Monday, December 08, 2008

Straight No Chaser: Holiday Spirits

Last year about this time, I discovered a video by an acapella group called Straight No Chaser doing a version of the 12 Days of Christmas.



Here's the story, condensed from this article in the NYTimes and this video.



The group formed back in the late 90s at Indiana University and when they graduated, they split up. They got back together in 2006 for a reunion and one of the guys had videos of a performance and put it up on YouTube since the members of the group were now living all over the country. By the beginning of December of 2007 about 100,000 people had seen it, which the group thought was pretty cool. But by the end of the first week of December, they had 200,000 total. By Christmas, 6 million people viewed it as well. And one of them was an executive from Atlantic Records who decided to call up and see if they wanted to get back together to capitalize on this and do a Christmas CD. And as you might be able to tell from the title of this post, they did, and it's called Holiday Spirits.



And it's good. They do a lot of standards as well as some fun ones, like Little Saint Nick. And they include the live version of 12 Days of Christmas, which is also good, but it's honestly better with the video. So, if you're looking for some new Christmas music, I'd give this one a shot. The production is great and the harmonies that these guys pull of is really, really excellent. Even if you don't typically like pop acapella (like me), give this one a listen.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. That was WAY better than I was anticipating. I would even go so far as saying I enjoyed that. I think I might use one of their songs in my Holiday Video I'm editing. Thanks Phil!

Greg

Unknown said...

That was great Phil, I will probably get that for someone, now its time to think who should I get it for... Probably I will decide on me :)

Laura said...

Chad heard them on the radio and found them on YouTube to show me this weekend. We LOVED it, so we bought the Christmas CD online. Can't wait for it to get here!!!

Jamie: said...

Hey thanks for your post! I heard about these guys in college about 10 years ago when I went to Michigan. I was really into the whole college a cappella thing. I saw the video sometime last year and thought it was really cool. And then this morning I was listening to NPR and heard they were doing a show in San Fran AND that they had a record deal. It's very cool. I mean college a cappella groups are a very insular thing, so it's really fun to see that they are getting real professional treatment. As I said in my post, 'N Sync wishes they were as good as these guys!

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