Music. According to Kim.

Chase Holfelder was a fairly recent discovery for me and when I was looking around for Les Mis covers and saw that he'd done this one, I was immediately intrigued. If you're not familiar with Chase, I did a video spotlight on him last month that you can read here . But he does a series on his YouTube channel where he takes songs that were originally done in a major key and puts them into a minor key. It's so interesting to hear how different this can make a song sound. Chase takes it one step farther and changes up the instrumentation. I think it's probably safe to say that you've never heard "I Dreamed a Dream" like this before! Check it out.

We continue my  Les Misérables celebration with an offering from one of my new favorite groups, 7th Ave. I've written about them before and undoubtedly will continue to do so as I have really enjoyed everything I've seen from them so far.  When I was coming up with the Les Mis related videos that I wanted to highlight, this was a pretty obvious choice and when you watch it you'll see why. It's an a cappella rendition of "Bring Him Home" and that's all I'm going to say about it for now. This cover features Kelley Jakle (the blonde one) who made the decision to leave the group earlier this year to pursue other projects. I don't think I've written about them since it was announced that she was leaving. She has a beautiful voice and I'm happy that 7th Ave introduced me to her. I wish her the best moving forward, along with the remaining members of 7th Ave. They've done some covers with some guest artists that have been great. I'm exci...

When I decided that it was time to get back to writing my blog, I decided that I wanted to focus a little more of musical theater. It's something that I've loved for a really long time. I remember going to see shows with my family at a relatively young age and seeing musicals is one of my favorite things. Last year, I dedicated an entire week to The Phantom of the Opera . Last month, I did a write-up about one of my new favorite shows Something Rotten  and now? Now I've decided to dedicate the next few posts to Les Misérables . Les Misérables  was the first musical that I ever truly loved. There'd been shows I'd seen and liked, but there was something so special about Les Mis . The first time I saw it was at the lovely National Theater in Washington, D.C. with a group from my school when I was in 7th grade. I remember sitting up in the balcony and being completely mesmerized by the show. I ended up getting both the CD and the VHS - yes, the VHS - of the 10th Ann...

I first found out about Sam Tsui from a collaboration that he did with one of my favorite male singers, Peter Hollens. As it turned out, some of my friends are also fans of Sam's and there was a point where I kept seeing people post some of his videos. So finally I decided to go check out his YouTube channel. Turns out, he has all kinds of great covers on there and even some originals. I liked him and knew it was only a mattered of time before I wrote about him.  The only trouble was picking which video to write about first. There were a bunch of strong contenders and it's safe to assume that all of those will get a spotlight at some point down the road. But it was hard to pick. The obvious solution was just to do a video spotlight on Sam himself. We'll be talking about five of his videos. Starting with the first one I saw.

I'm going to be honest and admit that the singer that I'm featuring today is a bit outside of what I usually listen to. I suppose if you had to classify these songs, they'd fall under the category of alternative rock. I think. Whatever you want to call it, it's not a style I listen to all that often. It happens every once in a while, as evidenced by this post. But it's a bit out of my wheelhouse, so to speak. That said, I always enjoy when I end up liking something that I wouldn't expect myself to like. It kind of surprises me how much I enjoy these songs and I don't mean that in an insulting way. They're just so different from the other things I listen to most of the time.  I first heard of Chase Holfelder via a tweet I saw from Chris Rupp where he mentioned liking the first cover on the list and included the link. I like Chris a lot and was intrigued to check out the video. Whoa. It's a song that I grew up listening to, a song from one of my f...

Layne with his beatbox and soaring high Earl notes Slick runs by Eli with Geoff's super low tones Counting down music we all like to sing ACA Top 10's are my favorite things Broadway with Tony, Chris Rupp singing country Video games, rapping and summer pop medleys Now Disney with J. None makes me shout yippee ACA Top 10's are my favorite things That's right. The men of VoicePlay are back with a brand new ACA Top 10! It's been over a year since the last one and I'll admit that I was getting a little concerned since it's been so long. I love everything they do, but their ACA Top 10's really are my favorite. I'm going to bet that I'm not alone in feeling that way. But if there's one thing I should have drilled in my head after this year, it's that the men of VoicePlay always come through for their fans. Not only do we get the pleasure of an ACA Top 10, we got what has probably been their most requested kind of ACA Top ...

Usually when I do a video spotlight I'll pick one video to highlight, but I'm changing it up a bit. Because here's the thing: it was my love of the music video that first inspired me to start this blog. There are so many great music videos out there with new ones coming out all the time. I don't think I'll ever be able to get to them all. But in an effort to be able to talk about more of them, I've decided that they'll be times when I put the spotlight on a specific artist instead of a single video. Each one of these will include five of their videos. The idea first came about when I determined that my next post would feature The Hound + The Fox. The only problem was that I couldn't pick which video of theirs to talk about. And so a new series, if you'd call it that, was born. There'll still be video spotlights that focus on one video and one video alone, but this'll allow me to get to more of them. Plus I think it's a good way to intro...

