There aren’t too many filmmakers that I outright do not care for at all. I don’t like the films of Michael Bay, Brett Ratner, or Uwe Boll, but I don’t harbor ill will against the people themselves, just the poor-quality films they turn out. I can’t say the same thing about writer/director/douchebag Tyler Perry.
What was surprising was how the box office figures turned out. Now we’ve seen people turn out for bad movies before, and my favorite moment of the Hollywood elite not understanding audiences may be Chris Rock’s video at the 2005 Academy Awards where moviegoers tell him their favorite movies of the year were White Chicks and The Chronicles of Riddick, but Tyler Perry becoming a franchise (mainly in the Bible Belt, but there are sizeable audiences elsewhere) just seems wrong to me.
The man doesn’t seem to have any original ideas, and brings back Madea far too often to be the stereotypical loud, angry, black woman who just cracks jokes. I love Kevin Smith, and the knock that he always relies on Jay and Silent Bob is a little bit of a different case to me. The two have very minor roles in Clerks and Chasing Amy, and got their own specialty film in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, but they actually provide insight and a moral compass to Smith’s films.
Perry’s films are vaguely religious in their tone, and to that end he’s right when he says Hollywood doesn’t understand the audience of his films. Most big art – and by that I mean television, film, and music - is not made by devoutly religious people anymore; artists don’t require the patronage of wealthy devout people or the church to create works of art.
Where I don’t like Perry on a filmmaker level is that he is bulletproof to bad ratings and devoted audiences drink his stuff up like Kool-Aid. Films like the Movie have seen declining grosses over the years as the terrible ratings rack up, but the devoted audience Perry has cultivated seems content with buying tickets to see his plays, DVDs of his plays being performed, tickets to the movies based on his plays, DVDs of those movies, and continuing to see everything he produces. Perry is a figure that works outside the system, mocks it, and survives the way artists never used to be able to: making money in spite of the lack of quality of their art.
His new movie The Family That Preys comes out on Friday, and in light of the critical beating he’s taken over the years I’m anxious to see if he’s finally made a respectable film, or he’s just recycled another plot that we’ve seen a million times before and packaged it so that his core audience will deliver him another typically-sized profit. It’s as though he doesn’t strive to bring in a bigger audience, to convert nonbelievers if you will. He is uncompromising, difficult, and shuns those that don’t “understand” what he does. If it’s critically substandard, and the ratings all over the internet reflect that, I think people understand fine.
Yesterday saw the release of the latest "spoof" movie Disaster Movie. In the past 8 years since Scary Movie came out, there have now been 9 films in the series. It started with the Wayans brothers, moved to David Zucker (of Airplane! and The Naked Gun fame), then to Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg for the Non-"Scary" Movies. Here's a list of the loosely tied together "series":
2000 - Scary Movie 2001 - Scary Movie 2 2003 - Scary Movie 3 2006 - Scary Movie 4, Date Movie 2007 - Epic Movie 2008 - Meet the Spartans, Superhero Movie, Disaster Movie
I don't know about anyone else, but this series is pretty much the worst ever made. I don't think a single one of them has a positive score on the Tomatometer or on IMDB. I'll be honest, I enjoyed Scary Movie and Scary Movie 2. They had the right kind of bad humor going for them, and at least they parodied horror movies for their blatant silliness. Even 3 and 4 kept a reasonable amount of the parody within its own genre.
Anna Faris legitimized the series to a certain extent, and when she left, the writers just went off the deep end. Things started to unravel to the point of lunacy in Date Movie, but there was still the mostly-genre parody only for romantic comedies. It was in the last four that things have just become absolutely out of control. Beginning with Epic Movie, there has been essentially no semblance of plot along with stupid parodies of recent films that had almost nothing to do with the genre. It's as though the creators of these recent ones just think people will laugh if you put a joke in with a reference to a recent movie, instead of creating context for the joke and a reason why their observation is funny in light of the original. There's no substance here, only recreation of moments from recent blockbusters.
