If you’ve ever felt like it takes absolutely no talent to get a song on the radio these days, then you can probably imagine how little talent it takes for some nobody punk band to cover a recent pop song. Though the musical quality of pop songs can be argued, “Punk Goes Pop, Vol. 3” seems to lose everything good about them.

Local act Tight Pants Syndrome might have the cleanest pop this side of 1966. Armed with shoo-wop vocals and more hooks than a tackle box, the band is equally deft at driving indie power pop and the beachy bubblegum material that so clearly inspires the band’s members.

Upon the release of Lil Wayne’s seventh studio album, “Rebirth,” the hip-hop community once again saw a stream of criticism over a rap icon’s departure from his roots. The record—founded on rock music but laced with rap vocals—reveals a side of Wayne we have never seen before. Over the past 13 years, Weezy has made himself into one of the rap game’s leading stars.

After first listening to Dizzee Rascal (real name Dylan Mills) last March, I was immediately hooked. For those who don’t know of Mills, he is one of the stars of “grime” music. This largely underground East London genre combines dancehall with heavier-hitting rap. Think M.I.A. with more hip-hop.

The new Quietdrive CD is, like, totally amazing, ohemgee! With more serious hooks than that creepy fisherman in “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” the band thus far best known for their cover of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” (you can hear it in “John Tucker Must Die” and “Prom Night”) has assembled a solid lineup of pop-punk songs on “Deliverance.”