<p>A good friend was in The Boy Singers of Maine with Michael for years. (Now he’s a Whiffenpoof. They’ve both done well! 
) Michael also won the first “Dartmouth Idol” competition.</p>
<p>I liked it when Shawn responded to Michael’s filmed statement that being on The Sing-Off had made him rethink what he was planning to do with his life with words to the effect of “Man! What ELSE were you planning to do buy sing?” He definitely has emerged as a star.</p>
<p>Pentatonix just keeps impressing me. I LOVED their version of Born To Be Wild (and doing that a cappella was one of the worst ideas ever, until they did it).</p>
<p>I have no idea at this point who else will be in the finals. Dartmouth vs. BYU: The BYU guys are boring, but they are amazing singers. Dartmouth is really theatrical and fun, but I don’t know how well that would translate to music-only media, or watching them for more than a song or two per week. They make good use of the symphonic possibilities of their cast-of-many, and they have the best front man, but they are wearing a little thin. I no longer believe they are clearly better than BYU. AfroBlue vs. Urban Method: Like Dartmouth-BYU, could go either way, but can’t go both ways. They seem to alternate good and not-so-good weeks. I tend to like Urban Method more, because I like hip-hop more than jazz, and a hip-hop based a cappella group doesn’t sound like a second-rate Manhattan Transfer. But I think AfroBlue is more consistent, and better quality more often.</p>
<p>Hard to care that much, since (a) I like everyone at this point, and have for a while, and (b) it’s hard to imagine voting for anyone other than Pentatonix. It’s theirs to lose.</p>
<p>I really, really want the Aires to beat the BYU group, who bore me stiff. As long as that happens, and Pentatonix wins, I’ll be happy. :)</p>
<p>JHS, Are you sure you aren’t biased because Pentatonix’s beatboxer Kevin Olusola is a Yale grad? </p>
<p>Seriously, if Pentatonix doesn’t win, I’ll be astonished. But I like all of the groups.</p>
<p>Kevin has some cool videos on youtube where he is beatboxing while playing the cello.</p>
<p>Well, some of you got your wish: the BYU group was eliminated.</p>
<p>What do you all think of Urban Method? I’m not a fan of Rap, I feel they have their own genre and don’t care for it with a capella, but they seem to be making a late series surge.</p>
<p>Love Pentatonix and the Dartmouth boys.</p>
<p>I loved the Byu group and think the Dartmouth aires are a little bland sounding, maybe because there are so many of them, Wahhhhhh… Sad that Byu went home! :(</p>
<p>OMG!! Pentatonix singing Let’s Get It On just slayed me.</p>
<p>My 2 kids have been singing with/competing against the “core” of Pentatonix (Scott, Kirstie and Mitch) for several years. They are very talented and sweet kids. I hope they do well in this competition (even though they graduated from our “rival” high school!).</p>
<p>
Yes, I was quite surprised by that. The judges looked like they all needed cold showers. Was also a little bemused by the one singer who was distraught about their first song because he thought it was too explicit (against his beliefs) but was apparently quite comfortable with this performance which was way way way more…</p>
<p>I looked up the Pentatonix group members’ bios and see that the core attended high school in my home town. Scott H. goes to USC now, Kirstie is at OU, Mitch is in the process of deciding on a college, Avi attended community college, and Kevin O. is a Yale grad. They all have interesting histories for kids so young. Apparently they added Avi and Kevin at the very 11th hour, right before auditions for the Sing Off. It’s amazing that they have developed such great chemistry with so little preparation time.</p>
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<p>I think that Kirstie is just gorgeous! It certainly makes the group more fun to watch than the all-male groups where there are so many singers I don’t really notice any particular “stars”.</p>
<p>Did your kids try out for the show?</p>
<p>^ Nope. Neither of my kids sing acapella. My older is an MT major and the younger (still in high school) is a classical/opera singer. But they sang in All State choir with the Pentatonix kids and knew them through high school show choir.</p>
<p>Should win: Pentatonix
Will win: Pentatonix
My favorite though: Dartmouth Aires - they are so much fun! Their rendition of Shout just makes you happy.</p>
<p>I LOVE THIS SHOW!
There is a ton of singing talent, musicality, FUN, energy, great acting, tem-work, excellent choreography, creativity, maturity and hard-work. It feels so organic and real, not over-produced. The judges are smart and interesting.
YAAAAAAY</p>
<p>Darn, totally forgot it was on tonight.</p>
<p>Voting is open all week so hop on the web site and view away [The</a> Sing Off - NBC Official Site](<a href=“http://www.nbc.com/sing-off/]The”>http://www.nbc.com/sing-off/). Agree Pentatonix should win but they all did an amazing job last night. .</p>
<p>I got home late and missed Pentatonix altogether – they didn’t even appear in the last hour of the show. That didn’t stop me from voting for them, though.</p>
<p>Very tough choice for whom to exclude from the final vote. I have thought for months that the final three were going to be Pentatonix, the Dartmouth Aires, and one of Afro Blue or Urban Method, and that’s how it worked out. But I thought Afro Blue did a great job in last night’s show – better than anyone else I saw, since I didn’t see Pentatonix. And they are most in the mainstream commercial a cappella vein. The Aires really are a poor recording-contract candidate, even if their singer is clearly one of the top stars on the show. (He could maybe get a deal.) The Aires are better TV, though – I look forward to seeing them again next week – and will probably take some votes from Pentatonix, whereas Urban Method and Afro Blue competing against one another would have probably assured a Pentatonix win.</p>
<p>I think I must be the only person in the world who thinks that, at times (like last night in their first song), AfroBlue sounds “pitchy”. Though their last song last night was AMAZING…well, their last two songs (as they had to do that extra one against the Aires. So I was pleasantly surprised when the Aires made the finals. </p>
<p>I voted mostly for Pentatonix, with one vote for the Aires cause they are just so darned cute and very entertaining…</p>
<p>The one thing I don’t like about this show’s format is the artificiality of excluding one group just before the audience gets to vote, and then having the remaining groups perform in the live finale as if it mattered. They ought to have a show where the finalists perform knowing that they are the finalists, with the audience voting on everyone they see. </p>
<p>In other words, the judges should have been out of it last night and let people vote on all four groups. Which, by the way, would also have left time for all four to sing a third song, or part of one. It is really unsatisfactory if, as with last night, one of the last performances you see doesn’t count, and only one of the finalists gets to reprise its greatest hit. It would also have been more comfortable if the judges had just been able to express their appreciation for each group, rather than deciding (by split decision) that after all they didn’t appreciate one of them quite so much.</p>
<p>We all know, intellectually at least, that all of the shows to date were filmed months ago. They don’t need to pretend that they are doing real-time shows.</p>
<p>I just watched it on Hulu. </p>
<p>Pentatonix rules. They have to win. </p>
<p>Michael Odokara is a rock star. I love the Aires. </p>
<p>I would buy records by Pentatonix. I would buy tickets to see the Aires. There’s the difference.</p>
<p>I do not get what the judges see in Urban Method. Well, to be more accurate, I think I get what they see–rapappella–but I think they are uneven and should have been eliminated, not called out first. AfroBlue does have the fault of sometimes sounding like, as someone put it upthread, a second-rate Manhattan Transfer, but when they do get in the groove with gospel-infused stuff they are just great. UM never moves me like that.</p>