What happened to that saying, that promise that we made? You and I, together, we made a pact that we would defend pop punk with our lives. That we wouldn't allow the good name, the artistic merit of pop punk, aka popular punk, that we wouldn't allow it to be destroyed by the greedy and careless amongst us, which is why I am concerned here with this new album compilation that has come out, A Whole New Sound, which... What is this from? Disney? Sorry, pop punk. We tried. We printed those shirts, the defend you shirts, but There's just no taking down Disney.

I don't know if you've noticed, but the most insane compilation idea just dropped. From Disney, A Whole New Sound, which is ironic. Ironic title. We'll get into that in a second. It's a bunch of pop punk covers of classic songs from a variety of different Disney movies. And the irony of calling it A Whole New Sound is that pretty much the entire compilation is packed with old, stale pop punk and emo bands that clearly have nothing better to do at this point. When Disney called up Tokyo Hotel and Bowling for Soup and Boys Like Girls, I'm sure they weren't like, 'God, I got to look at my schedule. Record a cover of "A Friend Like Me", I don't know if we have the time for that.'

Now, I will say I did not grow up on a lot of these bands, honestly. So whether or not they pull through with good or bad performances here. It's not really any love loss for me. However, I did grow up on a lot of the songs they are covering and will not be happy to hear those ruined. I'm just wondering why Disney is allowed to to do this. I mean, sure, I get it. They own the music that is being covered on this compilation. They have the copyright for it. But don't I also own my childhood?

Either way, though, let's go through this nightmare fuel and hear what exactly this comp has to offer, starting with "Part of your World". Yes, The Little Mermaid classic, being redone by New Found Glory.

"Wouldn't you think my collection's complete? Wouldn't you think I'm the girl. The Girl who has everything."

Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm going to give this a two out of five, gawrsh. The drums and the guitar tone doesn't sound bad, but yeah, As far as mainstream pop punk goes, this is as generic as it gets. And hearing these lyrics and hearing this song done through a whiny, wimpery, emo, boy, man voice is just nails on a chalkboard.

Okay, let's hear "Remember Me" with Mayday Parade.

For anybody who's not familiar, "Remember Me" is that classic, beautiful tearjerker salad from the movie Coco, which honestly, in the greater canon of Disney animated films, is like one of the most touching songs, touching moments, point-blank period. While I feel like the vocals and the performance here is a lot more tolerable than what we were hearing on the New Found Glory track, this cover just illustrates that delivery is everything, and redoing the song in this way just sucks all the emotion out of it. Everything that just makes that song cut so deep into your heart is just completely just gone. It's evaporated, and it's just turned into generic rock pap, and that's it.

All right, we're two tracks in, and surprisingly, I actually don't feel like I'm suffering as much as I potentially could. However, I'm anticipating that Simple Plan covering, "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" is really going to hurt. Yeah, this is going to feel like a bowling ball on my foot. I can see it now.

Ugh, Jesus Christ. The super-processed autotuned vocal harmonies that open this track up, trash, garbage. They sound terrible. It's gross and artificial as hell. Elton John is spinning in his grave, and he's still alive.

Yeah, I'm going to give this a one out of five Hakuna Matata's. Not feeling this, not feeling this at all. I mean, some of those harmony lines on the power cords on the front end of the song are cool, but outside of that, again, it completely ruins the original appeal of the song.

And once more, how is this a whole new sound? This is an old sound. Maybe this compilation could have hit when you'd actually have to pay these bands properly when they were at the peaks of their career. But now Disney is just squeezing the last few drops of blood out of this style of music with groups that were not going to do these songs justice from the outset. Just absolutely goofy.

Speaking of Goofy, though, this next track actually comes from The Goofy Movie, "I2I". It's being redone by Magnolia Park. I mean, with The Goofy Movie being reassessed in recent years and becoming a bit of a low-key Disney cult classic, many may be excited to hear this new version of the song. So I'm glad at least there's a little bit of Goofy Movie love, but still not super high hopes for a pop punk version of it.

