Change! is a CD/DVD compilation of 21 tracks and 17 videos of various artists ranging from metal to emo.

Some of the artists on the comp are: As I Lay Dying, Aiden, Silverstein, Chiodos and many more.

I’ll start with the bad first and get to the good.

To start the album is only available at Hot Topic. I guess while your buying your WWF t-shirts and random but witty saying t-shirts you can pick up this album…

Also because it’s only available at hot topic the videos and songs have all profanity removed from the album, which in my opinion ruins just about every song that has profanity. Songs have profanity for a reason and every time the song is censored it ruins the entire flow of the song or video.

These 2 reasons are why I am rating this album as only a 5. I’m sure the album will sell very well regardless but when it comes to an album I find it offensive that a label would censor their own artists work simply to sell at a specific location. Censoring punk rock? Come on people.

One other thing that bothered me was the DVD/Video section didn’t let you skip videos, you had to manually find each video or go back to the main menu; not a big deal but it’s the little things that you have to watch out for like this.

Now for the good.  The album really has many great bands on the release and I really did enjoy the majority of the bands on this release.  The videos and songs have a great flow between artists.   This album really has a great track listing of bands people have heard of; but at the same time artists people might not have heard of before, but would be interested in.

Another fine point is that 5% of the proceeds will be donated (though the hot topic foundation) which I guess is good; but as I have 0% trust in hot topic as a company doing any good for anyone but themselves you can make your own decision if this is a very good thing.

But regardless of the negative aspects of this album which are really just specific to my opinions I do think “the kids” will enjoy this release. It will have some great bands that I’m sure you all ready like, but will also be a great way for you to find other similar artists that you should get into or at least check out. But most likely if you’re an anti-hot topic person like myself or don’t shop at the malls you will most likely never hear this album.