Manchester Punk Festival Releases 37th Compilation
Manchester Punk Festival have released the 37th volume of their compilation series ahead of this year’s festival. Manchester Punk Festival Vol. 37 is…
A Tribute To Blink182: Heroes Of Pop Punk - Pacific Ridge Records
I love Blink-182. I do And it’s probably safe to assume that there’s a couple million other people out there who love the band too. On the other hand, its safe to say that there’s probably quite a few who hate the band for all the copy cat bands they inspired. Nevertheless, I was intrigued when I heard about Pacific Ridge Records‘ plan to release a tribute to Blink182, and after hearing the entire compilation, I have to admit I’m quite pleased.
The most prominent thing about this compilation is how all the bands have actually put their own spin on these old favorites, and while it can sometimes be a bad spin for the most part it is enjoyable. It’s a lot better than a band doing a cover and making it sound exactly the same (I’m looking at all those people who did the recent Bob Dylan tribute). Some bands took some major leaps, like Feeling Left Out‘s acoustic rendering of Going Away To College or Four Year Strong kicking off Dumpweed and the album with a synthesizer; while other bands did it with little steps, like Echo Screen putting in some spoken parts during First Date or Storytold adding some background vocals on Alien’s Exist. It’s the little things which make the songs stand out.
Like all compilations, some songs are better than others, and this is even more prominent with tribute CDs. There are some songs you are so used to hearing a certain way, that when it’s changed you just don’t like it – and A Tribute To Blink182 has a few of those bands. The fact that LastPageFirst used a piano during the hit single Adam’s Song gives the track a nice spin, but the vocals just aren’t strong enough to pull it off. They are too boyish and the song just doesn’t come across as well as the original. The same thing happens with Round Three Fight‘s rendition of What Went Wrong.
All in all, this is a nice tribute CD. Nothing spectacular, and no real big named bands (the biggest ones would be Park and Straight Outta Junior High), but it is a nice CD anyway and most of the bands do a good job at covering their favorite Blink182 songs. Plus, it’s also nice to see that they aren’t only focused on the big singles with songs like A New Hope, Apple Shampoo and Enthused being covered on here too.