Hear ye, hear ye! Home Free has released their first video of 2017 and boy, is it a great one. The men of Home Free took a couple of well-deserved months off and now they're back at it. Back on the road and back with new music. One of the best things about supporting Home Free and other acts like them is seeing which direction they go next. Today's video is their version of the Keith Urban hit "Blue Ain't Your Color". If this video is any indication, Home Fries are in for a wonderful year! Check it out.

As I write this, Middle Tennessee is expecting what could be a terrible storm in a few hours. I'm not a fan of terrible storms, but that's okay. It'll be okay. I mention this because VoicePlay has just released a brand new video. What can that possibly have to do with storms? Well, if you know your Norse mythology you know that Thor is considered the god of thunder. What does VoicePlay have to do with Norse mythology? Well, their new video is a mashup of Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You" and Blackstreet's "No Diggity". It features our fabulous foursome with special guest Matthew Darren. Otherwise known as Harmony Thor. No, I did not come up with that myself. It won't take too long to figure out how he got that name. Just watch the video. Hopefully he doesn't mind it because I'm pretty sure he's stuck with it now. In any event, I have Thor on the brain. So this impending storm seems rather appropriate.  As for the mashup? Meh, it...

That moment when you were going to finish up a post about someone else, but end up writing about VoicePlay instead. Such is the life of a certified VoicePlayaholic. Of course, if they stopped putting out such great content, I wouldn't want to keep writing about them. But who am I kidding? It's VoicePlay. That's not going to happen. Alas, I have no choice but to keep promoting them to the best of my ability. I'd be a sorry excuse for a VoicePlayaholic if I didn't. That other post I was going to work on will get finished at some point. Today, however, it's all about VoicePlay and their wonderful new video. Truth be told, I was actually pretty anxious about this video. Not this video specifically. We didn't know this was coming until right before it came. So, no, that anxiety had nothing to do with this mashup and everything to do with the fact that it is the first VoicePlay video filmed in 2017. The first one filmed since they announced that Tony had left...

2017 is off to quite a start, I must say. There's good news and not-so-great news. The good news is that if you're a male who sings in the baritone/tenor 2 range and have dreamed about being in VoicePlay, well, you just might be in luck. I imagine that most of the people who come across this have already heard and those of you who haven't can probably guess. The not-so-great news is that that means that someone has left. If you've been paying attention over the last year, it shouldn't be too hard to guess who. Here's their announcement. Yeah. Tony is no longer with VoicePlay. It's funny because this was obviously coming and yet the news still managed to hit like a ton of bricks. I was going to write this a couple of days ago, but decided to wait until I got myself in a better frame of mind. This more or less cause a tidal wave of feels. I've cried. I've been upset. I've cussed. I've prayed. I've said goodbye, shook my fist and a...

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope everyone reading this has a wonderful day, whether you celebrate or not.  I am now more convinced than ever that the men of VoicePlay do in fact possess some sort of magical powers. Today's video is their most recent. Part of their Partwork series, this video features everyone but the Tony. One of the best perks of being a VoicePlay patron is that we get to see their videos a day or two sooner than everyone else. On the day that this video was released, I was chatting with a fellow VoicePlaya and friend about how ballads aren't really their thing. Then, later that day, an email arrived from their Patreon. Sidenote: their messages to their patrons are the greatest. They have a way of giving me the feels. Warm and fuzzy feels, to be specific. The one that accompanied this email legitimately made me "aw".  A new video - this video - was posted. I couldn't tell you what song I may have been anticipating, but seeing that it wa...

If you've never heard of Two Story Road, you're in luck because this is the 3rd time I've written about them. You can check out my review of their great self-titled EP right here  and my video spotlight on their a cappella version of their song "Arson" here . But the quick introduction to Two Story Road is that they are the talented husband and wife duo of Brandon and Jamelle Fraley. I've come to like these two a lot. They make great music and they're so entertaining to watch, as you're about to see. As soon as I watched this, I knew I was going to have to feature it. They're not afraid to be silly and those of you who know me know that I love that. So here's their fun version of "This Christmas".

