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Me First And The Gimme Gimmes

Are We Not Men? We Are Diva!

Written by: PP on 28/09/2014 01:37:40

Cover albums are a fun way for a band to show off their unserious side or for a record label to put together a compilation of various bands covering famous pop songs in a chosen genre. We've seen New Found Glory write very successful movie theme song covers and the popularity "Punk Goes X" series as evidence of such. But a whole band dedicated exclusively to writing covers only that also tours major festivals? Seems kind of pointless, but for eight albums now and countless tours the supergroup Me First And The Gimme Gimmes - which features members of Swingin' Utters, NOFX, Foo Fighters and Lagwagon - have been doing just that. Maybe it's just me, but I'm not getting it.

"Are We Not Men? We Are Diva!" (a wordplay on the seminal Devo album) is the eight album where Me First go through a number of 'guilty pleasure pop songs' and translate them into punk rock songs which borrow sections from classic punk bands like The Boys, TSOL, Buzzcocks and many others in the process. Celine Dion, Dolly Parton, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Barbra Streisand, Gloria Gaynor, and many others all get a treatment where the original melody is largely preserved despite increased tempo and additional instrumentation. "Believe" by Cher even stays true to its autotuned vocal parts.

Some covers are clearly better than others. "I Will Always Love You" (Dolly Parton) sounds awesome in such a high-tempo affair with three chord guitars giving the song some punk rock flavor, but on the opposite end the dreadful "My Heart Will Go On" cover (Celine Dion) has nothing on New Found Glory's much better version of the same from 2000.

In the end, this is a fun album to put on at a party because everyone will know the songs, but it's still not clear to me why anyone would listen to this actively on their own time, let alone go see a show by the band. It just seems so pointless, especially because these covers aren't even that good in the first place.

Download: Believe (Cher), Beautiful (Christina Aguilera), Karma Chameleon (Culture Club)
For the fans of: Punk Goes X series
Listen: Facebook

Release date 13.05.2014
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