Worst Ivy League A Cappella Tournament, Day Three: The Semifinals
Welcome to the semifinals, dearest IvyGate readers! All of the groups have been introduced, and half of them have been destroyed forever. In the final two first round matches yesterday, the #7 Princeton Roaring 20 upset the #2 Brown Jabberwocks, 64% to 36%. It was a shocking rebuke to what we thought was an algebraically infallible seeding system -- we put a whole four minutes into picking the bracket Monday afternoon, you people! *Tears.* Anyway, in yesterday's other match and the closest to date, #3 Absolute A Cappella (Cornell) edged off #6 Living Water (Yale), 58% to 42%. It appears from the comments that Living Water presented a quandary for voters -- they were competent, but they also kept singing about the blood of Christ. And as we all know, Jesus gets no love on Halloween.
Semis, after the jump.
You know them well: #1, Penn's Chord on Blues re-ruining the same Daft Punk song that Kanye ruined, against #4, the Dartmouth Cords doing their dumb little *NSync medley.
Penn Chord on Blues:
Dartmouth Cords:
Next we have #7, Princeton's Roaring 20 performing the doo-doo-doo Third Eye Blind song, against #3, Cornell's Absolute A Cappella performing some other '90s alt-rock jerkfest.
Princeton Roaring 20:
Cornell Absolute A Cappella:
Polling will be open through 5:00 tomorrow (Thursday), at which point we will have an NFL playoffs-inspired "rest period" before holding the finals over the weekend. Go have a drink.
15 Comments | 
| 
Print This Post
Read more: a cappella, semifinals, tournaments, worst a cappella group in the ivy league
Email – 
Search
About
Follow us on Twitter
Report a bug
Archives
RSS Feed
October 31st, 2007 at 7:09 pm
oh my god they all suck so much. the soloist for Dartmouth is perhaps the worst singer I’ve heard in my life…..who the hell gave him a solo?
October 31st, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Penn Chord on Blues: PLEASE DIE. The fact that the group thought posting this video was a good idea is reason enough to laugh at them.
October 31st, 2007 at 7:30 pm
i can’t see the chords losing, ever, in this or the next life, but can we at least agree that the dartmouth kid’s voice cracking with 5:03 left is the best moment of the tournament?
October 31st, 2007 at 7:34 pm
o man chord on blues – like an a capella parody, except that it’s all too horribly real. Fat asian soloist humping the microphone. Guy in the white shirt off to the side acting like a schizophrenic… You can hear the audience laughing them lolz. We have a hands down champion here folks.
October 31st, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Why is that Princeton kid singing (hah) half of the foo fighter’s song as if it is a rap song?
October 31st, 2007 at 9:43 pm
as much as i hate giving princeton props, their group is the least bad of the remaining choices. i mean the soloist is absolutely terrible, but the background singers give us a decent performance, and the song choice is decent.
but yea, the penn group is total crap.
November 1st, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Its just plain cruel to make a fatty sing in a group called Cordon Bleu.
November 2nd, 2007 at 12:13 am
N*SYNC rocks my socks!
November 2nd, 2007 at 1:35 am
@Cornell 010: The song is actually by Third Eye Blind, and about half of it is actually spoke-sung (or “rapped”, I suppose) on the original. That said, the soloist’s voice was all wrong for the song, they rushed the syncopations like it was going out of style, and utterly ignored certain key harmony parts that make the song so good.
But they still weren’t as bad as Absolute Acapella. Videos like that just make me want to bust a cap…ella?
Sorry. It’s late and I couldn’t help it.
November 2nd, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Can someone explain to me why the hell you have enough time and little enough dignity to think about this much a cappella? START A CHARITY! VOLUNTEER! KNIT A GODDAMN SWEATER!! Jesus, you guys are ridiculous.
November 2nd, 2007 at 2:51 pm
You can’t touch us. We’re going all the way
Come see our fall show friday and saturday at 8 PM in Houston Hall. Bring the noise.
–Chords
November 3rd, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Holy crap. First of all, I acknowledge bad a cappella’s existence, but you can’t go randomly find one youtube video and say that it represents all of Princeton a cappella or the Roaring 20. Not only are there, say, at least 5 or 6 much worse groups at Princeton, but if you looked at any of the other Roaring 20 videos posted on YouTube (none of which are the best, but nonetheless…), you would be blinded by the greatness that is the Princeton Roaring 20. But good job finding one video that isn’t perfect (though, it’s really not half bad either). Lastly, it’s not your fault, your Dad loves you deep down, and your mom left for her own personal reasons that had nothing to do with your bed wetting.
November 3rd, 2007 at 3:58 pm
p.s. you should try to make your site not suck. i only clicked “post comment” once. You’re like those dicks at the bank who try to get your payment to get deducted twice and then blame you for clicking too many times. Douches. Also, if this all stems from not getting laid enough, consider singing an a cappella solo. Worked for me. Maybe that’s where all this comes from…
November 4th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Chords and Roaring 20’s clearly are the two best here. However, while Roaring 20’s may have better technical singing, they really kind of butcher the song in my opinion with their oddly-timed doo’s. The Chords may have a couple of cracks, but the musical quality is still pretty good, and the dancing I think produces a more entertaining performance overall. PLus come on, how could you say no to those all of those hip thrusts and bye bye byes!? Clearly has more heart, and clearly should win.
November 4th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
ditto R204EVA! all I can say is…listen to some of the other groups at princeton and see what you think then….or check out the new R20 cd which is frickin amazing. yeah jamie jin on morse code!