Runner Runner - Under the covers (iTunes EP)

There are a few things I hate in music. Seeing former members of a band I loved create a crappy band, rock bands with machines instead of drummers and bands trying to get famous by covering pop songs are some of them. Unfortunately for me, this new digital EP from Runner Runner includes all of those three massive turn-offs.

Runner Runner was born from the ashes of missed pop-punk act Over It but play a very poppier music with an amount of sugar on the verge of the indigestion. I don't know how they ended up in this, but they did. The band is releasing an iTunes-only EP of covers called 'Under the covers' (GET IT, GET IT??!!). First, we can congratulate the band for the originality of the songs chosen: U2's 'With or without you', Third Eye Blind's 'Semi-charmed life', Maroon 5's 'She will be loved'... Only songs I hadn't heard five thousand times before, you know. The U2 cover is a horrible dance take on the original, with over-edited vocals, cheesy synth and an electro beat that seems to wonder as much as us how it got there. They then seem to have forgotten the aim of covering a song on the Third Eye Blind one as it is nothing else than a pure copy of the original. Jimmy Eat World's 'Sweetness' becomes... sweeter and bouncing but thanks to the quality of the original composition, it's passable. Forgettable acoustic versions of Goo Good Dolls' 'Slide' and Runner Runner's own song 'Hey alli' end up the listen on a no less forgettable way.

If Runner Runner just created a totally useless piece of music, I however would like to thank them, as someone concerned about the environment, for only releasing it as MP3s and avoiding in this way a complete waste of plastic.

2/5

Recommanded if you like:
Metro Station, Mercy Mercedes, Cash Cash
Check also:
Call The Cops!, Let's Get It, Phone Calls From Home

www.myspace.com/runnerrunnermusic
(iTunes, 2009)