Everyone has probably heard a capella music. Not that a lot of them ever really asked to, when you think about it. Perhaps they were at college at one point in their respective lives. Or maybe they were at a rock concert, and a big bolt of lightning hit the stage, causing the amplifier to explode, causing everyone's instruments to explode, but the concert performers didn't notice and just kept on performing as if nothing had happened.
Often times I find myself in the proverbial "John," wondering just what type of brainstorming was involved in coming up with this style of music.
Person 1: "Hey Jethro, do you want to invade Canada?"
Person 2: "Not today, Jim."
Person 1: "Well then, do you want to invent a completely absurd style of music, performed mainly by fairly large groups of blonde teenage girls with marginal talent, except that instead of using real instruments we'll have the blonde teenage girls whose talent is the most marginal play the roles of the instruments, so that they won't be tempted to think of anything while they're up on stage, and therefore not risk popping a collective blood vessel?"
Person 2: "Sure, as long as we're back in time for "Ally MacBeal".
And so a capella was born.
A second question that I find troubling whenever I'm in the proverbial "Can" is, and I quote myself here, "Why do some a capella singers have to speed up all of the songs they sing to the point where the songs are barely recognizable?" Good question, Eric. I'd tell you the answer if I knew it. Once, and this may or may not be true, I actually witnessed an a capella group speed up this one song so much that it was over even before it started. This caused some sort of temporal ripple, which caused the entire group to be hurtled backward in time. They haven't been heard from since. I believe they were called "Menudo." Or maybe they weren't an a capella group. Who knows.
Yet another thing about a capella music that often weighs me down while I am in the proverbial "Stall" is that you, as a rational being, have to figure that most a capella singers have heard of instruments before. Yet they refuse to learn how to play them! Fortunately, a recent study has shown that most a capella singers are either a) Christians or b) not Bill or Hillary Clinton, meaning that they are all going to Heaven, no matter how many instruments they don't know how to play. My father once told me, "Son, the day that an a capella singer can get into Heaven before the President of the United States, why, it's the day that the Yankees defeated the Braves, seven to two. I think it was last Sunday." My father is by all accounts senile, but boy did he make a good point!
Something else that I wonder about often times while I am leaking the proverbial "Weasel" is the process used to admit people into a capella groups. Luckily, we (meaning "me") at the Institute of Discount Wholesale Secret Audio Surveillance Equipment recently planted a bug, "Herbert," at an audition for a very highly regarded a capella group. Okay, so you got us. There are no highly regarded a capella groups. But we still recorded what qualifies as "something":
Member of highly regarded a capella group: "We are very highly regarded, you know. Why, just yesterday "
A capella hopeful #1: "Bop, bop, bop."
Hopefuls #2-#4: "Mmm Bop."
Hopeful #5: "Ba-dum-bum-CHING."
Hopeful #6: "Moo."
Member of group: "Looks like we've got ourselves a group! Let's call ourselves the Wifflebopplers."
Finally, when I am finished doing my business in the proverbial "Unsanitary, Termite-Infested, Rusted New York City Public Subway Station Urinal," the last thing I want to hear is a capella music, because I'm afraid then I'll have to pay for it. College a capella groups are always singing, at substantial cost, songs you liked much better by their original artists, and many students do not hesitate to take advantage of this wonderful entertainment opportunity, but it is widely accepted that these same students should be locked securely in laboratories for examination. What college a capella groups would be doing in subway station restrooms is another question entirely.
Not that I am saying that the people who sing a capella music are inherently bad -- a number of them are just downright lovely. Nor am I saying that Dartmouth a capella groups are untalented. They are very good at what they do (i.e. imitate the Aires). All I'm saying is, I had to write over 800 words on SOMETHING, and I still have the flu, and I am in a pretty bad mood, and if given the choice to save one a capella group in the entire universe, I would have to pick "Menudo."
