Over the past couple of weeks, I
have evaluated and reviewed many different areas of judgment in the way the
music on the albums Punk Goes Pop 3 and Punk Goes Pop 4 differ from one another
and are presented in general. They both include a wide spread of differently
faceted artists on these compilation albums. Both albums include many bands
that would otherwise not be suspected as interested in recreating hit Pop
singles. The Punk Goes… series of compilation albums pull together a wide range
of different genres that studios find that Punk bands do well in covering the
top Pop singles of current time periods. The Punk Goes Pop in particular has
grown the most and caused a rising interest for many upcoming bands to try
their hand at showing their skills at remaking already popular music.
As my
criteria of judgment for the two albums, I had compared the two on the areas
of: Progression of Sound; Type of Vocals: clean, grunge, rough, screaming,
etc.; Types of Percussion: drumset, keyboards, synthesizers, or various percussion;
Quality of Sound; and Artists Featured on the Compilation Albums. The first
area in which I had compared the two albums had been the difference of artists
that were featured on the albums. Punk Goes Pop 3 had featured Breathe
Carolina; Woe, Is Me; Artist vs. Poet; The Word Alive; Of Mice & Men;
Family Force 5; Mayday Parade; Miss May I; Cute Is What We Aim For; The Ready
Set; We Came as Romans; Sparks the Rescue; Asking Alexandria; and This Century.
All of these bands range from different sub-genres of Punk, but together, on
the Punk Goes Pop 3 Album, they created similar sounds and have created a new
type of sub-genre, Punk Pop. Whereas, on the Punk Goes Pop 4 album the artists
that were featured had been Tonight Alive; Woe, Is Me; Pierce the Veil;
Sleeping With Sirens; The Ready Set featuring Mod Sun; Chunk! No, Captain
Chunk!; Go Radio; For All Those Sleeping; I See Stars; Allstar Weekend;
Silverstein featuring Cam Hunter of Down With Webster; A Skylit Drive; and The
Downtown Fiction. These bands as well are of differing sub-genres of Punk
music, but they do not create a similar sound. The Punk Goes Pop 4 album had
shown very different styles of Punk bands throughout the album.
The next
area of comparison that I had judged the albums upon had been the progression
of sound throughout the different types of songs on the albums. On Punk Goes
Pop 3, many of the songs had featured a more laid back, comfortable type of
progression in their sound. They had contained a very steady, moderate tempo in
the beat that had been driving the song along. However, on the Punk Goes Pop 4
album, the progression of many of the songs had been quite up tempo and had
given me more of a feel of adrenaline and had caused me to feel more pumped up.
Both albums had featured a bit of both types of progression based on the
original tempo displayed in the Pop singles original style.
Another area I had reviewed between
the two albums had been that of the type of percussion that the artists had
chosen to display in their sound. For the Punk Goes Pop 3 album, many of the
band had chosen to use the basic types of percussion such as a drumset, an
occasional piece with a keyboard, but I don’t believe I heard any synthesizers
or other types of percussion. On the other hand, Punk Goes Pop 4 had featured a
wide range of percussive sounds throughout all the tracks. Many of the songs
had featured drumset, keyboards, synthesizers, and even concert types of percussion
such as slapsticks and tambourine.
I as well had compared the two
albums on the types of vocals that they had displayed throughout the different
tracks. On Punk Goes Pop 4, the artists had used a mix of clean, rough,
screaming, acoustic, and grunge vocal styles. They all often included two vocalists
that had chosen to display different styles of vocals between the times they
had entered to sing a part of the piece. As well, on the Punk Goes Pop 3 album,
the artists had used the styles of clean, rough and screaming vocal styles. However,
they had not did not use more than one vocalist very often, and the styles had
remained consistent throughout any different vocalists within a song.
Lastly, I had judged the criteria
of the quality of sound produced by the different albums. On both albums, the
use of auto-tuning and editing can sometimes be heard by the listener, if the
listener is being a critical listener. Overall though, the quality of the sound
produced by all of the artists on the two albums had been top notch and had
featured each artist quite well in their abilities as Punk musicians. The
acoustic quality in some of the tracks though had given the most sense of
praise to a listener who had been truly looking to find the amazing stylistic
abilities that a punk band can display in attempting to recreate another genre
of music.
Overall, both albums are amazing
and give an amazing insight into the abilities of the Punk musicians of our
time. The ability to change one’s style of music is phenomenal when they range
so far as to change from Punk to a revised version of Pop. Each artist on these
albums had shown a great deal of musicality and extraordinary musical ability. To
all those out there looking to find an amazing display of Punk music and it’s relativity
to other styles and genres of music, these albums are a great way to find such.
