I wrote about Pentatonix just last month. But that was before they won a Grammy. So I’ll write a bit more and hopefully I can plow some new ground.
Pentatonix are five young people who comprise the world’s most popular a cappella vocal group. (The name is derived from the pentatonic music scale which has 5 notes.) Pentatonix was formed in 2011 when three friends from Arlington, Texas – Scott Hoying, Mitch Grassi, and Kirstin (“Kirstie”) Maldonado, all 19 years old at the time – decided to compete in season 3 of NBC’s The Sing-Off. They found base singer Avi Kaplan through a mutual friend, and they found beatboxer Kevin Olusola on YouTube. The group first met on the day before the audition. They practiced their song and choreography for 12 hours straight, nailed the audition, and won a spot on the show – competing against 15 larger groups. Pentatonix went on to win the 10-week competition, and with it a $200,000 prize and a recording contract with Sony Music.
But Sony Music didn’t know how to promote the band – a cappella is not exactly mainstream. So the band got busy and set up a YouTube channel for their music and started shooting and posting music videos. They sold music through iTunes and a small record label that produces movie soundtracks. They also used social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Google Hangouts, and SpreeCast to interact with their fans. Less than 4 years later, they’ve produced several top-ten albums and have 7.5 million YouTube subscribers. They began touring to sold-out venues in the U.S., Great Britain, Europe, Southeast Asia, and Japan. Their latest Christmas album (That’s Christmas To Me) was the #4 album of 2014 (and the #1 holiday album). They’ve been invited to the White House. They’ve performed at the Kennedy Center Honors 2014 honoring Tom Hanks. They were presenters at the American Music Awards 2014. They were co-presenters at this year’s Grammy Awards. They recently filmed a cameo appearance for the movie Pitch Perfect 2.
Somebody at Sony Music took notice and signed them to a contract with RCA Records, a flagship label of Sony Music.
They are not merely amazing singers who can produce incredible harmonies without the need of production gimmicks like auto-tune and overdubs. When they cover a song, they take it apart, rearrange it, change the rhythm, change the melody, shift to a different key in the middle of the song, and put it back together in a unique way. They do mash-ups so perfectly that by the time you figure out what song they’re singing, they’ve already transitioned seamlessly into a different song.
In late 2013, they recorded a medley of hits by Daft Punk. Daft Punk is a French electronic music duo whose music is a blend of house music and synthpop. For the medley, Pentatonix recorded a music video (which they named "Daft Punk") in the apartment where two of the band’s members were living. They hung a large black curtain on a wall beside the kitchen appliances, set up light rings, and used blue contact lenses and special make-up to give the video an other-worldly feel. That music video earned the group a Grammy for Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella. In accepting the award for the band, Hoying said, “We recorded this in a bedroom closet, we filmed it in a kitchen, and now we’re Grammy winners. It’s proof that anything can happen.”
Anything can happen, but Pentatonix have worked very hard to make it happen. They’re in the big leagues now, and the days of filming a music video in a kitchen are fast disappearing in the rear window.
White Winter Hymnal (Fleet Foxes Cover)
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