Review Summary: A reasonable demonisation of familiar songs: certainly not great, but not bad either
I realise there's already a review submitted for this album, but I find the review itself to be a little harsh; I believe the problem is simply that many people are expecting too much from a cover album. Also, people are trying to take it far too seriously; this is an album of covers, not original material from the artists (and let's be honest, for the metalcore/post-hardcore bands, "original" is a word that has grown pretty stagnant). Apart from the fact that Fearless Records are shamelessly parcelling this off under the misguiding title of "
Punk Goes Pop", there really are not a lot of problems overall. The essence of the title remains - a heavier scene covering mainstream music. That is all Fearless Records are promising the album is, and in that, they are completely honest.
Admittedly, some songs are poor attempts to cohere to the "heavier scene" side of things - Allstar Weekend's cover of
Yeah 3X by Chris Brown is the best example of this here, and is one of the weaker covers. It's just the same re-hashed song as before, re-recorded with a different vocalist. To a lesser extent, the same is to be said about The Ready Set's cover of Wiz Khalifa's
Roll Up and The Downtown Fiction's cover of Nicki Minaj's
Super Bass; yet this doesn't quite entitle them to the label of "poor" overall. They are varied from the originals in subtle ways that just about manage to rescue them from a shallow grave, and I personally enjoy every thirteen tracks, including these weaker offerings.
Therein any outright negativity is done with; it relies on your pre-conceived ideas and subsequent perspective, but, as previously stated and now re-iterated,
these are cover songs. What could you possibly be expecting? We all know the state that metalcore and post-hardcore are in right now, and thus it would be folly to genuinely believe there was going to be anything particularly enlightening when those genres cover pop/indie/R&B/whatever-else-is-here. This is an album series that caters to anyone with an open-mind who wants to listen to something fun; and sadly, that has, perhaps, become a very specific audience to try and sell to. Woe, Is Me (
Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)) and For All Those Sleeping (
You Belong With Me) both brutalise their respective covers, and the former specifically does something interesting if not a little abstract with their breakdown - and what's wrong with a good ole' breakdown anyway? That's what the generic countenance of metalcore entails, is it not? And come on, Punk Goes Pop is a series that is clearly not going to change and so going on past entries in the series, what other marvellous trinkets might you possibly have been expecting to hear? The respectable consensus dutifully knows that
Punk Goes Pop 4 would never truly transcend far beyond worthwhile at best, and all of us here are surely among that consensus.
Vocals and overall musicianship are to a high standard and production is slick on every track. I have acquired this album because I wanted to listen to some cheesy and for the most part cliché metal covers of stuff I've heard floating around on the radio. And that is what I have happily received:
Love The Way You Lie as covered by A Skylit Drive is a track that, asides from the genre switch, doesn't deviate from the original formula much, and why would anyone really want it to? Then it wouldn't be
Love The Way You Lie. It even has a female singing the clean portions like the original (just kidding, sorry Jagmin). Opener
Just The Way You Are by Pierce the Veil and
F*** You by Sleeping With Sirens are both solid covers that utilize good vocals and the latter has a curious breakdown towards its close that is, all things considered, well-placed and consequently fine, adding to the personal take on it. Tonight Alive's
Little Lion Man and Go Radio's
Rolling in the Deep are pop punk entries with enjoyable soaring choruses that freshen up two songs we've heard a lot of (here's to you Adele, perhaps too much).
We R Who We R as covered by Chunk! No, Captain Chunk is acceptable and, even as a potential filler, pleasing to those who already knew the original;
Till the World Ends is most likely a song less people will have heard before, and I See Stars do a good job of not quite ballsing their efforts up. That just leaves 8 minute boomer
Runaway by Silverstein. The guest in this cover doesn't get a mention because, as the first reviewer for this album has already said, it defeats the object of the song. The same is to be said of Mod Sun's appearance on
Roll Up. I haven't heard the original
Runaway, but the introduction on the cover at least is really rather boring - that asides the song is above decent, with a solid outro to boot. Although, have you actually heard of most the bands on this album? Because I know I sure as hell haven't.
Punk Goes Pop 4 is not quite the ferociously weak album you might believe by looking at the ratings on here, and although never threatening to risk being anything more than enjoyable, this is a fun and worthwhile album if you're not narrow-minded with ridiculously high hopes for the near-hopeless. Arguably, the reason this series has almost become redundant is purely because of how much some people persist in anticipating/demanding miraculousness of it. Expect nothing less than the generic additions of screaming and breakdowns here and there, and just it.
Punk Goes Pop 4 does not ever venture beyond great but it (and the whole series for that matter) does not deserve the battering it so often receives. To refer to the final sentence of my opening paragraph, Fearless Records' promise of heavier-covers-of-not-so-heavy-songs doesn't go unfulfilled and is, all in all, a satisfying 55 minutes of exactly what you'd expect from this kind of music. It could be worse; imagine if Brokencyde were permitted to feature.
