Before You Were Punk
"Before You Were Punk" CD (Vagrant)
When I noticed this comp., I fell in love with the idea - some of my favorite bands covering songs I grew up with. While the concept is pretty damn cool, the execution leaves pretty much everything to be desired. First and foremost, most of these tunes sound almost exactly like they did in their original form. Only Good Riddance, Guttermouth and Jughead's Revenge really did anything unusual or different. The rest of the covers are very faithful to the original - the tempos, the instrumentation and the treatment all seem reverent and while some of these songs ("Peace, Love and Understanding" foremost among them) deserve such respect, the rest could use a bit of irreverence which is almost completely absent. I don't consider this wasted money, but I don't think of it as money which was well spent either.