Why do glee clubs and college acapella groups exist? Because there’s strength in numbers. You can diss one scrawny lover of vocal music, but the time and effort required to diss an entire group requires a bit more effort than the payoff is usually worth. I have always had a soft spot for these groups, but I’ve fallen hardcore for a certain substrain of these a capella groups. I love groups that cover current hip hop and pop songs, taking something that was already cool, making it geeky, but pushing the geekiness to an extreme that is wonderful. The most recent of these videos to become popular is this Columbia/Barnard cover of a Dr. Dre classic.
This is a cover of Ben Fold’s cover, and what pushes this video into the realm of geeky cool is the costuming choices the girls have made. Tennis racquets? That’s the whole nine!
Of course, I’ve amassed a number of other favorites over the years. Here a few I consider classic.
The Final Countdown
I borrowed a friend’s time machine and went back to 1996 just so that I could feel ok suggesting that this choreography is the bomb. After using that slang I returned to the present because in 1996, watching video on the internet meant using Quicktime and waiting half an hour to download ten seconds of postage stamp-sized video over Compuserve.
Gangsta’s Paradise
This is by one of my favorite acapella groups, UCLA’s Scattertones. Their b-girl stances and posturing are enough to make this video killer, but it’s the when you get to the bridge, where they kick the choreo into high gear with a step routine, that this video begins to soar. Even Coolio responded to this video on Youtube because it was so awesome. Coolio doesn’t just respond to anyone– unless you start by saying “I’m an agent, and I’m pretty sure I can sell your brand of feel-good party rap with gangsta feel to nostalgic 30-somethings in the Midwest.”
Harder Better Faster Stronger
This Daft Punk song was unavoidable on the Internet for a while. It’s popularity coincided with the birth of Youtube, and there were at least two other wildly popular viral videos based on the song. For me, this was more about the strength of the performance than the charisma of the performers or any other wow factor. I also like that the group is called the Carleton Knights because the group may not have been named for him, but who doesn’t think of Carlton from the Fresh Prince when thinking about glee clubs?
Just Dance
Normally, I disqualify songs that include musical accompaniment, but PS22 can not be bound by anything, least of all my arbitrary rules. These kids are amazing, and have several stellar covers under their belts, including Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger. My fear is that these kids will attempt to enroll at High School Musical’s East High in a few years, only to discover that it exists only in film, and then layers of their reality will fly away Inception-style. “People don’t like acapella?” “The people on Glee are autotuned?” “Our teacher isn’t cool outside of school?”
I love Fox’s Glee. Glee has made this kind of music acceptable in the mainstream, but Glee actually does this kind of music a disservice. The vocals on the show are sometimes painfully post-produced, and only Lea Michele has a voice strong enough to make you forget about the instrumental accompaniment. That’s why I’m thankful for all the groups who have come up with their own quirky performances and uploaded them to the net over the years. Here is one bonus video for those of you who have made it this far.
Videogame Medley:
