Album Review: Punk Goes Pop 3

The Punk Goes... collection has brought many amazing covers of some very distinct songs (Say Anything "Got Your Money", The Maine "I Wanna Love You", A Static Lullaby "Toxic"), but Punk Goes Pop 3 has not met its previous standards.  While some of the performances are well done and even surprising for the artist that covered the song, some of the songs are downright awkward.

The songs I find to be the best on the album are "Bad Romance" covered by Artist vs. Poet, "Right Now" covered by Asking Alexandria, Miss May I's cover of "Run This Town", Sparks The Rescue's "Need You Now" and "My Love" covered by We Came As Romans.  I thought that having Miss May I cover "Run This Town" would have been awkward, but the five men made it work.  Also We Came As Romans cover I found to be almost better than a lot of their previous work, which could be natural and I hope it is reflected on their future albums.  By far the song that is most cheerful is Of Mice & Men's cover of "Blame It."  The guys did a very good job making the song their own, but keeping it recognizable.

The choice of the songs were for the most part good, but I believe there could have been better songs chosen.  Such as the song "Airplanes" by The Ready Set, originally recorded by B.o.B featuring Hayley Williams.  I find it to be rather strange that this song was covered because Paramore, the band Williams fronts, could have been one of the bands covering a song on this album.  Also, the fact that there are two songs by T.I. and Justin Timberlake featuring one another on the album ("Dead and Gone" covered by Cute Is What We Aim For and "My Love" covered by We Came As Romans.  Also there are two songs on the album which Kayne West appeared in on the album.  The final thing I found to be strange is that Mayday Parade make an appearance on this volume while the band was also on Punk Goes Pop 2 covering "When I Grow Up".

This album was not the best of the Punk Goes... collections, but it is still something that fans of previous covers will enjoy.  I hope that in the future, if the collection continues, that the Fearless Records works more to find different artists that have not done previous work on their collections.  Also taking into consideration of the songs chosen to cover can help the album's credibility.  I give it 3 out of 5.