Editorials
10 Moments In Songs That I Just Love
We all have those moments in songs that just speak to us. You know what I’m talking about, right? It’s that part of the song that you’re blasting in the car with a several of your friends and you make them all shut up so you can share that one special moment with them. Usually, it ends up with everyone staring at you, wondering what the hell you’re so excited about.
You know what? Screw ’em. You know what’s so special. You know what’s going on. And you’re gonna scroll back to hear that part again, whether they like it or not.
So, join me below as I share 10 Moments In Songs That I Just Love!
Note: The times I used were off my iTunes files, not the videos below.
1. Metallica – “Battery”: Drum Fill @ 3:59
Metallica is well known for Kirk’s blistering guitar solos and James’s punishing rhythm technique, not to mention his fantastic lyrics. But one member that keeps getting hatred tossed his way is drummer Lars Ulrich. Know what I think? I actually think he’s a great drummer. While he might not do incredibly flashy fills or off-tempo licks, he plays exactly what is needed to make each Metallica song incredibly infectious and headband worthy.
But in the Master Of Puppets track “Battery”, Lars shines, busting out one badass drum fill after another and putting forth blisteringly fast thrash beats. And my favorite part of the song is the drum fill that comes in after Kirk’s solo. I just can’t get enough of the fact that the first half of that fill has double bass blast beats that suddenly drop out to a snappy snare pattern. Something about that fill never gets old for me.
2. Leprous – “Mediocrity Wins”: Bass line @ 1:11
If I haven’t let you know about my love for Leprous enough yet, let me say once more: This band kicks my ass all over the place. I still blast Bilateral all the time and each listen adds something new that I haven’t heard before.
But one thing that I noticed the first time I played the album (and have loved ever since) is the funk bass line during “Mediocrity Wins”. It was so unexpected and so out there and yet it fits perfectly. Each time I hear it, my head starts bobbing along and I get this expression on my face that basically screams, “Damn, this is SICK!”
3. White Willow – “Hawks Circle”: Synth interlude @ 3:34
White Willow‘s Terminal Twilight is another album that I simply can’t get enough of. It’s full of fantastic 70’s synth prog goodness that often times reminds me of classic and terrifying horror scores.
Perhaps the moment that reminds of that the most is the synth interlude during “Hawks Circle”. Something about it is incredibly eerie yet hauntingly beautiful. Each time I hear it, my heart aches.
4. The Cure – “Lullaby”: Synth strings @ 3:03
I will never be ashamed of my love of 80’s music. And what better band to use as an example than The Cure and “Lullaby” from their legendary album Disintegration? My personal favorite moment are those synth strings that come in during the outro and remain until the song comes to a sharp close. Something about the pattern of the progression just gets me every time.
5. Karnivool – “Set Fire To The Hive”: Floor tom hits @ 1:11 (good one at 1:26)
This is another example of a part of the song that just gets me so pumped up that I want to start a mosh pit. The drums are straightforward and rhythmic, something that makes the verse a true headbanger. But the thunderous tom slams that are sprinkled throughout are what drive me crazy.
6. Deftones – “Digital Bath”: Digital raindrops @ 2:35
This song may very well be my favorite Deftones song. Something about it is so mysterious, so fierce, so desperate, and, oddly enough, so sexual. But those digital droplets that come before the final chorus are what seal the deal for me.
7. Lamb Of God – “King Me”: Extended scream @ 5:23
The first few times I heard “King Me”, I wanted more from the symphonic elements that Lamb Of God had brought it. But with each subsequent listen, the song became more and more powerful and epic. And Randy Blythe’s extended scream of “King me is killing me!” at the end sends shivers up and down my spine every time I hear it. It’s a frustrated, desperate plea that shocks and awes.
8. Pain Of Salvation – “Reconciliation”: Final soaring call @ 3:35
Pain Of Salvation is not an easy group to get into. I’ll admit, I still have trouble listening to some of their songs. It’s not that they’re beyond me, it’s just that I have to be in a very specific mood to enjoy them.
But “Reconciliation” is a song that I can listen to at damn near any time. In the space of just over four minutes, the song sweeps from heavy prog attacks to gentle, beautiful passages. But it’s Daniel Gildenlow that takes the cake in this song with his amazing, one breath call at the end. Seriously, if anyone tells you that there are no good singers in metal, just play them this track. Then, smack them.
Note: Bloody-Disgusting does not condone acts of violence.
9. Porcupine Tree – “Trains”: “La la la” segment @ 2:56
I blind bought In Absentia one day at my local MediaPlay (remember those?) simply because I loved the cover. Little did I know that I had just bought what would become one of my favorite albums of all time. While the first track, “Blackest Eyes”, didn’t really do anything for me at first, the second track “Trains” blew me away. It was one of those life-changing moments that we experience every great once in a while that we never forget.
On top of being a fantastic song, I credit the “La la la” segment towards the middle of the song as the first time that I really appreciated vocal harmonies, something I now absolutely adore. Each time I hear it, I am taken back 10 years ago to the day that I bought the album and ended up changing my view on music.
10. Opeth – “The Moor”: Multi-layered scream @ 3:27
If ever there were a more horrifying and devastating way to start the vocals in a song, please tell me of it. You see, Mikael Akerfeldt already has a terrifying death metal growl. When a legion of his growls are thrown at the listener, you are legitimately allowed to soil your underwear. Don’t worry, I did the first I heard it too.
