On the first night of The Sing-Off on NBC, Ben was definitely impressed by The Beelzebubs, the singing group based at Tufts University in Medford, Mass. Ben also liked the SoCals on the strength of their performance of Queen’s Somebody to Love, particularly the high note hit by one of the singers. As we all know by now, Ben is a big supporter of a cappella music, and blogged after Monday’s episode that groups such as these need to avoid the temptation to use Autotune and other production aids (as in “some producer with computers”) because “it literally costs no money to sing with a few other people so I figure when the economy totally shits they’ll be king”. The only problem: He’s not excited to have to shop for clothes for each night.
Update: Ben’s posting his observations on the show to his website rather than blogging. Tuesday night had some rousing performances of classics and “guilty pleasure” songs that had Ben asking “Pass me the dramamine!”. The show is giving Ben great exposure. He’s been a guest on many late night TV shows, but he hasn’t had this much prime-time TV air time ever. And the exposure is great, too – The premiere of “The Sing-Off” gave NBC its strongest rating in the 18-49 demographic all season with an estimated 6.9 million viewers overall. Night two was up 13 percent in adults 25-49 over night one, with 6.95 million viewers overall. Night three dipped a bit, to 6.6 million.
2009-12-14