Meet the Spartans starts with 300, but devolves into referencing Britney Spears shaving her head and including such terrible movies as Stomp the Yard and You Got Served, and borrowed its title from Meet the Parents, which has nothing to do with the haphazard, piecemeal, Frankenstein monster-like screenwriting that apparently occurred. It includes references to Nacho Libre and Snakes on a Plane, two at-the-time-recent but distinctly non-epic films. There's also an obligatory scene involving a Paris Hilton look-alike saying "that's hot" before being crushed by a woman falling from above.
The newest, Disaster Movie, might be the worst offender. In the trailer, it combines references to Enchanted, Hannah Montana, Sex and the City, Don't Mess With the Zohan, Juno, Hulk, Iron man, and Hancock. It even repeats the joke of Paris Hilton getting crushed by having Hannah Montana die under a huge rock and bikini-clad women getting killed. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but NONE of those are "disaster" movies. Hulk and Iron Man belong with superheroes, Juno and the Sex and the City girls have nothing to do with disasters, and those two are combined in a single scene which also contains the completely unfunny and unnecessary reference to Zohan. They are mocking jokes from films nobody even though were funny in the first place!
The Hannah Montana scene confuses me the most. It posits that the character wants fans to go out and buy "2 new albums" as she's crushed to death. Now while I understand that Disney has made a ton of money from releasing Hannah Montana albums, created a tour for those songs, released a film version of that concert, and then released a DVD of that movie of that concert in a Star Wars-like cash grab, but all of that possible commentary is completely lost in how lame the joke is. Couldn't it have been a list of what they needed to buy? It's just an unintelligent parody of what could be an interesting commentary. That's what is lacking all over the place, there's no thought put into these jokes to make them subversive or intelligent, they just are trying to ham it up and hope that people laugh.
The proper parody of disaster films is Airplane!; this is just a cruel joke gone horribly wrong. Check the reviews on RottenTomatoes: they're the worst I've seen since Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, the famed worst-reviewed film of all time on the site. The best to me comes from eFilmCritic.com : "So ugly, unpleasant and devoid of laughs that the notion of releasing a film with such a title on the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is actually one of the least offensive things about it." Good lord does that sum up how it looks.
The box office can't sustain this, can it? There must be some semblance of intelligence in the American viewing public to stay away from the horrific downturn these films have been for our culture. Here are the numbers in domestic box office grosses, rounded to the nearest million:
Scary Movie - $157 million Scary Movie 2 - $71 million Scary Movie 3 - $110 million Scary Movie 4 - $90 million Date Movie - $48 million Epic Movie - $39 million Meet the Spartans - $38 million Superhero Movie - $25 million
I'm thankful that the grosses have almost uniformly gone down, and that it looks as those this series could soon meet its end in the same way the Hostel films did, but we've gone on too long with all of this. There are fantastic indie films that have had total grosses less than the opening weekends of these disgusting excuses for film. Disaster Movie is predicted to make around $13 million this weekend, which is extremely high for how bad the film is. I can't believe that people would be so mindless that they would go see this steaming pile. That's not to say mindless entertainment doesn't have its place, but even in the category of mindless entertainment this ranks one of the lowest. Please, do me and everyone you know a favor, and do not see Disaster Movie or any subsequent film by these men. It's for our own good.
Okay, so I'm a little ashamed of what I'm about to write, but considering some of the pop culture analysis on Paris Hilton in relation to Terrorism I did during one of my classes last quarter, I'll somehow make it through.
The biggest pop star in the world is not the A-Rod breaking, Guy Ritchie maybe-divorcing Madonna, she belongs in the 80s. It's not washed-up deadbeat mom Britney Spears, she left her dignity and tiny bit of singing talent in the 90s. However unfortunately, the queen of pop at the moment is mid-teen Miley Cyrus. Why are so many teen girl popstars emerging from Disney? Is nobody else trying to cash in on this market? First the Mousketeer likes of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, then Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan, and now Cyrus. They've even expanded into male pop stars in the model of former Mouseketeer Justin Timberlake with The Jonas Brothers.
