What would Christmas be without Pentatonix? They may have taken over the Internet with their evolutions of who- or whatever, or their wonderful covers, they have taken over the charts with their Christmas albums, pretty much every year, since 2012.
For some reason, the a cappella Christmas repertoire works really well in the holiday season. I know that the US starts gearing up for Christmas as soon as November starts, but I still have to get through a few other holidays before I am ready to listen to Christmas songs and before I start decorating. So, when I heard Pentatonix had released their third Christmas album, I just wrote it down as a note to myself to remind me about it when the time is right.
Luckily, Pentatonix have been around the block, I mean, the world and they are aware of the global differences surrounding the holiday season. Instead of releasing a full blown Christmas song, they have safely released “Hallelujah” as the lead single for the “Pentatonix Christmas” album. It’s great for me, because I’m so not going to review the album now. I’m not even going to listen to it until it’s the middle of December.
Believe it or not, I actually grew up listening to Leonard Cohen. Yep, it was by force. It was played in the house, while I was growing up, so I know the original version of “Hallelujah” well. I hadn’t heard it again, until it kept constantly being used in talent shows and kept re-entering the European charts. It’s clearly a popular song to cover: Bon Jovi, Kelly Clarkson, Alexandra Burke and so many others have done their version and now, Pentatonix have covered it too.
During the first verse of the song, I started to worry about its simplicity. Maybe the song doesn’t work a cappella style. I started wondering if I ever heard an a cappella version of it before, but I’m sure I have. But then Pentatonix do what they always tent to do: Surprise me. They put some cool variations on the song and built the song up with each verse, so that it really captivates you. My initial worry was pointless.
When this year started, Pentatonix seemed set to cross over from only doing covers to doing original songs only, still all a cappella. They had just inked a major deal with a publisher for original songs and their album debuted at number one. What really surprised me, is that they very quickly went back to releasing cover songs to YouTube and, other than “Can’t Sleep Love”, I have not seen a video for any other original song.
When I heard the news of another Christmas album, I really started to wonder if there were more (good) Christmas songs still around for them to cover. I can’t wait to see what 2017 holds for them, because, somehow, I feel they’ve returned to familiar grounds and have abandoned the path they started at the beginning of 2016.
