Experience The Existential Horror Of Disney’s New Pop-Punk Covers Album
Somewhere at the intersection of noxious nostalgia and unrestrained capitalism, you will find A Whole New Sound, the new compilation of primarily ’00s pop-punk bands covering Disney songs. Surely, such a thing serves a particular market. There are people out there who really want to hear Yellowcard remaking “A Whole New World” or Plain White T’s taking on the Encanto song “Surface Pressure,” and those people are now being fed their gruel. Disney basically willed this project into existence when they got Panic! At The Disco to sing a ghastly version of “Into The Unknown” over the Frozen 2 end credits, and now here it is.
At Stereogum, we have already grappled with the reality of A Whole New Sound, and we’ve posted Simple Plan’s take on “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” and New Found Glory’s version of “Part Of Your World.” But it’s one thing to know that this album is on the way, and it’s another to be confronted by its here-and-now existence. For instance: Did you know that Tokio Hotel are still around? Well, they are, and they’re on here, singing “Colors Of The Wind” from Pocahontas.
Perhaps you could make a case for the artistic viability of such a thing. Perhaps you could say that it’s no different, at least spiritually, from Stay Awake, the 1988 Disney compilation that had Tom Waits doing “Heigh Ho (The Dwarf’s Marching Song),” Sinéad O’Connor doing “Some Day My Prince Will Come,” and the Replacements doing “Cruella De Vil.” If you did that, I would argue with you. But if you need to hear A Whole New Sound for yourself, I’m not going to stop you. Go ahead and do it below.
A Whole New Sound is out now on Walt Disney Records. And here’s a special bonus beat, for all you kids out there.