Here’s a happy little story testifying to the power of the Internet. So often this medium is used for overt silliness or outright stupidity that I thought it might be a nice change to highlight something good. Maybe it’s a little Christmas magic involved. That’s why I picked Christmas Magic as the fractal image for this post.-
Last year about this time I got an e-Mail from my friends Don and Louise Almy suggesting I take a look at a certain YouTube ™ video. They know my taste well enough not to send something to me that won’t make me laugh or think so I didn’t hesitate to click on the link to see what I would get.
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Before I go any further why don’t you click on this link and take a look for yourself. (It will really help you understand the rest of the post.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8 .
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I really enjoyed it for several reasons: FIRST singing a cappella is hard enough but singing unaccompanied with shifting tempos (the musical term is tempi but I doubted most of my loyal readers would understand that word) and singing something completely opposite what those near you is a sure recipe for disaster. Even so the guys were note-perfect. SECOND: this version of The 12 Days Of Christmas appealed to my sense of the absurd and I think it’s pretty darn funny.
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What you were watching (assuming you surfed over there) was a performance by a group called Straight No Chaser. They were a student-organized sub-group of the Indiana University Show Choir in 1998. After graduation the guys went on to “ordinary” lives and careers and put the group behind them Ten years after graduation the guys had a reunion and one former member posted some video on YouTube ™, Six million hits later executives from Atlantic Records decided to give the boys a record deal. Naturally everyone involved jumped at the chance to record. The resulting album, Holiday Spirits was released on October 28, 2008.
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The album is a mix of sacred and secular holiday favorites (skewing to the popular side). There’s only one new song on the album (Indiana Christmas) that is good but not great. The rest are holiday standards ranging from Little Saint Nick to Carol of the Bells: of course their version of The 12 Days of Christmas (basically what got them noticed in the first place) is included as well. Every song is performed well with perfect balance and a lot of verve. Men’s a cappella singing isn’t for everyone but I doubt few people will out-and-out HATE the album. I think I’ll enjoy it long after the novelty of “12 Days” wears thin.
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Will Straight No Chaser ever be anything more than a flash in the pan, a holiday footnote known only for a single song? I don’t know. In all honesty, I don’t see them becoming anything more than a minor success forever on the fringes of fame. Still, they’ll have a life in November and December for as long as they want to stay together. I hope they find a way to break out of their niche. Whether they “break out” or not--Straight No Chaser has managed through luck and still to do something a lot of musical groups only dream of. That’s a Christmas miracle in and of itself. Is it Christmas magic or the power of YouTube ™
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Think about it.
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