There's a pretty big difference in the shift of the types of female pop stars. Madonna obviously didn't start with Disney, or even in bubblegum fodder (even her earliest material was sexually charged), she was edgy from the get-go. She got the way she was by defying female stereotypes of dealing with sexuality and embracing what she wanted and actually being rebellious. Female pop stars now adhere to the idea of manufactured rebellion; just look at the obvious transitions of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera into sex goddesses by the release of their 2nd albums. They just wore less clothing (look at the regression of music videos, especially in Aguilera's "Dirrty" and Spears' "I'm a Slave 4 U", there was nothing about taking pride in your sexuality and turning the idea of men being dominant on its head. Spears and Aguilera became idols for men to ogle and worship, Madonna did what she wanted when she wanted to because that's how she wanted to be.
Now, I'll admit to having listened to a few Miley Cyrus and Jonas Brothers songs, and I've seen some of the music videos on YouTube, and the stuff just bothers me in the way only heavily overproduced material does. Its catchy, there's no doubt about that, but its all flash and no substance.
There is one thing that occurred to me as I found out a little more about the situation of Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers. The two mega-stars are very religious, and Cyrus had a relationship with one of the brothers (I honestly don't care who, it'd be like Hoku dating one of the members of Hanson, you can't tell between any of them), but now they're broken up. Whatever that means, they're 15-year-old devout Christians, but then again so were both of the Spears sisters, and look how that turned out.
Here's where we start to retread our manufactured pop culture. Cyrus' lead hit off her new album is "7 Things," which details 7 things Miley hates about some mysterious ex-boyfriend, later rescinding the hatred in favor of 7 things she likes about her former flame. Now, its impossible to count the 7 things in the chorus because she never separates the ideas into 7 thoughts, and rambles on with commas for certain reasons, ultimately ending with hating/liking that he makes her love him.
Okay, stop for a second, we've got a breakup song between Miley Cyrus and one of the Jonas Brothers, both Disney stars...but that seems strangely familiar. Oh wait, this is pretty much exactly what happened between ex-Mouseketeers Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake around the release of his song "Cry Me A River." Two pop stars, one relationship, one breakup, one breakup song.
So why am I relating these two things? Well for one it allows me to bemoan the decline in music quality over the past six years. "Cry Me A River" is a Timbaland-produced piece of revenge-pop genius with great lyrics and singing from Timberlake (and god damn is that video amazing), while "7 Things" only has catchiness going for it, not danceability or improved re-listening (but honestly what song of hers would actually benefit from multiple listens?). I also see it as a shift towards trying to make meaningless childhood relationships more adult.
Now I really disagree with the conservative viewpoint that movies like Juno and Jaime Lynn Spears giving birth are exposing the possibility of pregnancy and the supposed "dangers" of adult life to an audience too young to view them, but that this kind of dumbed-down similarity emerging in a celebrity "relationship" at 15 instead of 20 just seems odd.
Cyrus' chief audience is even younger than her, what do they know about these kinds of relationships? With Cyrus and Jonas being even younger and more religious, the sex has essentially been driven out of the equation. With Spears and Timberlake there were lyrical allegations of cheating committed by Spears, as well as the question over how virginal she actually was. I don't think that question emerges for Cyrus, despite the photo scandals she's had, and it seems to me that in this bizarre progression of pop stars of younger ages mirroring older more complex relationships, the "adult" topic of sex is being completely left out and kids aren't understanding fully what comes along with something that complicated.
