All-Female A Cappella

In this edition, we’re taking a look at The 5s of all-female a cappella groups.

Five things that are great about all-female a cappella
1. Focus on the music. This isn’t universal of course, but while all-male groups have tend to put music second to showmanship, there are a lot of all-female groups that put greater focus on their harmonies and blend to beautiful results.
2. Raw emotion. All-female groups just seem to have an easier time tapping into their more vulnerable sides for emotionally rich, breath-taking performances.
3. Uniquely feminine songs. There are some songs that will just only work for all-female groups, and when the right groups find the right songs, it’s a joy to behold. Examples include the 2005 Syracuse University Mandarins on “Hail Holy Queen” in the style of Sister Act, or The 2007 Potsdam A Sharps on Saving Jane’s “You Say.” These are songs guys just can’t pull off (at least not unironically) and demonstrate the potential for all-female groups to thrive on their own merits.
4. Badass girl groups. Groups like Oregon’s Divisi and BYU Noteworthy paved the way for girls who didn’t want to be girlie by storming the ICCA stages from from the early 2000s to today. Whether it’s Divisi making Usher’s “Yeah” their own, or Noteworthy stomping routining its way to a championship in 2007, these groups proved all-female a cappella could be every bit as powerful as what the guys were putting out there.
5. Culture of community. Again, this isn’t really unique to all-female female groups, but I feel as though more members of all-female groups than any other type of group have told me their a cappella groups were what made their college experience work—that the community they found there laid the foundation for their social scenes, their extracurricular life, and the best of their college memories.

Five problems in all-female a cappella
1. Girly choreography. We’ve all seen the girl group that can’t resist choreographing every line, or even every word—and doing so in a self-conscious, half-hearted way. This is what I mean by girly choreography, which is just uncomfortable to watch and can really take away from the music.
2. Under-confidence. As the girly choreography may suggest, there are a number of all-female groups who just seem to lose their nerve on a big stage, or in competition, coming across quietly, or with their voices shaking, in the process, costing themselves their best chances of succeeding.
3. “Hide ‘N’ Seek” syndrome. It seems about 75 percent of the all-female a cappella world falls in love with one or two songs each year, highlighted by the embrace of Imogen Heap’s “Hide ‘N’ Seek,” which it was near-impossible to attend an ICCA show without hearing in 2008. Originality counts, people!
4. Faux-bad asses. Groups like Divisi and Noteworthy thrive not only because their bold and brash, but because they have the musical chops to back it up. While I’m all for confidence, attitude without substance can be really off-putting in an all-female group.
5. Unfunny attempts at humor. The world is not a fair place. When push comes to shove, it is generally much harder for an all-female group to be funny than an all-male one. Sorry, it’s just the facts of life. If you’re not funny, then keep the puns and in-jokes to yourself, and focus on the music.

Five of the songs I’d most like to hear all-female a cappella groups cover
1. “Celebrity Skin” by Hole. One of a cappella’s most under-exploited areas is legit chick rock. A song like this mainstream enough, and enough of an anthem to really turn some heads.
2. ”Ice Cream” by Sarah McLachlan. This folksy love song is every bit as sweet as the title would suggest. I can’t see guys pulling it off, but a girls group doing it—especially in raw, emotional fashion could be something special.
3. ”Back in Black” by ACDC. This is a rare instance in which an all-female group could quite likely outperform it’s all-male counterpart on a song originally performed by men. The solo vocals are high enough to fit more comfortably in a woman’s range, and the song itself is gender neutral and bad ass enough to serve anyone well.
4. ”I’m On Fire” by Bruce Springsteen in the style of Heather Nova. The arrangement would probably be pretty simplistic, but this is the sort of song for which you shine your spotlight on an uber-talented, ideally sultry soloist, and let her go to work.
5. ”My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion “Why, God, why?” you may ask. Because this song was practically an anthem for teenage girls of my generation, and I fear we’re reaching the very end of the collegiate population of girls who will remember seeing Titanic in their youth, and remember a time when they helped make this one of the most popular songs in America. The song deserves one final salute before we erase it from our collective consciousness once and for all. All that, and no guys group in its right mind will ever do this song.