Search - Various Artists :: Tribute to Afi

I wanna good tribute (but this cd wont let me get one)

09/16/2003

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I love AFI and I love most tribute albums. The thing I like about most tribute albums is hearing how the band influenced other artists and listening to their interpretation of the bands songs. Unlike MOST (not all) of the other reviewers on this page who think that a tribute album is just supposed to be the exact same song note for note, I actually feel that it is good for the bands to make the song "their own." That being said I liked Pure13's version of "Malleus" and Pisser's version of "Highschool Football Hero." They for the most part only changed the presentation of the song while keeping the same message and feeling. The rest of the songs on the CD are bland replicas of great songs. Personally I feel that if the female singers on this album (that means you Lust)want to be taken seriously by real AFI fans, lets hear some intensity and emotion in your voice. It just sounds like she is just reading the lyrics off of sheet music without ever hearing the way Davey puts his heart and soul into his singing. I also enjoyed Gothocalypse's version of "Now the World" even though for the most part it was just a reproduction of the original. By the way I only rated this album a two so that it would stick out among the other reviews, it is really a one or less. My suggestion: Stick to the original and hopefully some bands that have creativity will make a better tribute album someday."

!!! ??? Review below by 5yr old girl??? !!!

DEEKAY | CDOT | 06/12/2006

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Afi didnt origionaly do Totalimmortal? Huh? Are you dumb? Ohh, i bet you think it is an offspring song because "they" covered it on the Me, Myself, and Irene soundtrack... ohhh. i get it. your dumb..."

This tribute thing has got to stop

DEEKAY | 09/12/2005

(1 out of 5 stars)

"OK, I'm not under 13 but I like my anonymity:



This is yet another in the awful trend of "tribute" CDs that appeared in response to the popularity of mainstream pop-punk and rock. The strategy seems to be:

1) Find a popular band, preferrably one that has a new album coming out soon or has just released one.

2) Grab any lousy unknown band you can (or even just make one up) and have them crank out quick cover versions of your chosen group's most popular songs.

3) Make sure the band names and record label on your CD have such idiotic and anonymous names that it would either be impossible to look them up, or no one would ever want to (thus absolving all contributors of any blame).

4) Label your CD "file under *name of popular band being covered*" and make sure it hits the shelves around the same time as the latest album by said popular band.

5) Wait 5 minutes for the String Quartet to follow-up with their tribute CD to the same group



Seriously, there are a lot of these "tributes" that have no reason to exist other than the possiblity of making a few bucks off someone else's popularity [see the Simple Plan tribute, released when SP had only released 1 album of their own!!! (Since when does band with 1 album out warrant a tribute?) Or the blink-182 tribute that I can only guess is terrible because whoever played on it hid their identities behind a made-up band name ("all songs performed by the United States of Punk")!?!] Even the record labels are silly one-shots...take this AFI one: "Tributized Records" is the name on the label. Oh, please.



That said, take any of these tribute CDs with copious spoonfuls of salt. They're not meant to be serious, just quick moneymakers, so they shouldn't be thought of as genuine tribute albums. Plus, that doesn't necessarily mean that all the songs on them are bad (the NOFX tribute, for example, had a few versions that were quite good). Anyway, I picked this AFI one up because AFI are one of my absolute favorite bands. I also noticed that the band names on it sounded kind of goth/industrial and that they were covering not only popular songs, but some older ones too. I thought it'd be neat to see how these groups would make AFI's older material sound. I shouldn't have bothered.



There are 2 kinds of songs on this CD: the ones that sound almost identical to the original AFI versions, and the ones where the band did their own take on the song and gave it a new twist. Of the former kind, the instrumentation is usually pretty good but the effort is pretty much ruined by the singer. Not that it's easy to sing Davey Havok's lyrics (he has a pretty distinct voice), but most of the singers here either don't even try to mimic the original vocal structure, or they do try and fail miserably. The problem is that most of AFI's songs, particulary from the Black Sails, Drowning and Sorrow albums, are built around Davey's voice and his ability to alternate tones and hold notes (that's not to say that Davey is by any means a particularly gifted singer, just that the songs are built around his abilities and style). When one of these singers tries to maintain the original vocal structure of the song, they often can't do it and drop notes, screw up harmonies, etc. Sometimes they ignore the original vocals in favor of their own style or an improvised one, and the result fails because it no longer matches the instrumentation. Either way, it's horrendous. In particular, listening to the singer from Lust on this CD is like listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks trying to sing hardcore. And if you listen to the whole CD you have to hear her 3 times, as some of the other bands saw fit to have her come in and ruin the vocals on their versions as well. The girl who sings for Weeb is a little better, but not significantly.



On the few songs where the band played it differently from the original, the new versions are pretty awful too. Atlantis Black's "I Wanna Get a Mohawk" sounds stupid slowed down (it's a quick, dumb skate-punk song, for pete's sake), and they even changed some of the lyrics (or just screwed them up, I would think). They would have been much better off choosing a different song to cover. Pisser's version of "Highschool Football Hero" is the one song on the CD that sounds most different from the original. However, it goes so far as to sound NOTHING like the original at all, even to the point of adding verses and making up their own lyrics. I wonder if they were intentionally trying to make it so different, or if they never even heard the original and just took a cursory glance at the lyrics before writing their version. Whatever the case, it sounds like a completely different song, which isn't bad, it just doesn't sound like it belongs amongst the others on this CD.



All in all I would say don't even consider this CD, or any of the other so-called "tributes" out there, unless you're a hard-core fan of the band in question. Even then, as a diehard AFI fan, I found this CD all but unlistenable. If you're interested in AFI, check out their albums and don't take this tribute as an example of what AFI sound like. They are much better than this CD gives them credit for."