DEAR
Music lovers:
Pentatonix is taking the music world by storm, and that storm is producing some friction.
Music lovers:
Pentatonix is taking the music world by storm, and that storm is producing some friction.
Following the
release of their fourth studio album, the self-titled Pentatonix, a slew of
reviews came out. While most were very supportive of the a capella group's
latest work, some were not, leading to an interesting "battle of the
opinions" in the comment sections. One of the more notorious of these
reviews is that of Rolling Stone's Brittany Spanos, which begins with the
statement "a cappella cover stars try singing original compositions with underwhelming results".
Considering the
fact that most music in today's top charts has relatively lame lyrics, I would
say that pointing out how "cheesy" the lyrics of some of the songs in
this album are is not necessarily a strong point. I believe that the point of
"Sing" (the third original track on the new album) is to be cliché,
as the entire song feels like a musical throwback of sorts. Quite honestly, the
song that features Jason Derulo ("If I Ever Fall in Love", track 8)
is lovely, but it doesn't stand out to me; the main reason it is brought to
anyone's immediate attention is because it has a famous name attached to it.
Then there's the
whole "PTX vs Demi" discussion swirling through most of the online
forums, which brings me to a tangent. The main problem here is that people
forget that comparison is the thief of joy, as the infallible Mr. Roosevelt
would say.
Let's start with
this: I love both Demi Lovato and Pentatonix, and consider them to be in my top five when it comes to musical influences. Everyone is
discussing how Demi Lovato's latest album "Confident" and
Pentatonix's aforementioned album are both vying for the top spot on the
Billboard 200 chart, and it's gotten a little rough between fandoms.
In reply to the
people saying Demi put "more work" into her album, I'd say it takes a
lot of work for Pentatonix to write, arrange, learn, and put together their
music, too. Both albums were mostly written by the titular artists themselves,
which is rare in today's popular music world. Also, to people saying Demi is
"more talented" than Pentatonix; I, the writer of this article, am a singer,
and have covered both groups' music, and let me tell you, it takes a lot of
talent, technical know-how, and tons of practice to do what either of them do.
It's DIFFICULT, to say the least. Demi and PTX worked hard, and have gone
through a lot to get where they are, and I deeply respect both musical artists.
To bring this
full circle, I think Pentatonix's new album is a nice mix of genres and sounds,
and it's great that a capella is getting so much more attention in mainstream
media. The fact that no a capella group has really gotten so much attention before is causing a lot of interesting friction, and it's nice to see that many music lovers are expanding their horizons. The point of Pentatonix is to be able to spread the love of music, and blend, seperate, and use
technicalities of the voice to create one full sound-- and I think they're
definitely well on their way to that goal.
[Official Video] Sing -- Pentatonix
With Feeling,
Joélle.