When Gender Flips Work
For the uninitiated, it can be difficult to understand why people love a cappella. Heck, even for those of us who do actively enjoy it, it can be difficult to put into words why we enjoy this art form so. While we’ll never have a truly comprehensive list of everything cool about a cappella, 200 Reasons to Love A Cappella is our best attempt at assembling a list of what makes it great.
Reason #192: When Gender Flips Work
There are those times when a group covering a song across gender lines does not do the group or the song any favors. It’s those times when guys default to borderline sexist stereotypes in behaving effeminately as they sing a song originally performed by a female artist. It’s those occasion when a female group’s tinny sound or absence of a proper low-end may get exposed on a song by a male artist.
But then there are those special occasions when swapping the gender reveals something new. It’s groups like The mid-2000s University of Rochester Midnight Ramblers singing “When She Loved Me,” popularized by Sarah McLachlan to reveal a hitherto unseen vulnerable side of their raucous act. It’s The Ramblers’s sibling Rochester group, Vocal Point, turning Guster’s “What You Wish For” into a sweet pop melody on their album from a similar era, The Swimsuit Issue. These performances change how we see a group and how we hear a song.