Pentatonix has, without any assistance, carried a cappella music to a degree of achievement that’s never been observed in history. They picked up widespread acclaim and recognition when they won the third season of the NBC TV a capella singing rivalry show, The Sing Off, which bagged them a record deal with Sony Music. But what was their first song?
Pentatonix’s first song was ‘Can’t Hold Us’ — a cover of the song credited to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. The group released the song in 2013 after winning The Sing Off. Prior to this, they’d been posting covers of mainstream hits including PSY’s ‘Gangnam Style’.
Read more below to learn a bit more about a cappella music and how this five person band turned into the real life Bellas (from Pitch Perfect).
How A Cappella Became Popular
A capella music has been around for a long time — the 15th century to be precise. However, back then it was more religious. As Joseph from SuperProf puts it, “alla cappella means ‘in the style of the chapel.'” Although it’s worth mentioning that way back then, a cappella featured musical instruments including the organ in the background, so the singers didn’t purely rely on their voices as can be seen in the modern day.
The main thing that characterizes a cappella music is that the musician or band will rely solely on their voices. Essentially, this means they don’t rely on instruments and it’s all about their vocals. This style of singing has not always been so mainstream.
While Mic’s Alex Rabinowitz describes a cappella singing as “inherently lame”, it hasn’t prevented it from being incorporated into pop culture, so it can’t be all that bad. In his article, Rabinowitz describes how a cappella music took over the music world, becoming most recognizable in Universal’s mainstream musical first released in 2012 called Pitch Perfect, directed by Jason Moore.
The Real Life Bellas
Originally the band was composed of high school companions Kirstie Maldonado, Mitch Grassi, and Scott Hoying, the group got its kickstart after their cover of Beyoncé and Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’ recorded for Glee-related challenge, they started accumulating mass attention from fans on YouTube. The band at that point enlisted the help of Avi Kaplan and Kevin Olusola, renamed itself Pentatonix, and tried out for The Sing Off which they went on to win.
The group performed on all but two episodes of The Sing Off. Characterized by their unexpectedly elaborate and stylistic nature, the group performed covers of songs from contrasting genres ranging from R&B to dubstep. The song that scored them the winning position in the finale was ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ by Survivor.
Shortly following their victory on The Sing Off, Pentatonix released their first EP PTX Volume 1 which was a notable success on the charts, reaching number 14 on Billboard 200, selling 20,000 copies within a week of its release. As of 2020, they’ve held two number one positions on Billboard 200 with their self-titled album released in 2015 and their Christmas album, A Pentatonix Christmas (also known as PTX Christmas) released in 2016.
If 2015 and 2016 weren’t successful enough years in themselves for Pentatonix, even more success was yet to come in the following year. Upon their release of ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’, a cover of the original song by Elvis Presley — one that amassed many views within a few days of its official release by Pentatonix, Billboard’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine described the group as “one of most successful [music groups] in America.” In his article, he put their success down to how they’ve always “looked, and sounded, thoroughly modern.”
Eboni Branch, a writer for Medium, compares the group to the fictitious a capella group, The Bellas from Pitch Perfect, saying “Pentatonix is like the REAL LIFE version of the Barden Bellas in the movie, Pitch Perfect.”