Showing posts with label a capella. Show all posts
Showing posts with label a capella. Show all posts

Tuesday 12 June 2012

5 A Capella Songs to WCS to

A Capella, as a genre, is pretty versatile. It simply needs vocal range, talent and a bit of vocal percussion, and pretty much any genre can be mimicked by using voices in place of musical instruments. This is pretty similar to the nature of West Coast Swing where you can dance to any 4/4 count song and not being confined to slow, bluesy songs. Hence I've compiled a list of A Capella cover songs that you could try your hand - and feet - at west coast swinging. If it fails, enjoy listening to some sweet, raw vocal talent anyway.

Misery - Mike Tompkins (originally by Maroon 5)
If you were to type in "A capella cover" on the search bar in YouTube, Mike Tompkins' name is guaranteed to come up at least once on the first page of search results. With a song that is already good enough to swing, why not go for a cover that utilises only one person's voice and an audio editor?

Forever / With You / Yeah 3x - Committed (originally by Chris Brown)
The Sing Off Season 2 champions arranges a medley of 3 Chris Brown hits into one catchy song. Smooth transitions, romantic vocals (especially when they were signing in "With You"), and dance related lyrics, what's not to love? This can be a nice challenge for dancers to adjust our styling on the spot as soon as the music changes as well.

Somebody That I Used To Know - Sam Tsui (originally by Gotye ft. Kimbra)
A song that became so viral it has an internet meme now has a cover that turns its eerie level up to 11. Like Mike Tompkins, Sam Tsui layers his voice to create the background music before singing the lyrics. It's also pretty impressive to think that he didn't even need a female vocalist to do Kimbra's part - Sam has one heck of a countertenor range.

Grenade - Delilah (originally by Bruno Mars)
Delilah as a group brings out the emotional aspects of this song, mostly due to Amy Whitcomb's powerful vocals and the group's silky voice as the background. They've turned this song into a nice slow ballad to swing with, and I would applaud anyone who can move people to tears with a choreography with this song. (It's not like it hasn't been done before, just look up Jordan and Tatiana.)

Piece of My Heart - Pentatonix (originally by Janis Joplin)
This song has been stuck in my head for quite a while, simply because the swing beat is really catchy here. The group's voices blend with each other so well, even if they only have 5 people in the group. I especially love Kevin's honkytonk solo in the middle of this song - it really helps demonstrate his vocal range. That, and he's also the group's beatboxer/rapper.

A Capella is an increasingly popular genre due to a revived interest from the internet. It'll be great if the dance scene can incorporate some A Capella music into a social night's playlist, or even in a performance.

ps: If you love the Sing Off as much as I do (3 out of 5 of these artists I listed here were from that reality TV show) you should sign a petition to bring a 4th season back on NBC. I'm an advocate of encouraging and positive criticism from the judges instead of what dramatic shows we get these days. #SaveTheSingOff