Various Artists – Punk Goes 80’s

From the moment Fearless Records announced the release of their fourth album in their Punk Goes… series, I knew it would be somewhat of a flop. I hate almost all the music from the 1980s, and while there are a few songs from that era that I enjoy, to hear an entire CD with songs from that would be horrible. But still, punk covers of the songs should be more entertaining then the original versions shouldn’t they?

Well, that’s what I thought anyway – too bad the bands didn’t share the same opinion. Although it is pointless to have another long debate about what constitutes “real” punk, one thing I can say is that practically none of these are anything remotely punk like. Normally when you think of “punk”, you think of fast music or music that gets you energized; but all the bands here have taken a much more mellow approach to the songs. They all sound like the originals songs way too much, there’s pretty much no difference and no special touch to them. Although all these bands have a certain unique characteristic to themselves on their own songs, they didn’t use any of those characteristics to help them here.

Take for example, Sugarcult‘s cover of Modern English‘s I Melt With You. They should’ve used Mest‘s cover here, although its an old song, its done around a million times better then the way Sugarcultdoes it. Songs by Gatsbys American Dream (Just Like Heaven – The Cure), Brazil (Wrapped Around Your Finger – The Police) and Jamison Parker (Everyone Wants To Rule The World – Tears For Fears) are just plain boring and way too wimpy to be entertaining. And Emery‘s Holding Out For A Hero (Bonnie Tyler) doesn’t even feature one of their signatures screams.

That’s not to say all fifteen tracks are complete bombs. The Bangles‘s Manic Monday was re-done by Relient K and it sounds pretty good and So They Say‘s cover of Rod Stewart‘s Forever Young is a good addition from the young band, even if it does sound like the original. They best song on the album though is the ever famous Video Killed The Radio Star by Amber Pacific. It actually shows us what a good cover song can sound like. It is fast and raw, but still pays homage to the original by not changing it completely – they just put their own touch to it rather then make the song the exact same as before.

This really isn’t as good as the Punk Goes… series has been as of late. So hopefully on their next one, they’ll be able to make up for this one.