If you had told me a week ago that by Wednesday of this week I would have watched 4-hours of an a cappella singing competition, I would've said you were crazy. I mean, what kind of person goes around trying to predict a person's television viewing habits? Next I suppose you'll tell me how many Christmas cookies I ate in the breakroom ...and you'll tell me 17 was too many. Stop telling me what to do!
NBC doesn't always get things right these days, but their latest effort, The Sing-Off, is brilliant. Hosted by Nick Lachey, the show seems like an experiment, but I hope it works enough that they bring it back again with or without re-tooling. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Right now, I'm just going to love it for what it is - a mid-season fill-in with talented singers, great entertainment value, and some quality television exposure for things I love - awesome singing, creativity, Ben Folds, and Boyz II Men.
The Sing-Off has come out of nowhere but everyone I know seems to be watching it. If there's one thing we've learned about America over the past decade is that we love singing and dancing competitions on TV. We love to see random music and television stars thrown together as judges for these shows, and we love heartbreaking back stories. The Sing-Off checked off every box.
At some point over the last few months, NBC was able to attract 8 a cappella groups from across the nation to compete for a recording contract. When and how they did it, we don't know. Like, how most shows spend the too much time watching good and bad auditions and letting us see hundreds of outtakes, The Sing-Off seems to have magically appeared out of no where. On Monday's premier episode, Nick Lackey walked out, briefly introduced the show, the judges, and himself and then away we went. Right to the singing.
What kind of monster does that? The same monster who makes me completely forget A Charlie Brown Christmas was on at the same time! Yup ...I missed it completely.
The premise is simple. 8 a capella groups sing the first night and two groups go home. Last night, Tuesday, the 6 remaining groups performed, 2 songs each, and 1 group went home. All eliminations were judge's choice. But I guess tonight the judging and voting gets thrown in the lap of America, and we can start calling. This will be a good warm-up for the furious phone-voting I'll be doing soon when American Idol returns.
So America votes, which leads me to my first opinion - this show could easily be called "The Sing-Off for Finishing Second to the Beelzebubs." You know what I'm talkin' 'bout. Am I right? That guys knows what I'm sayin'. Every singing group on this show is amazing, don't get me wrong. But the Beelzebubs, a 20- or 30-man college a cappella group from the east coast, a group that's been around an evolving for 40 or 50 years and, obviously, regularly competes in competitions, are the best in show. If they came to town in-concert, I'd go see them and they likely could entertain a crowd for an hour or more. They have a huge catalog and knowledge of music and what types of songs work for an a cappella group, they know how to perform and choreograph their stuff to make it fun and exciting, and they've been doing this for a while. It's what The Sing-Off will look and sound like in its second incarnation. Right now, across the country, there are hundreds, lo, thousands of a cappella groups staring at their television sets wondering, "how in the hell did we not know about this show?" And then they're probably sitting there saying how much this group or that group sucks, and they're declaring how much better their group is and, by golly, they'll be on this show the next time.
I look forward to that.
Want proof that NBC put absolutely zero thought into this show? There's nothing going on except singing. Period. In a perfect world, as spunkybean'sEJ pointed out in his weekly View-Do List, NBC would've been way ahead of the game and used The Office's Ed Helms, who plays Andy Bernard, to come on the show and perform some a cappella of his own, or with a barber-shop quartet comprised of other NBC names and faces. Simply for filler. Tell me Chuck Bartowski, Andy Bernard, Jack Donaghy, and Andy Samberg couldn't at least sing in-tune? See ...many of you might not even know those characters by name, and that's the point. NBC had a golden opportunity to cross-promote, and so far ...nothing. I mean, they are on for two hours every night this week. Trot out cameos and pointless celebrities!
But, that's not what this is about. Where was I? Oh, yes, the Beelzebubs are crushing it and by themselves are worth the price of admission (which is two hours of your time each night, all week - or 1 hr and 40 minutes by DVR/Tivo/time-shifting). A small price to pay for entertainment this good.
There was some filler in Monday's premier, actually. Seems each group has a member who overcame great obstacles. The one group had a member who's wife got cancer and then couldn't carry a baby, so the wife of another member of that particular a cappella group was a surrogate. Touching. Someone lost a father recently. Another group, Solo, of Omaha, had a member who recently was sleeping in her car while she looked for work, and another guy who was in jail for stealing cereal and milk for his family. Heartbreaking. And then this one group, well, one of their members has acid reflux. See? Crazy heart ache. You didn't believe me, right? Acid reflux, dude. Breaks my heart.
Yes, on a show full of very talented, very experienced a cappella groups, there was this one group from Omaha, who call themselves Solo, that basically started singing 3 months ago and they just weren't ready for this big stage - but actually they were. Without choreography, a vocal and style coach, without ever having been in singing competitions, they were naturals. With a little polish and some more practice, Solo (their group's name) could do some things. I liked them, and I was sad to see them go. But they had a tough putt coming on this show against 4 college teams with probably a hundred years worth of singing between them all, a barber shop quartet that's been performing for 20 years together, and a Latino group that, well, has played more than a few paid gigs in its day.
But like one of Solo's members said after being voted off on night-one, the experience was like a master's class and they would use the lessons learned from being on the show. Man ...I would've loved to see them for one more night - I would've had not problem seeing Maxx Factor voted off.
Maxx Factor is the barbershop quartet that, I suppose, is really technically sound - but these are singing Golden Girls and they bore me. They stand, sing, and harmonize. At least the B-level groups not-called the Beelzebubs move around the stage a little. Maxx Factor should've been gone, but we're going to see them again tonight (Wednesday).
Instead, we lose Noteworthy, a group of attractive college chicks from Provo, Utah and BYU. And we keep the barber shop quartet old ladies. Have I made myself clear that I wish the old ladies were gone and the hot co-eds were still around? I'll write it again, if you insist.
There's so much to say about this show and how incredibly entertaining it is, I can't possibly fit it all in. If you simply like cool singing and talented vocalists, you'll like the show. If you're more the I-like-a-crazy-useless-judge kind of person, there's Nicole Sherzinger, the lead "singer" of The Pussycat Dolls - which means she was the girl in the group that needed the least amount of vocal fixing in the studio while producing the CD. Just jokes. Well, not really. She's eye candy. She's the "Paula" of this show. Not that I think Paula Abdul is eye-candy ...well, she was once, now she's just crazy enough to be entertaining. The Sing-Off doesn't have a Simon Cowell, but having Ben Folds (of the Ben Folds Five and long-time a cappella enthusiast) and Shawn Stockman (of Boyz II Men, one of the most successful recording acts of the late 80s and early 90s and, as the story goes, they got their big break by chasing down Bel BivDevoe, or maybe it was just Biv, aka Michael Bivens, and sang some stuff a cappella right on the spot and he signed them backstage at a show).
So what I'm saying is, if you've got two hours and are as sick of "Holly Jolly Christmas" and Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song" as I am, enjoy some Dolby Digital a cappella singing with the rest of America tonight on NBC. And stick around for Jay Leno. Well ...no, don't. Though, every now and then he brings on something good like this - Garfunkel and Oates.
Until next time, keep on harmonizing, but watch it not to get to "tinny" and highlight your soloist ..if you know what I mean. THE SING-OFF!
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