It's a stretch, I know, but when the lines started connecting between Cyrus/Jonas and Spears/Timberlake I just sort of let my mind wander on the topics, and these are my thoughts. Yeah, I've actually written a serious response to a ridiculous music trend, but this is the way the money is going, so we have to pay attention to it, at least to bemoan how terrible it is that people actually pay to listen to these CDs, get tickets to these concerts, pay for a ticket to the movie version of the concert, then buy the DVD of the filmed concert as well as the TV season DVDs. If you can name anything else in music making that kind of revenue, I'll start focusing on them.
As I'm sure most of you know, Chalton Heston died a few days ago. This death in no way hit me as hard as Heath Ledger's did at the beginning of the year, and I've taken a few days to collect my thoughts on why I think that, and I believe I've found the reasons.
Charlton Heston made some fantastic movies in his career. Ben-Hur, Soylent Green, Touch of Evil, and Planet of the Apes are all classics, and Heston was great in those films. He was a great dramatic actor and action star, and for his time as a adult movie star in the 50s and 60s, but I doubt that a lot of people in my generation are away of anything other than Apes.
Instead, Heston's legacy to my generation, however unfortunately, is forever linked with this clip:
...as well as his small part in Michael Moore's 1999 gun violence documentary Bowling for Columbine(note Moore's creative editing at the end with the picture of the little girl, which caused major controversy over the truthfulness of his film):
Now, I really don't care what your stance is on gun control/ownership; what Heston did as the head of the NRA following the events at Columbine was nothing short of atrocious. Holding a pro-gun rally so close to an area that had just suffered severe tragedy involving guns on a scale we had never seen before was distasteful, and it soured Heston's career in the minds of my generation forever. Charlton Heston was a fantastic actor, but his legacy to the young minds of my generation will always be as the insensitive NRA leader that let his volatile politics guide him away from the field he belonged. Much in the same way that Sean Penn's zealous advocacy has lead to some unpopularity for him as an uber-liberal, so did Heston's pro-gun stance cause him some harm as a conservative.
I still think Heston's films are great, but like many in my generation I believe I will never be able to disassociate the man in those films from the NRA leader that caused the Denver area so much pain with a meaningless rally.
Yesterday the Chinese government lashed out at the Dalai Lama, saying he was trying to ruin the reputation of China ahead of the Beijing Summer Olympics. This is basically the same thing they did when Steven Spielberg quit as artistic director of the games, and to be honest their comments are just immature. Basically they've resorted to name-calling and whining whenever someone mentions the horrible atrocities the government has committed.
Maybe I'm being a little sensitive, or a little ignorant of our own atrocities that we don't let anyone talk about, but what the hell is that government doing? This just makes the Chinese government look petty and stupid. First you take a shot at one of the biggest directors in the world b/c he won't plan you're opening ceremony, and then you try to cut down a Nobel Peace Prize winner? All they're doing is making themselves look even worse. Every time China complains that someone or some group is giving them bad publicity for the Olympics, they look like the bad ones and end up giving themselves a ton of bad press by looking like a bunch of ignorant idiots for not recognizing the horrible things they're doing.
The situation in Tibet hasn't been good ever since the Chinese takeover. I still think of a scene from Seven Years in Tibet when Chinese officials stomp into a Buddhist temple and swipe their feet all over a painstakingly beautiful sand design the monks had been drawing on the floor for days to celebrate the arrival of the Chinese whenever these problems arise, and can't believe that it's still going on. Tibet is of little political importance, why the hell does China need it? Are they trying to over-compensate that badly?
Clearly the biggest issue regarding China at the moment is their support for the Sudanese government through oil purchases, and the effect those ties have on the Darfur region. It's a total shame that China has yet to address these issues in any meaningful way, choosing only to publicly ridicule anyone who dares to question the authority of such a well-intentioned and nationally beneficial governing party. All it takes is one search of "Tiananmen Square" on Google, and subsequently Google.cn to show how much they actually address national problems.
The more I read about the Beijing games, the more I worry about it being Berlin all over again. These games are where China attempts to show the world that Communism (even though it's fake Communism using Capitalist policies and practices to fuel the economy) is viable and going strong for the entire country and should not be questioned by the rest of the world.
First of all, they're kicking out beggars, vagrants, and mentally ill citizens out of the city for the duration of the games. In addition, it is reported that around 1.5 million people are simply being displaced from their homes. This is absolute ludicrous.
On a slightly less serious note, the Chinese are potentially going to win the medal count this year, making the 2008 Beijing games the first Summer games the United States has not won the most medals at since the fall of the Berlin Wall and then end of the US/USSR battles at the Olympics.
The Olympics have always meant more than just international athletic competition to the governments of the participating nations. National pride, global reputation, and world dominance have always been in the shadows. There's a reason the Miracle on Ice meant so much; it was against the Soviets. The global political connotations of the Olympics haven't come into play since the Soviet Union disbanded.
In Greece in 2004, China specifically used inexperienced, younger athletes instead of the competitors that could have won them more medals at the games. That strategy was employed so that in Beijing this year, China would have athletes in their physical prime at the peak of their careers in their respective events...with Olympic experience. Put aside the documented athletic boarding schools that exist in China with the sole purpose of churning out little athletes who's only purpose is to demonstrate the superiority of the Chinese way of life, this is beyond coaching.
Everyone has a coach, except maybe tennis players, but a unified national platform to win the most medals at your Olympic games? Really? This should be about coming together as a global community, about international athletic competition. It should be about the athletes and their pride in competing for their home country, not about an entire nation defeating another, or a political system being better.
I've been very glad that I never had to see an Olympic boycott or a match of epic political proportions played out on a tiny scale the way lacrosse used to be played to the death in lieu of war, but the buildup to the Beijing Olympics is getting to be too much for me. I'll end up watching, but the Chinese government is using these games to sweep all of their dust under the rug and puff their chest out to the world with a smug grin on their face, and that's just wrong. It's against the spirit of the games; it makes what should be intense athletic competition between the greatest athletes in the world into a petty political tool.
I've been at college for a few months, and as such have had ample exposure to a genre of music that is limited almost exclusively to college campuses: A Cappella. A few weeks ago, I attended a long a cappella show called "Best of the Midwest" which was an attempt to display some of the best college a cappella groups around the area of Northwestern. There were groups from Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Northwestern's own Purple Haze performing. During that concert, I got to thinking about the genre and its place on campus.
Ever since I've known people in college, I've heard about a cappella groups. These bands of all-male, all-female, or coed undergrads would dress thematically, choreograph kitschy dance moves, and sing versions of your favorite pop songs, replacing all the instrument parts with other voice parts. A cappella groups are not a modern invention: a simple check of Wikipedia provides us with the information that the first one at a college was founded in 1909. However, those were all "Glee Clubs," groups that sang barbershop songs, choral standards, and other music reserved for its own genre. With the development of vocal percussion and beatboxing, colleges saw a drastic rise in popularity of a cappella groups as they became able to cover modern pop songs as they were released. Now there are over 1,200 groups in the US spanning every kind of university, and involving every kind of gimmick imaginable. Here at Northwestern there are male, female, coed, Jewish, and Indian groups, and I'm sure there are others out there I don't know about. There is a huge movement in music for recording a cappella, with specialized producers who help groups put out CDs. Groups try to get their songs on Best of College A Cappella, or BOCA, compilations, to get their group recognized nationally. These CDs are purchased almost exclusively by college students, but this is one of the only ways that the music trickles down into high schools.
So what's my beef with a cappella? I don't have a major one, I'm just curious as to why it's so popular, so revered, and so quirky. I mean, my best friend is in an all-male a cappella group here called Freshman Fifteen. I've heard them, they sing great, they have a good time, they put on a good show. I'm just not really sure why there's such a big mystique to the whole genre, and why it is isolated almost exclusively to colleges and universities.
