Punk Goes Crunk, Various Artists
When a band does a cover it's always good to see them tackle a distant genre. And although you can argue at least that the traditional ideologies of both punk and hip hop shouldn't be a million miles apart, the sounds themselves have few opportunities for crossover. As Punktastic's resident cracker, it fell to me wade through this ambitious effort.
So up step the darlings of today's (pop-)punk scene to attempt to inject some life into the genre which, for the last year or two, has been described as being 'dead' by some of its leading proponents. And, largely, it's so wide of the mark it reminds you of the post-pub piss you desperately try to avoid getting all over the bathroom mat.
Critically, hardly anybody has any idea about flow. And it's therefore no surprise that the bands which don't try to rely on the vocal aspect too much and concentrate on nailing a likeable and semi-original take on the existing beat which fare the best, such as The Secret Handshake with Skeelo's 'I wish'. Bands which do the opposite - including My American Heart butchering 'California Love', Person L doing the same to 'The Seed', and The Escape Frame absolutely raping 'Aint nothing but a G thang' - deserve to hang their collective heads in shame.
I realise that a good chunk of the bands here aren't taking this entirely seriously. I honestly do. But that still doesn't excuse some of the insults to music in general which appear here. But that's in terms of style; in terms of execution and musicianship it fares a little better, but not sufficiently to change my overall opinion. Except for The Devil Wears Prada, who surprise me enormously by producing a song even worse than their regular output.
Essentially, this is hip hop for people who don't like hip hop. That's as simple as I can put it. The only reason you might want to try this is if you're one of those people who heard 'Changes' once in a club and decided that was enough to make your music tastes 'wide-ranging'. And if you are, I hate you.
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