How Adele & Pentatonix Are Proving That Music Isn’t Dead
I love music. It has been apart of my life long before I was born. I was raised in house where music was played constantly, and most of the time it was mix of my mother’s favorite musicals and her favorite 70’s band. As I got older, the music evolved to the likes of Madonna, The Bangles, and whatever hair band my sister was into. By the end of the 80’s, I was able to choose my own music and naturally I went with New Kids on the Block which morphed into Nirvana to the Spice Girls to NSYNC. But, no matter what was playing in the top 40, at my core I live for simple music when there is just the signer and the music, that’s it.
In a world that now relies on auto-tune and using computers to create great sound, it is refreshing, at least to me, when in the span of a month, two albums, from two different artists hit the airwaves that in a way hit a reset button on music.
The first was Pentatonix, the a cappella group that shot to fame as winners of the The Sing Off a few years back. Singing a cappella is the core of any choir student but it takes a crazy amount of skill to make it your career. Sure there are times when the group works with the likes of violinist Lindsey Stirling, but 98% precent of the time they are “making music with their mouths”. Their latest, self-titled release branches off into new territory with all original songs. In fact the only way to hear the three covers they recorded is to get the extended version.
Then there is Adele, our ultra bright spot in the music world. Her new album 25 practically broke iTunes when it was released on November 20th, and it is perfection. Adele, like Taylor Swift, uses her real-life to inspire her songs, which in my opinion makes for the best music, as it has pure emotion woven into every word and note. Adele likes to call 25 her make-up album unlike her last two releases which were more akin to break-up songs. Now don’t get me wrong, 25 will make you cry buckets and make you want to call everyone you haven’t talked to in like three years.
The part that makes both of these artists really stand out to me is when you hear them perform live. When an artist can sound exactly the same (or damn close) to the studio version when they perform live, that to me at least, is the sign of some true music.
Well Bieber, Grande, and the rest of the top 40 bunch are great to groove and dance to, every now and then we need some artists like Pentatonix and Adele to even things out and bring us some good old fashioned music.