Some of punk’s most well-known acts teamed up once again to cover today and yesterday’s pop hits. This is the fifth installment of what seems to be a never-ending cycle hit and miss covers.

I’m ot going to lie: I’ve been known to jam out to these covers over the original hits but sometimes they are atrocious.

Mayday Parade, The Maine, The Word Alive, We Came as Romans, Breathe Carolina, and Memphis are just a few of the bands the contributed to this record.

I enjoyed most of the covers off of this album except for one. Craig Owens cover of Coldplay’s “Paradise” is this album’s weak link and really isn’t even worth listening to. Owens has an amazing voice and is extremely talented with his other projects but this is the one that he will regret. It’s all just very reminiscent of a bad karaoke song. I thought that there would be some sort of redemption by the time the chorus kicked in, but sadly the song just continued to mull around and never went anywhere.

Aside from that the artists really stepped up their game for this album. The Maine enlisted the help of past tour-mate Adam Lazzara from Taking Back Sunday to do guest vocals on their unrecognizable cover of Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” I truly enjoy this cover because The Maine took a classic hit and turned it into something completely different from the original.

Another track that stood out to was We Came as Romans’ cover of The Wanted’s “Glad You Came.” They had just the right amount of mix between the original tech beat of the song but they added in their own flavor with heavy vocals and guitar parts.

On thing I found pretty interesting about this album is that Gym Class Heroes, who were once amongst many of the bands collaborating on these Punk Goes… series, has now joined the ranks of pop hits covered. Their hit “A** Back Home” was covered by Secrets. The track is very straightforward and has a nice arrangement.

There were a few covers that completely blindsided me. One of which is Like Moths To Flames take on Fun.’s “Some Nights. “At first I was pliantly surprised by the true punk sound of the members singing the verse but when the song kick in my jaw dropped and I couldn’t believe such an upbeat and happy song could be turned into a heavy song. I’m not saying I didn’t like it. In fact I think this cover is a though contender against the original.

The other song that took me by surprise was Upon This Dawning’s cover of sweet and innocent Carly Rae Jepsen’s song “Call Me Maybe.” Just like the Fun. this cover this started out fun and happy but has a breakdown that would have any teenybopper who is obsessed with this song running in fear to their parents. I’ve heard quite a few covers of this particular song but this one for sure stands in its own league.

PGP5 is a fun album and is worth a listen or two. I wouldn’t recommend buying the entire album unless you like all of the songs, which, I’m just guessing here, but you most likely won’t. With any compilation album there are home run hits and then there are the complete duds. So definitely take a listen to the tracks before buying the album.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here