"The Sing-Off" Recap, Night 2: No Happy Ending

One should read this (hopefully shorter than usual) recap with two things in mind: I'm starting it 40 minutes before Wednesday's show starts, and I'm still feeling the lingering effects of having my absolute favorite group, one that I had an emotional investment in, go home. (That was kind of a spoiler, but this is kind of 23 hours after it happened...I doubt I ruined the result for anyone.) But I shall press on...contrary to one of my roommates, I'm still watching tonight and Monday, and I still love Noteworthy to the ends of the earth (it's crazy, I'm like obsessed with them now that I can't see them on TV anymore), so it's all good. And with that...I proceed to this frustrating, exhilarating, devoid-of-instruments (as Nick Lachey STILL loves to remind us) world we like to call...."The Sing-Off."

• The Devil Children Beelzebubs: They started off the program with probably one of the worst things I have ever seen in my life...a bunch of dorky White college boys doing "Right Round." The song's bad enough as it is...so why did they feel the need to introduce it into the a cappella world? On top of that, I spotted SEVERAL pitch problems...I usually don't resort to this extreme of criticism, but it honestly hurt my ears at some points. It just...didn't work. At all. There are some hip hop/rap-esque songs that work well in the land of vocal groups--Nota proved that later on with "Down"--but this was not one of them. It was a disgusting, painful performance, and the judges' little love-fest afterwards was inexplicable. (Ben Folds, a little bit of your credibility flew out the window right there.) Their second performance, "Come Sail Away, " was slightly better, but it still suffered from an acute case of Overeager disease. 'Onestly...their facial expressions, can they be more obnoxious? Shawn may have thought they grated their trademark style of cheese into "a fine mozzarella" here, but I saw as more of a slightly moldy Muenster. (I hate Muenster, by the way.) All in all...PLEASE mess up, Beelzebubs. I want you guys on the next plane back to Tufts, and with the judges worshipping your every move, you're going to need a HUGE trainwreck for that to happen.
• Noteworthy (awwwww...): It's kind of hard to write about them now that they're gone...but I'll find the strength. (OK, it's not THAT bad...but honestly! At least I know they have nowhere to go but up...) Now back to the recap...does "Viva la Vida" have some sort of curse on singing competitions or something? First poor Matt Giraud was felled by it on "American Idol" (albeit with a kind of misguided arrangement). Now its spacious, arena-filling quality ended up being the downfall of Noteworthy's stint on "TSO." I liked it much better watching the second time around (it made much more sense as an arrangement)--but I have to admit, it wasn't completely put together. It just didn't kick like the original did, and there were a few pitch problems that made it fall apart a bit. Still...the judges went to town on it in a way that I thought was too critical. Not mean...they just had a lot more to pick on in it than I thought was necessary. This got even worse with the girls' killer performance of "Hold On" (a song I had never heard until tonight)...I saw NOTHING wrong with it at all, and this is coming from the person who loved their performance of "Think" last night but still had a few kinks to point out. It was fierce, on key, energetic, and...I know Nicole said this about Maxx Factor, but I think this applies here..."sassy but classy." I audibly squealed at several points, something that I rarely ever do even with the best musical performances. So when the judges started gently tearing it apart, I was confused..."too much treble," for example? It's a FEMALE a cappella group! It was just a fiery, instantly memorable performance, and I thought it deserved much more credit than it received.
• Voices of Lee: I still can't get started with them. They're just...boring. Really, really, overearnestly boring. Their first performance, "No One," had the vocals there...the lead singer had a pretty nice voice, capable of handling the raw power Alicia Keys put forth in her version, and the other singers framed her voice nicely...but the execution was much too white-bread. Contrary to Ben, when they broke into the "ching-chings" in the middle, I was put off, rather than excited. It was just too square...it's an Alicia Keys song, not a Gaithers number! So they missed the boat on that one...as for their second number, "Freedom '90" by George Michael, it was far too shouty and overdone. It could have been a tender, "Hold On"-like jamfest...but instead ended up being like a shouting match by (yep, I'm going here...) the cast of "Glee" at 12. Unfortunately, the judges fell in love tonight, so VOL is safe going into tonight...but I didn't feel like they really improved, and I hope the judges end up realizing their glaring weaknesses.
• Nota: The boys of Nota deserve some serious props...on a night where they tackled a hip-hop/R&B song I somewhat hate and during their second performance, I was in "aah! Noteworthy is in danger! SOMEONE mess up!" mode, I really, really liked both of their songs. "Down" was a clever (and again Latin-infused) rendition of a normally obnoxious number...unlike the devil boys earlier with "Right Round," they put some soul and excellent harmonies into it, even throwing in their own, fairly unique spin. Their next song was even more interesting...a group of young guys from Puerto Rico taking on a 70s Bee Gees hit sounds like a horrible idea on paper, but it ended up turning out great. They hewed close to the original, but the arrangement was pretty darn cool, and the lead singer's falsetto was, I admit, a bit more appealing than his normal voice. It just worked...I don't know how, but it worked.
• The SoCals: My feelings were improved, but still pretty mixed, about this group tonight. Oddly enough, I loved their version of "Already Gone" (so much, apparently, that it WOULDN'T GET OUT OF MY HEAD for about 2 or 3 hours afterwards, and I kept singing it out loud)...the lead vocalist kicked it, the harmonies were very nice, and it just clicked for me. This might have been a little to do with the song...but I fell in love with the performance, predispositions about SoCal or not. On the other hand..."Nothing's Going to Stop Us Now" was an atrocious, overdone mess. It was like a production of "High School Musical" from Hel...sinki. (You know what I mean...) They shouted way too much, the choreography was obnoxious rather than charming and cheesy, and it was just painful to watch and hear. (The kiss at the end was random, by the way. Not bad, just...what the heck?!?!) I don't mind that they stayed, but with as bad of a second performance as they gave...I wouldn't have minded if they had left, either.
• Maxx Factor: I don't know what to think about Maxx Factor anymore. Their first performance, a harmony-licious reworking of Taylor Swift's painfully ubiquitous "Love Story," was a true triumph. It was beautiful, confident, and really a job excellently done. I don't know why, but I almost wanted to cry afterwards (in a good way, of course). On the flip side...I like them. I like "Rehab." I like radical covers of songs I know. But somehow...it fell apart. The pitch was wonky at a few places, especially during the bridge. It seemed the four lovely ladies didn't click, and it was kind of a worrying sign. Still, I love them...and regarding the current circumstances, I'm rooting for them (along with Nota) to go all the way...but I would have rather have had them go home than Noteworthy in...
• The Elimination: I think the judges were a bit off. As slightly underwhelming as Noteworthy's performance of "Viva La Vida" was, it didn't come close to the crumbly mess that "Rehab" turned out to be. And while "Love Story" was heartbreakingly beautiful, it lost out to "Hold On" in both the energy and dynamic quality departments. On top of that...this is not the bottom 2 I would have liked. Three of the four other groups (not Nota, of course) would have been a better fit for elimination. But that's just my opinion...and the fabulous girls of Noteworthy gave an excellent farewell performance of "Happy Ending" (sadly truncated, though).

And now, it's time for me to move on. Nick Lachey still has a big issue with incessant repetition--he toned down the "no instruments!" shtick tonight, but his explanation of the "guilty pleasure" concept OVER and OVER again was acutely annoying. Nicole slightly redeemed herself tonight with miniscule snippets of actual criticism, and Ben, despite a few disagreements with him tonight, still kept up a high reputation. And now...the show is about to start this Wednesday evening...so I bid adieu.