Hear ye, hear ye!
I have an announcement.
The talented men of VoicePlay have been quite the busy band of a cappelling bees as of late. There's their new Partwork series in which part of the group gets together to do a video. This allows them to create and release more content. There's been two videos in the series thus far. The first was a cover of Justin Bieber's "Love Yourself" featuring Eli and Geoff. Today's video is the second. This time, instead of double the Geoff, we have double the Layne. And instead of having triple the Eli, we have triple the Earl. Leaving one member of the group who has yet to be featured in Partwork. That would, of course, be Tony the Tony who has presumably been busy doing various Tonyish things. I'm guessing that we'll see him in a Partwork at some point. At least I - and all VoicePlay fans, I suspect - hope so.
Aside from Partwork, VoicePlay has also been doing 1 Minute Musicals. These are exactly what it sounds like - musicals that happen in roughly a minute. There have been three so far. The newest one came out a few days ago and my goodness. Never did I imagine I'd ever hear them utter the phrase "hey y'all!" as a group, but they did and it was magical. In an odd and wonderful kind of way. I've loved each of their musicals so far though. Enough that I've decided to dedicate a week to writing about them. This will most likely happen towards the end of this month or the beginning of June. So be on the lookout for that.
Now that that's been announced, I'm going to ever-so-kindly shove Eli, Geoff and Tony off to the side. Because it's Earl and Layne time. As is generally the case when writing about VoicePlay, things are about to get goofy up in here. In 5...4...3...2...1.
Not gonna lie, this Partwork series has me feeling like I've fallen straight into Topsy Turvy day from Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. A day where everything is upsy-daisy. First there was Geoff, the bass singer, beatboxing in "Love Yourself". Now we have Layne, the beatboxer, singing the bass line. It's messing with my head. Layne, more so. Why? Because Layne does many things. He's one of the group's primary arrangers (Geoff being the other), he beatboxes, he produces and he raps every now and then. Rarely does he sing. Off the top of my head, the only other time I remember him singing was in their ACA-Top Ten Broadway medley. And yet here we have him. One regular Layne beatboxing in the front and the other casually singing the bass line in the back. Like this is a perfectly normal occurrence.
It isn't.
Then, because apparently Layne singing bass isn't enough of a surprise, this happens: "really confusing me". Okay, hold the phone. What the heck was that? I'm sorry, did an angel just descend from heaven without my noticing? No? Then pray, who was that voice of spring? Because it definitely wasn't any of the three Earls. Oh yeah, it was Layne. Well, clutch the pearls. Layne sang! When you watch, check out the look Earl - er, the solid black shirted Earl - gives baseball hat wearing Layne when this happens. That was pretty much my exact reaction. How is it that Layne can manage to look so sheepish and so smug at the same time? Sheepish, smug, and dare I say, a wee bit impish. Oh Layne. Honestly, I love that we got to hear him sing again and well at that.
Check it out.
I was excited when I saw what the song was as I definitely watched Full House growing up. I'll even watch the reruns on occassion. So right away, I know that this video is going to hit me right in the childhood feels. The fact that it's Earl and Layne is icing on the cake. I love the two of them together and this video does a good job of illustrating why. They always seem like they're having fun and I think they'd be a blast to hang out with. One of the best parts of this is when Earl has the megaphone aimed at Layne who then retaliates by beatboxing, i.e spitting, on him. It makes me laugh.
That said, I want to talk about Earl for a minute. Ever since VoicePlay launched their Patreon campaign last fall (link below), they've seriously stepped up their game. Both of their series are letting each of the guys shine in different ways. Especially Earl. Well, Earl and Tony, but this is Earl time. He's been absolutely killing it lately. Not going to get into "Miley Cyrus" here other than to say that just thinking about it makes me laugh. With "Everywhere You Look", you have megaphone Earl which is kind of like the regular Earl. Who solid black shirted Earl is not too amused with. Contrast him to the third Earl who is pretty much having the time of his life back there. It's so entertaining. I get the dopiest smile on my face when I watch this. It's such a fantastic pick-me-up on a bad day. Or any day.
I do wish that Earl and Layne had talked at the end like Eli and Geoff did, but that's a minor thing. Both of the videos have me wanting to hear all the other possible combinations and it'll be interesting to see how many we get. I wonder if it'll always be duos or if we might see a trio at some point. They'll probably never happen, but you know what two combinations intrigue me the most? The rhythm section: Geoff and Layne. How would that work? The other being the other three. How would that work? This begs another question: can any of the others beatbox? Who does the arrangement then? The bass line? How low can each of the others go anyhow? Gosh, I have so many questions now. I didn't even realize. This Partwork business has opened up a can of worms that I was, frankly, unprepared for. Again: I sincerely doubt either of those will ever happen, but it's all good. I'll happily take whatever they decide to give us.
If you missed my thoughts about "Love Yourself" which involved wondering whether or not Eli and Geoff were evil geniuses, you can find read that write-up here.
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