American Suitcase - Pillowsky. All Star United - The Good Album. The Best Power Pop Albums of 2009.It highlights how much the arrangements make or break these songs. Curiously, neither of Folds’ takes on his own songs are standouts on the album. Bigbang - Edendale.So here we have Ben Folds Presents: University A Cappella, 14 a cappella songs from 14 different groups, and two songs that Folds himself rearranged into a cappella settings. Benjamin R - The Other Side Of Nowhere. Ben Folds Presents - University A Cappella. Anne Soldaat - In Another Life.“Effington”, from last year’s Way to Normal, fares better because the song itself is so fun, but the arrangement is still not particularly interesting.Folds, Ben, Benjamin Scott Folds. The harmonies are laid on too thick, the voices are too busy, and worst of all, a soprano floats gratingly above the whole arrangement, distracting from Folds’ voice and lyrics. What was an affectingly melancholy song for voice and piano on Ben Folds Five is ruined here by an overabundance of voices.Imported from Wikimedia project. Is.Ben Folds Presents: University A Cappella 2009 album by Ben Folds with various a capella groups. Maria Luisa Genito Apice Maria Luisa.
![]() ![]() This is the typical college vocal group performance that is supposed to be clever but comes off as cloying and aggravating. On the other hand, The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire’s Fifth Element doesn’t come off nearly as well on “Fair”. But “Army” is such an entertaining, upbeat song that these bits come off as charming. The University of Rochester Midnight Ramblers fall into some of the more typical a cappella group tropes on their version of “Army”, throwing in silly phrases into their backing vocals and hard-to-decipher sentences that are undoubtedly hilarious inside jokes to the members of the group. Regardless of whether they’re male or female, the various soloists and leads from the groups are universally excellent, even when the arrangements aren’t quite top-notch. “Not the Same”, “Landed”, and “Jesusland” all work extremely well as a cappella tunes and are quite entertaining. It’s a tender, understated take on the song that stands as one of the best on the album. The Newtones from Newton, MA do a choral setting of “Evaporated”. They pick slower, nuanced songs and pull them off pretty successfully. Ccan i use a mac usb drive for a pcThe Ohio University Leading Tones take on Folds’ biggest hit, “Brick”. On the other hand, a pair of these slower choices fall quite flat. It’s a difficult, difficult song to perform, but the Voices do it with aplomb, capturing the feel of the song without trying to replicate it precisely. The original was dark and sparsely arranged but also managed to sound epic. The big highlight, though, is The Voices in Your Head from The University of Chicago doing “Magic”, the only song drummer Darren Jesse wrote for Ben Folds Five. West Chester University of Pennsylvania’s all-female Grace Notes do a lovely take on the excellent “Fred Jones, Part 2”. ![]() Going with ensembles who took to the challenge with a more serious bent gives the album a little more weight than, say, a browse through YouTube for vocal versions of Ben Folds songs.
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