Is A cappella Dead?
It’s over ladies and gentlemen. The fad of singing pop songs together in a group has run its course. We are no longer the hottest fad sweeping the nation. We’ve been replaced…
By Labubus.
Okay I’m kidding. I mean, I’m not kidding, Labubus are everywhere and there’s no logical reason why these demon-bunny-like-creatures-who-are-obviously-a-copyright-infringement-of-Where-The-Wild-Things-Are should permeate the hearts and minds of our young children. But they do, and we have to live with it.
Let’s hope this dies out quicker than Beanie Babies. Or at least, Pogs.
Sorry, tangent over. Hi! If you’re reading this blog for the first time, you’re probably horribly confused and possibly a little gassy.
See, I got my start by writing about a cappella. I chronicled the development of my doctoral dissertation where I created a four-year college interdisciplinary curriculum for contemporary a cappella.
No one read it.
So I started comparing a cappella advice to pop culture phenomena.
Ten people read it.
Then one day, I got really really really really really fed up with people misunderstanding the definitions of “medley” and “mash-up,” and I wrote a post that cleared the whole thing up.
Lots of people read it. Way too many people.
I wrote blog posts for about 8 years. I covered as many topics as I could, from reviewing festivals to complaining about the members of my a cappella group not listening to a word I said. Then 2020 happened and the blog died.
I’ve decided to bring it back as a response to my own question, kind of like what would happen if you called the fire department to report a fire, then actually lit the fire to make sure they had something to save.
Is a cappella as we know it dead?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Kind of.
Answer I should write so Deke doesn’t call me on the phone and yell at me: Of course not! A cappella can never die!
A cappella had a phenomenal decade from 2009-2019. The Sing-Off gave every group hope that they could be a star. Pitch Perfect brought the ICCA and riff-off’s into the cultural zeitgeist. In Transit brought a cappella singing to Broadway. The A cappella Education Association brought teachers together. At one point, CASA had 6 (SIX!) yearly festivals running. It was a great time to be an a cappella fan.
Then 2020 and the pandemic killed off a lot of groups. One of my favorite groups, Canadian group Cadence, retired. Another one of my favorite groups, Fermata Town, kind of faded into the background. Hell, even my group dissipated.
So where do we go from here? Well, to circle back to the original question “Is A cappella Dead?” my suggestion is evolution. Here’s the problem we’re facing:
1) Festivals are booking the same groups over and over again, or they’re booking acts that aren’t even a cappella
2) A cappella is no longer prominent in the media. (Let’s face it…we’re not getting Pitch Perfect 4)
3) It feels like groups are churning out tracks at a record rate, but very few of these tracks have anything new to say.
I am sorry if this opinion rattles your cage a little bit. That was kind of the idea. Make no mistake, I’m a die hard, a cappella true-believer. But even I’m getting bored and find myself drifting slowly away from the thing I love more than my own children more than my Labubu collection.
Let’s look at brighter sides. What is helping us currently evolve?
1) GAIA- Formed by Matt Goldstein, this company (Collective? Group? Pack?) has found success hosting nightly circle singing workshops and one-day choirs. This year, they’ve expanded their reach beyond Brooklyn and they have taken their act on the road both nationally and internationally. You can find out more about there here:
2) BGAC- Broadway Goes A cappella- Formed by Andrew Kim, Evan Feist, and Charlie Arthur, this twice-a-year concert has penetrated the Broadway community and even lured in some true Broadway stars to sing solos.
3) Grammys- Thanks mostly to Pentatonix, pop a cappella has been recognized as part of a GRAMMY-eligible category. Not only that, but there are more than a few a cappella superstars like Kevin Child and Mel Daneke who have been accepted onto the GRAMMY voting board.
4) Education- Rob Dietz, if you didn’t know, is the chair of repertoire and standards for contemporary a cappella in ACDA. Thanks to big pushes from him and educational leaders, ACDA is starting to form pop a cappella honors choirs and pop a cappella has become a popular topic at national festivals. I myself presented at the 2023 national convention about contemporary a cappella. (See that? That was an explanabrag.)
5) Counterpoint- The popular podcast by Rob and Deke Sharon has been brought back, and now they’re tackling more than just arranging questions.
6) The NY Collective- Grammy-award-winning Ben Bram has moved to New York (ha ha take THAT California!) and formed a pop a cappella choir with rotating auditions and singers.
7) AAVF- Though not really new(ish), the AAVF (Aarhus Vocal Festival) has been campaigning for more collaboration, more improvisation, and more diversity. Just watch their final concert of the festival (I forget the name…). You’ll see ten a cappella groups, working and performing together, all with lights, scenery, and staging. I caught the 2024 performance and let me tell you…This performance ALONE was worth the price of admission.
Let’s get real for a second. Of course, any type of group singing is positive. Just because you’re churning out arrangement after arrangement does not mean you’re doing anything bad. And for the 90% of a cappella groups/choirs/barbershop quartets/vocal jazz groups, evolution is not on their minds, and that’s great. Keep singing, keep making the world a more harmonious place.
For the 10% of us who want to push the boundaries of a cappella and show the world something new…we have to step it up.
Is a cappella dead? Of course not. Vocal music was the very first kind of music and will undoubtedly be the very last kind of music (Suck it Oboes!). But honestly, and this is just my opinion, we’ve hit a plateau and we need to climb.
Marc Silverberg
Marcesilverberg.com
@docacappella on Instagram
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