Blessthefall, The Maine and The Summer Set are all featured on the new Fearless Records compilation Punk Goes... Classic Rock.
It's no secret that the California label -- essentially Tiger Beat magazine with A&R dudes -- loves Phoenix pop-punkers like these three. The Maine was signed to the label before hopping up to a major, Blessthefall is currently on Fearless and The Summer Set, though signed to Razor and Tie, has toured extensively with the label's acts.
The Punk Goes... series, which started back in 2000, making in ancient by kiddie-pop standards, has previously done Crunk, Metal and Acoustic.
This is probably the most poorly concieved installment in the series, sadly. After all, even the grandly amorphous genre of "Classic Rock" needs to be stretched a bit to accommodate both Bob Dylan's "All Along The Watchtower" (1967) and Eddie Money's "Take Me Home Tonight" (1986) songs separated by two decades and two revolutions in recording. The former probably belongs on a '60s folk-rock collection, while the latter is unquestionably '80s synth-pop at its finest.
Actually, who am I kidding? To kids today anything before Blink-182 is filed under "ancient history."
So here we have The Maine contributing a pretty terrible version of Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me." The Summer Set's version of Kiss' "Rock n' Roll All Night" at least has interesting vocals. Blessthefall's take on Aerosmith's "Dream On" doesn't add anything to the original but at least manages to preserve the brooding quality that makes it such a great song.
If it's any consolation, fellow members of the over-25 demographic, this pointless genre is likely to soon come to an end. Justin Bieber is just too much better.
