Review: Punk Goes Pop, Vol. 6

The album begins with Upon A Burning Body’s cover of DJ Snake & Lil Jon’s “Turn Down For What”. Featuring Body Count’s Ice-T, it honestly isn’t the best way to start off and seems like the band are trying to sound like Attila. The cover to follow is a complete 180°. Tyler Carter and The Word Alive’s Luke Holland take on Paramore’s “Ain’t It Fun” and do so with ease. It’s easily one of the album’s best tracks, with Carter’s vocals adding something new to the already stellar single.
August Burns Red are up next with “Wrecking Ball”. A bit disappointing, it doesn’t suit the band at all and feels as if it were chosen solely on its popularity. Thankfully, We Came As Roman’s Taylor Swift cover is up next. The album’s first single, it features both Kyle Pavone and Dave Stephens on clean vocals and places screams on the backburner, a good move as I feel any prominent unclean vocals would have taken away from the track’s quality.
Set It Off’s cover of Ariana Grande’s “Problem” combines orchestral sounds with a solid rock melody. The song suits Cody Carson’s vocal range perfectly and the little mash-up of TLC’s “No Scrubs” is a pleasant surprise. It’s followed by Crown The Empire’s mellow Ellie Goulding cover. While I wish the band had incorporated screaming, as I’m a fan of Dave Escamilla’s unclean vocals, it’s honestly a beautiful rendition and one that’s hard to fault.
“Drunk In Love” is my first encounter with Oceans Ate Alaska and all I have to say is thank goodness the screams are back. This cover is in a similar style to Asking Alexandria’s take of Akon’s “Right Now (Na Na Na)” and is probably the heaviest song on Punk Goes Pop 6.
Youth In Revolt’s cover of “Royals” is one that gets lost in the mix, as does Volumes’ “Hold On, We’re Going Home”. They’re both well done, it’s just that a lot of the other tracks seem to overshadow the two.
Everyone’s favourite Chicago natives Kanookla Pook bring the album’s best track. Covering The 1975’s “Chocolate”, the band are able to rework the song in a way that doesn’t take away from what made the original likeable. It’s followed by two more hits: Slaves’ “Sweater Weather” and State Champs’ “Stay The Night”. Whether or not it was Fearless Records’ intention to put the three best songs together, it’s nice to see the album showcase some killer tracks.
Palisades close out Punk Goes Pop 6 with their cover of Pharrell Williams’ “Happy”. A complete remake of the song, it features solid vocals. My only complaint is I wish there were more screaming, as Palisades have some of the best screams in the scene.
The final verdict? This edition of Punk Goes Pop is better than some of the series’ past attempts. Is it a home run? Not exactly, but it features a handful of tracks that are easily better than their originals. Some of the bands were able to reinvent the original songs into tracks that were all their own and overall, it’s a decent release and one that’ll definitely leave fans pleased. Now, if only Fearless would get to making that Punk Goes Disney fans have been begging for.
Download: Knuckle Puck - Chocolate
3/5
By Clare Fitzgerald
