Pentatonix: Making Acapella Cool

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By Rachel Buchanan, Writer

Pop. Rock.  Hip-hop.  All of these music genres have been around for the majority of our lives, but now a not-so-new genre is making a scene in the music industry: acapella.

A capella has been around for as long as most teens can remember, but it has always been deemed as “uncool” and “lame”; kind of like musical theatre soundtracks.

When all hope seemed lost for a capella lovers alike, a saving grace came into the world, or more like a television show.  In 2011, a group of five Arlington, Texas natives, who went by Pentatonix, won a reality TV show called “The Sing-Off”, where a cappella groups competed for a Sony recording contract.

For the first two seasons of the television show, the winners just drifted away out of the public eye. But Pentatonix was a different story.  After their victory, they didn’t just sit in their homes enjoying the win, they continued to work hard and make their dreams come true.

The five young adults, Scott, Mitch, Kirstie, Avi, and Kevin, started posting videos and covers on YouTube and before they knew it, they were reaching millions of views on each of their videos.

Pentatonix also kept up with their relevance by releasing EPs of covers featuring a couple of original songs and a Christmas album.  And now Pentatonix has launched a full album of original songs, giving the world no room to doubt that they are legitimate and serious recording artists.

With all of their success and hard work, Pentatonix received worldwide fame for being an amazing music group that just so happens to be an a capella group.  At the 2015 Grammy Awards, their arrangement of ‘Daft Punk’ got them to the title of “Grammy Award Winning Group”.

Not only are they winning awards all over the place, but they are also making history on the charts.  Their original, self titled album made it to the number one spot on the Billboard 200 Chart, making history of being the first a capella group to make to number one.

This isn’t just good news for Pentatonix, these are accomplishments for all a capella lovers.  While movies like “Pitch Perfect” helped bring people to hearing a cappella music, Pentatonix has given a real life example of how a capella can be accepted as a respected music genre.