Okay. If we're grading on a curve here, I'm going to give it to this track. It's the best one so far. Magnolia Park is one of the younger and newer bands on the roster here. They sound like it. The vocals are better. The performance overall is a bit less phoned in. I feel like they didn't go the super obvious pop punk formula route with it while the guitar tones in that style are most certainly there.

They're giving it a bit of an arena rock flair, which I think for a big pop anthem like "I2I" is, is kind of fitting if you were to do a rock rendition. Again, it's not something I think I would go out of my way to spin just casually, but there's nothing about it per se, that just on the surface, first initial reactions here just disgusts me. So good on Magnolia Park for passing the bar, though.

Thus far, the bar has been pretty low. My hopes are not high for this next one, though. One of my favorite Disney songs, which comes from potentially my favorite Disney animated film of all time, that would be Aladdin. Just so good. So freaking good. It's a "A Whole New World." Yellowcard is doing it. Violin and all, I imagine. Let's hear what the heck this sounds like. Again, hopes are not high.

Did you even try? Like, out of all the songs so far, I feel like this one is the most just half baked, half baked and formulaic and uninspired to the point where it's actually absolutely disrespectful to the original. This is one of the most beloved Disney songs and duets of all time, and you're not going to try to kill it. You're being given gold, gold, like a golden spot on this compilation, and you're just going to go, 'Yeah, whatever... No one can tell us no." Try to sell it or something, please.

All right, next we have a "Go The Distance", which comes from the Hercules movie. We Are The Kings, are redoing it now. I I will tell you, as far as the Disney canon goes, I'm not really a Hercules boy, so I don't really have a horse in the race of whether or not this version is good. But again, given everything so far, hopes are not high.

Okay. I'm also feeling a one out of five (duck sounds) on this. I don't know how to do a Donald Duck. I'm sorry. Yeah, this was also blatantly uninspired and phoned in and generic as hell. Really, the only that stood out about it are like those delayed, repeating lead guitar bits that sound like something out of a U2 song.

Oh, boy. But this one, this next one, oh, man. If there are any recent Disney movies that I am partial to, it's Encanto. There are some bangers in that soundtrack, though I will say "Surface Pressure" is not one of my favorites. It's interesting how much that track has caught on. I mean, still a great one, though. However, it's a song that I have a hard time I'm envisioning a pop punk version of. Comparatively, it's most likely easier to redo this as opposed to, "We Don't Talk About Bruno".

What's even more interesting is the Plain White T's are doing this one. Okay, we don't want any music from the Plane White T's in the video, okay? We already had an issue with them over the Drake cover. Mirabelle, let's give "Surface Pressure" from the Plane White T's here, a spin.

Oh, God, stop. Please, God, stop. I feel like, instrumentally, the band did better than I thought they were going to, or maybe the song had potential for fitting into a pop punk style more than I originally thought. There's definitely an urgency coming off those drums and guitars. With that being said, I feel like Plane White T's didn't exactly smash it when it comes to the super impassioned theatrical talk-singing that's a little aggressive, a little frustrated in the original recording. That doesn't really come across in this performance. Instead, it just sounds like bad theater kids singing. No me gusta. So "Surface Pressure", we are going to pass on that.

Next, though, we do have another one of the younger bands in the roster here, Meet Me @ The Altar, doing a version of "You've Got A Friend In Me". I have faith in them doing something interesting with them not being one of the older, staler groups of the bunch, but "You've Got A Friend In Me" is a big, big, big frigging track. That's some incredibly massive shoes to fill here.

Plus, probably one of the songs that might be tougher in terms of reimagining it in a rock or punk context, but I guess we'll see.

Okay, okay. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, why is it fire? Drums and guitar are pumping. The vocals are great. Also, that tight little lead guitar melody they throw in there really fits so well. The half-time in the back-end of the track, really switching up the groove, the transition into that. It's short, it's sweet, it's punchy, it's super catchy, but also kicks a little ass, too.

