If you been paying attention to any sort of TV or print media in the past few weeks, you’ve probably encountered Straight No Chaser, an all-male acappella group. Yep: All. Male. Acappella. Don’t spit out your coffee, folks. Stick with me.
Formed in 1996 at Indiana University (my alma mater), the ten-member Straight No Chaser sought to break the genre’s stereotypes by including contemporary pop songs in its repertoire and delivering knockout performances of those songs. “Instead of having people say, ‘Oh, that was funny,’ we wanted them to say, ‘Wow, I can’t believe they did that,” says SNC member Randy Stine. “But at the same time, we’d try to make each other laugh on stage, because if we weren’t having fun, how could the audience be enjoying the show?“
Straight No Chaser proved to be a popular draw, on campus and off. When graduation neared, the guys arranged for others to continue the acappella tradition, as they prepped for careers outside of music. But in 2006, after IU invited the original members back for a reunion concert, Stine posted some clips of a 1998 SNC concert on YouTube. One of those, “The 12 Days of Christmas,” with its left-field inclusion of Toto’s “Africa,” became a viral smash, netting nearly 7 million views in December 2007. Among those many eyeballs was Atlantic Records Chairman/CEO Craig Kallman, who emailed Stine and eventually offered SNC a record deal.
And so we have Holiday Spirits, a cappella arrangements of Christmas songs that “re-energize the classics that everyone loves,” according to SNC founder Dan Ponce says. Ponce, a news reporter with WLS-TV, ABC’s Chicago affiliate, also contributed two originals to the album, “Christmas Wish” and “Indiana Christmas” (natch).
Although all-male a cappella may be far from your cup of tea, this die-hard coffee drinker thinks SNC’s Christmas blend is perfect for this most magical of seasons. A taste of Holiday Spirits awaits with free downloads of two tracks: “Hark The Herald Angels Sing/Angels We Have Heard On High” can be yours via Feels Like Christmas (scroll down the list to get to it), and ring in the New Year with “Auld Lang Syne,” this week’s iTunes Discovery Download.
