December 2009


Family31 Dec 2009 05:34 am

This is what I found when I walked into the kitchen the other day.

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Music26 Dec 2009 02:08 am

Thursday night I finished watching The Sing-Off on Hulu. Being the a cappella freak I am, I need to offer some brief comments.

Maybe I should have titled this “America gives the Voices of Lee the shaft.” I like the Voices of Lee, they should have won. Although I may be biased because the great 4 Voices quartet were former Voices of Lee members. Speaking of which, I saw them win the International Barbershop Championship in Portland in ’02. Awesome quartet.

Anyway, Voices of Lee was pretty smokin’ in the Sing-Off. And the two judges that had issues with their “Man in the Mirror” performance were full of it. Way to go Ben Folds for disagreeing with them.

Eventual winners Nota did gradually grow on me, they actually are pretty good. I came to kind of like them. Their lead singer is a big boy, so we have that in common. The SoCals? Yawn. Noteworthy was interesting, I thought. I was surprised they were eliminated when they were, I thought they would last a little longer than that. The ‘Bubs? Nyeeah. Not my style.

I agree with this dude:

One problem with the show, frankly, is that even though the groups are all a cappella, they’re so varied small group vs. large group, barbershop, etc. that any comparison is a bit apples-and-oranges.

And with the show geared towards the contemporary-vocal percussion-large ensemble sound (not my favorite type of a cappella for sure), you knew Maxx Factor was going to be sent packing at some point. I thought they did pretty good overall though, I liked them.

The judges: the two boys were fine, but the chick in the middle. Was it just me, or did she say the same thing every time? “I felt the groove, You sang from your hearts and we felt that, Thank you for being here, I appreciate it,” and so on in touchy-feely generalities.

I knew nothing about Ben Folds going in to the show (isn’t he a piano player?!), but came away pretty impressed with him. His critiques were knowledgeable and pertinent, he was pretty good. Especially when he stood up for Voices of Lee.

All in all, good show.