Sing-Off 4: Let's Meet the Groups!

I may as well admit it: I'm completely obsessed with "The Sing-Off." It's the only music competition show I bother with anymore, and for one reason: it's still about the music. TSO has never been about personal drama (though season 3 did give us entirely too much of a couple of the contestants' sob stories -- not to sound heartless, but I could have done with a lot less information about the Australian kid's dead dad.) This show is about the music, and the music is incredible.

Let's get to it, then! This time around, they've scaled it back to a holiday treat instead of a season-long competition. 

My favorite group for now is Home Free, a five-man country group from Minneapolis of all places. Listen to this and you'll see why -- especially the moment at 1:17 when the lead tenor opens up his amazing voice. (I like the bass guy too. I'm a sucker for a good bass.) There's also a snippet (in the NBC promo for the show) of them singing "Ring of Fire" that *really* makes me want to hear the rest of the song. (I'm also a sucker for Johnny Cash.) Last season a rap-a-pella group made it to the final three (Urban Method, and they were awesome). Why not a country group?

Next we have Street Corner Renaissance -- no relation to season 2's Street Corner Symphony. This is another quintet, made up of middle-aged black doo-wop singers with great voices and some pretty adorable dance moves. I was skeptical -- didn't we do this already in season 2, with Jerry Lawson and Talk of the Town? But their cover of One Direction's "Beautiful"  won me over. They took that auto-tuned, over-processed piece of prefab pop and turned it into something charming and fun. Well done, gentlemen!

The Filharmonic -- six young Filipino guys from LA -- are fine, but as I watched their clip, I didn't feel like I was seeing anything new or exciting. I think this group is largely going to come down to song choice for me -- I'll like them if I like the songs they choose. We'll see.

Let's knock out all the collegiate groups at once. First, we have the AcoUstiKats (I'm not sure I capitalized that correctly, and really, who cares). I have a definite weakness for the all-male collegiate groups, but we'll see if these boys from the University of Kentucky earn my love despite their stupid name.

The other collegiate group this year is The Footnotes, from Princeton. Wait, didn't we already have a Princeton group on the show? (No, we did not. The only university that has repeated is Brigham Young, which had a female group in season 1 and a male group in season 3.) They will probably get the benefit of my soft spot for the college boys. Here they are singing at Disneyworld (or Disneyland -- I don't know). Not a great video, but it's cute. 

Calle Sol is a group of six professional musicians from Puerto Rico, formed for TSO. I like the Latin flair, and I'm sort of intrigued by their group's structure (the four women sing lead, and the men provide bass and beatbox). This is another "we'll see" for me.

Ten is a gospel-inspired group from Dallas. True to its name, the group has 10 members, but there is also apparently some religious significance to it that I just can't be bothered to repeat. My gut reaction to the religious stuff is to barf, but then, Committed made no secret of its origin as a gospel group, and I freaking loved Committed. So, I'll reserve judgment until I hear Ten sing. I couldn't find a clip of them.

How to describe VoicePlay ... maybe a cross between Pentatonix and Manhattan Transfer? That's at least 50% not a compliment coming from me -- I hate Manhattan Transfer. I'll try to reserve judgment until I see them sing on the show. I think they'll probably be a serious contender, whether I like them or not.

Another season, another high school group. This one, Vocal Rush, come from a performing arts high school (jealous). The video is not high quality, but their singing is. Vocal Rush could be the first high school group to make it past the second elimination.

Finally, we have Element, this year's only all-female group. All I can tell from the scant material available is that there are 10 of them, they are from New York, and they seem to have some background in musical theater. I couldn't find any clips of them singing. Dammit, groups: put out some YouTube videos! How hard can that be?

At the judges' table: Ben Folds and Shawn Stockman are back. Hooray!!! Sara Bareilles is gone. Boo! She's replaced by Jewel. Shrug. As long as she's better than Nicole Scherzinger, I'll be satisfied. 

Woot! I didn't think we were going to get a fourth season. Now watch it, people! Let's show them that it's worth making season 5!