Various Artists – Music Saves Lives

Charity compilations are always entertaining. They normally have a solid lineup of bands (after all, all bands want to look like they care) and are moderately cheap. Not only that, but they raise awareness for a certain cause of concern, which is a bonus. This CD, Music Saves Lives is no different. It’s cheap, in fact, it’s free at this year’s Warped Tour, has a great list of bands and raises awareness for the need to donate blood in Southern California. The only downside is you have to actually do research to figure out what the compilation is promoting. No where on the CD does it say what its cause is, you have to go to the site or put it in your computer to find out, and that’s just not practical. But despite that one flaw, SideCho and their many sponsors have put together a good compilation of today’s best pop-punk bands.

No matter what you’ve heard of theses bands before, Plain White T’s, Motion City Soundtrack, Mae, Street Drum Corps, The Starting Line, Copeland, and so forth – so you can get an idea of what to expect from the CD; and if you’re a fan of any of these bands then you have to track down this CD to get a hold of the numerous unreleased tracks on here. The Matches, Over It, Motion City Soundtrack, All-American Rejects, Tokyo Rose, they all supply brand new songs for the compilation. And most surprisingly of all, so does Yellowcard. I had no idea that they had an acoustic version of Way Away lying around, but lo and behold, here it is and it sounds good.

In all honesty, out of the eighteen tracks on here, there’s only one or two disappointing ones. Street Drum Corps‘ Wrecks just because it’s Street Drum Corps and Bleed The Dream‘s Broken Wingsbecause it’s on pretty much every single compilation that has come out in the past two years. They really need a new compilation song. Other than that, you have one solid pop-punk compilation for today’s pop-punk teenage fans. Hell, you may even find new bands like Run Doris Run or Stacy Clark which strike your interested, they got mine.

Frankly, it’s free, it’s for a good cause, and it’s entertaining. Pick this up if you see it.