I don't even feel like I'm grading on a curve here. I genuinely enjoyed this. Sure, it's a little silly, it's a little novelty, but I could put this on for fun. Yeah, actually, shout out to Meet Me @ The Altar. They went a little hard on this, genuinely. Which, sure, the formulaicness of some of these covers is an issue, is a problem, but it's really the lack of effort that I find to be upsetting.

Next, we have Boys Like Girls doing "You'll Be In My Heart."

This is definitely one of the tracks that I feel like is closer to the original vision of the song in terms of its pacing and the vocal delivery. For the most part, the singing itself is actually not that bad. But once again, like many other songs in this soundtrack, I feel like this is just proof that delivery is everything because presenting it in this way does suck a lot of the drama and theatrics and passion out of the original performance and recording.

Moving on, though, we have Tokyo Hotel doing "Colors of the Wind", which is a weird choice and inclusion, just given all of the very ugly American history that Pocahontas is narratively happening within the context of, which I feel like we're generally more aware of today than we were when the movie first came out.

With that being said, though, Tokyo Hotel, when this style of pop punk was in its heyday, was easily one of my least favorite bands in this lane. So once again, my hopes are not super high in terms of what we're going to get here.

This compilation is not even that long, and I'm growing so tired of it. I'm truly suffering here. Stop ruining these Disney songs. That's actually the plot twist of this video. Pop punk never really needed defending. It's actually Disney music that needs defending from Disney itself. Turns out Disney is actually the worst steward of its own IP.

Okay, we have "Let It Go" being redone by LØLØ, which, I mean, the frozen soundtrack is mid. Can we all admit that? It's mid as hell. Let It Go is obviously the best song of the bunch on that soundtrack, and it's still annoying as hell. And generally, the quality of singing on that soundtrack is nowhere near as good as on various Disney classics or even recent Disney soundtracks like Encanto or Moana. But it's just mind-blowing to me because there's just something about that movie. They put crack in that movie for kids. But let's hear an already bad song get even better with this version.

What is this singing? Can't hold it back anymore. This is just the bad singing that you do in the car quietly by yourself. Yeah, this is just bad on-the-drive singing. And the fact that the verses in this rock version are so tedious and boring and devoid of any interesting melodic anything just goes to show how weak the songwriting in that soundtrack is to begin with. Because when you strip back all of the showy theatrical instrumentation and vocals and just give it something straight like this, it sounds boring. And is even more so when you clearly have a band that is not really putting in the effort or the energy to sell it.

So yeah, that's zero out of five. That's going to be zero out of five, whatever the hell, those weird little trolls in the movie, whatever those things are that they roll up into a ball or something, whatever those are, zero out of five of those.

Okay, to close up shop on this torture rack, we're going back to the Aladdin soundtrack again and doing "Friend Like Me" and Bowling For Soup is giving us this new version. So I don't know, let's hear what it has, and we'll go from there.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, pause, pause. Wait, stop, stop, stop, stop.

Yo, why does this go hard? Not only does it go hard, but it sounds like what you'd get if you put The Dickies or Dead Kennedys back in the day in the studio at gunpoint and made them cover this song. Instrumentally, it's handily the rawest sounding track and recording of the entire bunch, and the vocals are really frigging zany. "You ain't never had a friend like me!" There's something almost like B-52's Fred Schneider-ish about the vocals.

Like, this is absolutely unhinged and madcap in a way that I actually think is ballsy. I was not really expecting this from Bowling For Soup. And look, I don't think it's out of place or that they were doing too much. As far as Disney soundtracks back in the day goes, this is a very theatrical, playful, silly, over-the-top song. I think vocally and instrumentally requires a bit of chaotic energy because it's very funny, it's very cheeky. And Bowling For Soup really matched that and then some, and actually brought some genuine punk energy into the fold that prevents the instrumental from sounding too tame.

So surprisingly strong ending for this comp, which is why I give this track five out of five friends like me. Okay, two out of twelve or three out of twelve tracks that are enjoyable on some level. It's pretty bad, I'm not going to lie.