Alright readers, those are 10 moments that I simply love and wanted to share with you. What are some of your favorite moments?
Got any thoughts/questions/concerns for Jonathan Barkan? Shoot him a message on Twitter or on Bloody-Disgusting!
Due to a complex series of anthropological mishaps, the Wayans Brothers are a huge deal in Brazil. Around these parts, White Chicks is considered a national treasure by a lot of people, so it stands to reason that Brazilian audiences would continue to accompany the Wayans’ comedic output long after North America had stopped taking them seriously as comedic titans.
This is the only reason why I originally watched Michael Tiddes and Marlon Wayans’ 2013 horror spoof A Haunted House – appropriately known as “Paranormal Inactivity” in South America – despite having abandoned this kind of movie shortly after the excellent Scary Movie 3. However, to my complete and utter amazement, I found myself mostly enjoying this unhinged parody of Found Footage films almost as much as the iconic spoofs that spear-headed the genre during the 2000s. And with Paramount having recently announced a reboot of the Scary Movie franchise, I think this is the perfect time to revisit the divisive humor of A Haunted House and maybe figure out why this kind of film hasn’t been popular in a long time.
Before we had memes and internet personalities to make fun of movie tropes for free on the internet, parody movies had been entertaining audiences with meta-humor since the very dawn of cinema. And since the genre attracted large audiences without the need for a serious budget, it made sense for studios to encourage parodies of their own productions – which is precisely what happened with Miramax when they commissioned a parody of the Scream franchise, the original Scary Movie.
The unprecedented success of the spoof (especially overseas) led to a series of sequels, spin-offs and rip-offs that came along throughout the 2000s. While some of these were still quite funny (I have a soft spot for 2008’s Superhero Movie), they ended up flooding the market much like the Guitar Hero games that plagued video game stores during that same timeframe.
You could really confuse someone by editing this scene into Paranormal Activity.
Of course, that didn’t stop Tiddes and Marlon Wayans from wanting to make another spoof meant to lampoon a sub-genre that had been mostly overlooked by the Scary Movie series – namely the second wave of Found Footage films inspired by Paranormal Activity. Wayans actually had an easier time than usual funding the picture due to the project’s Found Footage presentation, with the format allowing for a lower budget without compromising box office appeal.
In the finished film, we’re presented with supposedly real footage recovered from the home of Malcom Johnson (Wayans). The recordings themselves depict a series of unexplainable events that begin to plague his home when Kisha Davis (Essence Atkins) decides to move in, with the couple slowly realizing that the difficulties of a shared life are no match for demonic shenanigans.
In practice, this means that viewers are subjected to a series of familiar scares subverted by wacky hijinks, with the flick featuring everything from a humorous recreation of the iconic fan-camera from Paranormal Activity 3 to bizarre dance numbers replacing Katy’s late-night trances from Oren Peli’s original movie.
Your enjoyment of these antics will obviously depend on how accepting you are of Wayans’ patented brand of crass comedy. From advanced potty humor to some exaggerated racial commentary – including a clever moment where Malcom actually attempts to move out of the titular haunted house because he’s not white enough to deal with the haunting – it’s not all that surprising that the flick wound up with a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes despite making a killing at the box office.
However, while this isn’t my preferred kind of humor, I think the inherent limitations of Found Footage ended up curtailing the usual excesses present in this kind of parody, with the filmmakers being forced to focus on character-based comedy and a smaller scale story. This is why I mostly appreciate the love-hate rapport between Kisha and Malcom even if it wouldn’t translate to a healthy relationship in real life.
Of course, the jokes themselves can also be pretty entertaining on their own, with cartoony gags like the ghost getting high with the protagonists (complete with smoke-filled invisible lungs) and a series of silly The Exorcist homages towards the end of the movie. The major issue here is that these legitimately funny and genre-specific jokes are often accompanied by repetitive attempts at low-brow humor that you could find in any other cheap comedy.
Not a good idea.
Not only are some of these painfully drawn out “jokes” incredibly unfunny, but they can also be remarkably offensive in some cases. There are some pretty insensitive allusions to sexual assault here, as well as a collection of secondary characters defined by negative racial stereotypes (even though I chuckled heartily when the Latina maid was revealed to have been faking her poor English the entire time).
Cinephiles often claim that increasingly sloppy writing led to audiences giving up on spoof movies, but the fact is that many of the more beloved examples of the genre contain some of the same issues as later films like A Haunted House – it’s just that we as an audience have (mostly) grown up and are now demanding more from our comedy. However, this isn’t the case everywhere, as – much like the Elves from Lord of the Rings – spoof movies never really died, they simply diminished.
A Haunted House made so much money that they immediately started working on a second one that released the following year (to even worse reviews), and the same team would later collaborate once again on yet another spoof, 50 Shades of Black. This kind of film clearly still exists and still makes a lot of money (especially here in Brazil), they just don’t have the same cultural impact that they used to in a pre-social-media-humor world.
At the end of the day, A Haunted House is no comedic masterpiece, failing to live up to the laugh-out-loud thrills of films like Scary Movie 3, but it’s also not the trainwreck that most critics made it out to be back in 2013. Comedy is extremely subjective, and while the raunchy humor behind this flick definitely isn’t for everyone, I still think that this satirical romp is mostly harmless fun that might entertain Found Footage fans that don’t take themselves too seriously.
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