Guys, I think we need to talk about Patreon. Specifically, VoicePlay's Patreon. Quick explanation for those of you who still aren't familiar with Patreon - it's a crowdfunding website designed to help creators create content over time. Unlike other crowdfunding sites (like, say, KickStarter), Patreon is an ongoing relationship between a creator and their fans (i.e. Patrons). As opposed to only raising money for one big project (like an album) over a specified amount of time. Patreon is one of the best things to happen that's happened to creators in a long time, in my opinion. Being a patron allows you to support your creators in a way that essentially makes you a small part of their creating process. Whether you donate $1 or $100 per creation, you are helping your creator(s) do what they love to do. You are helping them make their content. Every little bit helps.  Here's what's been driving me crazy about VoicePlay's Patreon. The website allows creato...

Ah, you gotta love the men of Home Free. One day they might bring you to tears with a gorgeous, heartwarming arrangement full of those luscious harmonies of theirs. The next they come out with something like this. I know many of the people reading this will have already seen this video, but for those of you who haven't? Given what song it is, it will not surprise you to see that this is a funny video. One that managed to keep my giggling pretty much the entire time. Before we get to it, though, I want to take the opportunity to talk about their Christmas tour, a Country Christmas. I got to see it when they came to the TPAC here in Nashville and it was great. As expected. This was the fourth time I've seen them, but two of those times were sets at CMAFest that only lasted for roughly 40 minutes or so. I also got to see their Grand Ole Opry debut where they, like everyone during their Opry debut, just did two songs. Making this show the first full length Home Free concert. Th...

If you happened to read my album review of ECHO's self-titled album, you know that I declared Geoff to be the Obi-Wan Kenobi of a cappella music. Not even a VoicePlay post and he walks away with a new title. That's because Geoff has played an integral role in this, my aca-addiction. Or, if we're going to go full on ridiculous (and we are), we could also refer to him as Geoffobi-Wan Castenobi. Castellunobi? Or...maybe we'll just stick with Geoff. That might be best.  In any event, that declaration paired with the recent release of new Star Wars  movie, Rogue One ,  made the choice to write about this particular cover next pretty easy. Although VoicePlay, in true VoicePlayish fashion, almost made me change course. Again. How? By releasing a Partwork that I think is the prettiest thing they've ever done. Rest assured, a spotlight on that in more than likely coming. In fact, there's also a chance of a spotlight on their version of "The First Noel", b...

In getting ready to write this, I had to chuckle at how Christmasy November turned out what with all the Christmas albums I ended up reviewing. This, from a person who usually prefers to only listen to Christmas music in December. Yet here we are about midway through December and none of the posts so far this month have had anything to do with Christmas. Time to remedy that, I think. What better way to do so by saving ECHO's Christmas for the end of our little ECHO trilogy? The first two installments are right below this one on the main page. But if you're feeling lazy, the first installment about their album can be found  here  and the ECHO mishmash can be found  here . "Home for the Holidays" is a beautiful medley. The perfect medley to bring us back to Christmas, if you ask me. So how about we get right to it?

For this second installment of this mini-ECHO series or whatever you wish to call it, we have a mishmash of things. This was originally only going to be a song review, but where's the fun in that? Actually, I was thinking that this would be a good way to cover as many ECHO related things as possible. Because sometimes you need to go all out with something. In this case, that something would be introducing the world (well, my readers) to the wonders of this group. We have an EP review, a mini-video spotlight and a song review all mixed up together.  This is the first time I've attempted something like this, so we'll see how it works out. Go with it.

Earlier this year, I wondered if Eli and Geoff were evil geniuses or not. Now, I can't help thinking that the group has some kind of weird magical ability. This year, I've been making an effort to plan things out better in an attempt to avoid having long stretches of time go by without any updates. It's worked out well. Some of the time. The rest of the time? Not so much. See, I'll have my notebook full of ideas and make up a schedule that makes sense to me. Then it happens. Something great gets uploaded, more often than not by these guys, and bam. Schedule? Out the window. See, once again I was going to wait just a bit longer before writing a new VoicePlay related post. Once again, I had decided what the next VoicePlay post would be. And it wasn't this. I'll give the guys extra credit for this one: they also managed to somewhat change  another upcoming post about them. This is, of course, entirely coincidental. It just happens...and keeps happening. Over an...

This was originally not going to be my next post, but seeing as how negative pretty much all of my social media feeds have been over the past few days made me want to write about this now. See, this song was originally done by Alessia Cara and it's all about body image and loving yourself. No matter what the rest of the world thinks. This is an important message these days. Especially lately. I'll be honest and admit that it annoys me that I feel a need to write about this because it shouldn't be this way. But it is. Denying that truth changes nothing. I never wanted to get political on my blog and I'm not. Not exactly. But right now the country is in a state of turmoil. The election is over and the hate is flowing. Friendships are ending because apparently learning someone voted differently than you did means that you're all of a sudden some kind of evil person. At least that seems to be the implication. As if they suddenly aren't the same person that they...