The Good
There are things I like about a cappella; in fact there are a lot of things. I really enjoy listening to cover songs. I have a ton of them in my music library, and I think you can tell a lot about a band by the types of songs they cover live or in the studio. Elliott Smith had a huge catalog of live covers he performed, with tons of songs by the Beatles (and the individual members), Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and more. Hearing cover songs makes you appreciate the songs you love in a different light. Maybe you'll enjoy an acoustic version, or a live version done by another of your favorite bands. That only works to a point though, because sometimes artists reach too far and cover songs that really should never be touched, like Counting Crows reworking of the Grateful Dead's "Friend of the Devil" or Ben Folds' very, very late to the party take on "Such Great Heights."
Obviously, the best thing for these groups to do is to try and write something original, or to make a medley of something that you would never hear in this context. The best part of the Best of the Midwest concert was a group singing an original song called "Facebook Stalking" that was downright brilliant. Here's another group from that concert that did a great job making something original and completely out of line with every other group in America:
Also, it's impossible to ignore that some of the singers really have fantastic voices. Northwestern houses one of the best theatre schools in the country, and a great music school, so we have a plethora of voice majors and theatre majors with great voices that perform in a cappella groups.
The mystique that surrounds a cappella could have something to do with getting into one of these groups. At places like Northwestern, where there are tons of people with great voices, getting into one of these groups legitimates your voice and your talent. It is a pat on the back and a helpful "you can sing well" to people that make it; it designates them as worthy of pursuing singing, and as a better singer than a lot of other people at their particular college.
Our nationally notable groups include Purple Haze and Thunk, who have appeared on BOCA albums along with the "best" a cappella groups in the nation.
The Bad
I guess it's with that note that I'll start with my gripes. I'm not really sure what makes an a cappella group "great." In my mind, the barometer for categorizing a cappella groups looks something like this:
By the classical definition, an a cappella group is one without instruments, only using voices. I treat that as the most formal type of group, and I'm associating it with choral music, because there are groups that dress formally and perform some strict choral music.
I'll attempt to define these groups with videos of groups I know pulled from YouTube at some points:
Choral/Formal These groups sing choral arrangements, don't sing as many modern pop hits, and are closer to the old Glee Clubs that used to be at colleges and universities. I'll be honest, when I hear a group do a choral song, it is a refreshing break from the overly ironic sets that every other group tends to put on all the time.
Music Focus These a cappella groups tend not to do funny choreography, and are much more intent on a tight, musically sound performance. They're the ones that are known to sound really great, usually make the BOCA compilations, and do well in national tournaments. As far as groups on Northwestern's campus go, the quintessential group for this category is Purple Haze. They recieve university funding, they go on trips, they record albums (although that's becoming much more commonplace for all groups), and they draw the biggest crowds:
Balanced If you see a group that makes especially ironic music choices, like something by Alanis Morisette or Sixpence None the Richer, but they aren't joking around the whole time, chances are you are watching this type of group. To me, this is the best kind of group, because they sound great, are focused on making their voices work together and blend very well, but are still laid back about their performances and look like they're having fun. These kinds of groups are incredibly hard to find, because they tend to fall about one degree one way or the other. The closest I've come to finding a truely balanced a cappella group is Indiana's Straight No Chaser (which unfortunately chose to name itself after a Theolonius Monk song that references IU's party reputation). Here they are performing a Christmas song, which is a good idea of a standard
Humor Focus This type of group does a lot of skits between parts of their set, invent little funny parts to their songs, and are very irreverent. They take a hit in their musical ability because of their attempts at being relaxed and funny, but they are still entertaining to watch. This is pretty much the group my best friend is in, and I hope they don't take offense to this classification. It's nothing against their musical ability, they are just geared more towards humor:
Chaotic Batshit Insane I know of one group at my school that fits this bill. They're called the X-Factors, and when I saw them basically half of their group came onstage naked. They yell, they run around, they jump, and they sing pretty well. People laugh at what they do, and most of their show is watching what they do instead of listening to them sing. As far as all the comedy and rambunctious stage attitude goes, the only people who are going to find that funny are people that know the performers. If an a cappella group goes to another school, or to a high school, and tries to replicate the antics in front of anyone that isn't their friend, the humor just isn't going to work. Skits and jokes from these kinds of groups are pretty much inside jokes to friends of the group or to members of the university, so people outside that range just won't be able to have as much fun.
