Punk Goes 80s, Various Artists
This is absolutely awful - dreadful even. The Punk Goes Metal and Pop opuses were quite fun - the latter certainly went down well on a hot summer's day - but things started to go awry with the dodgy Punk Goes Acoustic. Things have plummeted to new depths with this horrific abomination of a compilation CD. The premise is basic - get a load of promising bands together and ask them to cover a stack of synth heavy 80's 'hits'. The choice of some covers is very odd - having grown up in the 80s only a few of these songs stick out for me and those that do are often straight covers that offer nothing new.
Relient K's version of The Bangles' 'Manic Monday' shines out so much it's like a lighthouse beacon glistening in the night sky. It doesn't vary from the original too much, which is a good job because the original was great anyway. Gatsbys American Dream don't massacre The Cure, thankfully, while Halifax manage to convincingly pull off 'Staright Up' by Paula Abdul. The rest? You don't want to know...
Most of the songs are just turgid, boring and bland. Rufio are excellent when they start pulling out guitar leads and shredding like there's no tomorrow - but here they're dull and slow. Midtown and Sugarcult meander through their covers, while Amber Pacific and The Early November stick far too faithfully to the originals. The idea behind this, which is essentially to pay 'homage' to songs that are likely to be 20-years-old, is supposed to be a bit of fun. However, somewhere along the line someone forgot to tell the bands involved that they need to jazz things up a little bit with some extra sparkle - this is really, really disappointing and (hopefully) will knock this Punk Goes... series on the head.
www.fearlessrecords.com
Paul
