song to learn how to do openings.

The song really kicks in around the 21 second mark, and this is where the song becomes really difficult to talk about, since a large portion of the instrumentals are Scat singing, and it is already difficult to describe instrumentals in the first place, this becomes an extra challenge. However, to put this simply, the Scat singing changes in beats and tone and becomes even more upbeat than before, and catchier as well.

Now the lyrics kick in, and if the song itself wasn't awesome before, well it's definitely awesome now. You see, Scatman John was a stutterer, think The King's Speech if that helps. However, singing actually takes place in a different part of the brain from normal talking, so this did not really have much negative effects on his career, and the Scat singing may have actually helped his career. I bring this up because, one, it is amazing to know, and two the first actual lyrical verse is well... "Everybody stutters one way or the other /So check out my message to you /As a matter of fact, I don't let nothin' hold you back /If the Scatman can do it, so can you".

You remember what I said in my "Johnny B. Goode" review, where I said that even though the song had one set of lyrics that meant one thing, the song itself could actually become kind of inspiring? It's kind of the same for this song, it's pretty much saying, "I can do this, so can you", and it is really encouraging.

There are other lyrics, but honestly, I don't think I could explain them if I tried, so I'm not going to bother, which is good because it will let you come to your own conclusions about the song.

Of course, between each bit of the lyrics we get some more really upbeat and really catchy Scat singing and damn does this become one of the most energetic songs ever, seriously this could easily make my list of best party songs.

Honestly, I think that is all I can really say about this song. It's funky, fun and oh so catchy. I seriously mean it, you will be humming the beat to this song after you hear it, it's that catchy. On top of that the instrumentals themselves add to the upbeat tone of the song, and the vocals are solid, not the smoothest, but they are rather nice.

Well, I think next time I'm going to look at a classic, I'm the Entity of Darkness and keep watch, next time I'm thinking about Boston.

Ace Audio: "Stronger Than You" from Steven Universe

This is going to be tricky, Steven Universe is currently my favourite show of all time. I love it's characters, animation, music, even many of the arcs are interesting, but that is not what will make this tricky. You see, when I reviewed that awful SpongeBob song, the largest problem with that song was that it took away from the episode, things that could have made the episode stronger. This song is almost the exact opposite of that, it adds to the episode and adds to the character that is singing it. So, here is my compromise, I will first discuss the song on it's own merits, since this is a song review blog, however, I will also talk about what makes this song work within the episode after all of that, so if you have not seen Steven Universe and you are so interested in it, then let that be your spoiler warning, if you are curious but not to much, well I will still ruin a lot of the surprise of this episode, but hopefully I'll get you interested. Although this is no longer my favourite song from Steven Universe, I may get to my favourite eventually, this was my favourite for the longest time, and I want to do it proper justice.

A large chunk of what makes this song awesome is Garnet, I just love her character in the show, and her awesomeness can be heard in quite honestly, the first line of the song, it shows her determination where the animation alongside the song can show her overall attitude.

I think there is one thing that makes this song work is also Garnet's singing voice, this may be because Estelle does her voice, oh who am I kidding? It is because Estelle does her voice, and I just love her voice.

The instrumental accompaniment is very nice, Steven Universe uses music quite strongly in the series and it can really show-off the best in a musical segment, this is the reason this is not my favourite song in the show, that would be "Here Comes a Thought" because it's music and vocal work were honestly stronger, but in this song, the music itself surprisingly works. I say that because it is not a track you would consider putting on to fight, it begins softly and escalates, but it uses strings rather than full club/house beats or rock, and it sounds nice and different.

The lyrics are going to be tricky to talk about because a lot of them work when you consider the rest of the show and episode, on it's own the song might give you some idea of what happened, but it really becomes stronger when you watch the whole episode. However, there are some lines that are just awesome on their own as well, including the sickest of sick burns "But I think you're just mad 'cuz you're single".

Yeah, but to really elaborate, this song really works because of what happened preceding it. In other words, this is where the spoilers start.

Garnet is not really one person, she is a fusion of two other gems, and this kind of fusion on the gem homeworld is not accepted. Essentially, the lyrics are Garnet saying to Jasper (the orange one), this is who I am, and you can't change me. That is basically said in the song as well, although only half of it was said directly.

I think my only major complaint about this song is that, it technically is an entire episode sub-plot, as you also see Steven save Amethyst and Pearl and have their own confrontation with Peridot. Although this doesn't interrupt the "funky flow" of the song itself, but if you're listening to this song on it's own it does kind of become a little annoying.

Honestly though, that is an issue that can be easily fixed by getting the song from somewhere other than the show, and it is a problem that a lot of music videos have as well. Overall, there really is not that much of an issue with this song, and it goes to show not only how well music can be implemented in any show, not just a cartoon, but it also gives no excuse to people who think they don't need to try because they're writing for a TV Show, much less a cartoon.

I honestly wish I could say more about the song, but this is what it is, a simple song. It is not as lyrically complex as "Take Me to Church", musically interesting as "Road of Resistance", nor as iconic as "Take on Me", but if you're expecting any of that, you are going to be let down. For what this song is, it is pretty amazing, and I may get to "Here Comes a Thought" some other time.

Steven Universe is my favourite show for many reasons, not the least of which is the music, and this song is a good example as to why.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I am so sorry this one was late, I'll make it up by doing a mini Ace Audio marathon, with my next song being a lot of scat... That did not sound right, it's "Scatman" next.

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.