A lot of groups tend to have the same repertoire as well. They've all got songs by Michael Buble, can sing Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy", have a nostalgic 90s pop song up their sleeve, a Pat Benatar or other 80s song, and so on. It sometimes gets to the point where you don't know which group you're listening to if you close your eyes.
And not to be sexist or anything, but all-female groups just lag behind the quality of the coed and all-male groups. It's not because they don't sing as well, I've heard far more female soloists that sing fantastically, but it's an issue of the parts. All-female groups don't have the bottom end that the other two types do, and can't fully fill out their sound. They sound partially empty, and its a symptom of their own group design.
The Ugly
Okay, now I've just got some things that bug the crap out of me about the songs, the groups, and the genre at large. First off, go check out this list on Wikipedia. It's of the "notable" a cappella groups throughout the country. Notice anything peculiar? Essentially half of those groups are from the Ivy League, which is complete bullshit. There's no way in hell those groups are all notable, especially when a blog like IvyGate can take a bunch of groups and pit them against each other in a poll of the "Worst A Cappella Group in the Ivy League."
No matter where these groups fall on my makeshift scale, 99% of them do the following things:
1. Coordinate their dress with some kind of specific article of clothing or a set of colors, not unlike a sports team. 2. Have some ridiculous name that tries way to hard to make a pun or be clever. 3. Cover songs that are meant to be witty, ironic, or nostaligic choices.
You know the groups I'm talking about. These are the ones that dress all in black and red, sing N*Sync and Backstreet Boys while winking at the crowd the whole time, and are called the "One Hit Wonders" or something like that. We all hated that genre of music back in the 90s, and anyone who is pretending that those songs were legitimately good contributions to the history of music shouldn't have gotten in to any college or university.
General pretention really eats at me with these groups. It's so much better to see a group having fun than for a group to call itself the "best" or "premiere" group on campus and look down on the others. Here, it's obviously Purple Haze that does that, and they've even got their own little quirky, semi-intentional choreography to go along with their smug attitude and polished smiles. We call it the "Purple Haze Bounce." Take a look:
It's not that they don't have the chops. They are without a doubt one of the best blending and sounding a cappella groups I've ever heard, but in my mind no amount of talent over the rest gives you the right to act superior than anyone else.
Also, the very fundamental part of college a cappella is representing pop/rock songs with only voices. So they're trying to replace instruments...with a sound that can in no way equal how good the instruments sound on a record. It's as though the style of the genre is setting itself up to be worse than the original. Good a cappella groups will realize that they shouldn't just imitate the instruments with their voices, and just sing the song as a a blend of voices, but too often I hear the background simply attempting to be the instruments on the track, and the vocal percussion doesn't help.
Beatboxers in a cappella groups are either trying to be one of two people: Matisyahu, or this dude from a French talent search show:
In either case, they just aren't as good, and sound like really bad background drumming that you would find on a karaoke track.
The End
Okay, so I ripped on a cappella a lot this whole time, but I don't hate the whole thing. I think that since I'm in college, I'm just exposed to so much of it, that it's hard not to get fed up with how similar the vast majority of these groups are. There have only been a select few breaths of fresh air in the whole first quarter of college in a cappella for me, and the other 90-ish% has been so blandly similar that I'm at the breaking point. Like I said towards the beginning, my best friend is in an a cappella group, so I go to a lot of these shows. I enjoy going to them, I want to support my friends, but I really think something needs to change in this genre so that every group you go to see is not doing the same types of things and having almost the exact same successes and failures.
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