Fieldwork Topic

I will be doing my fieldwork on "Awkappella", one of Brown's a cappella groups. Awkapella was founded in the spring of 2008. They are self-described as " An a cappella group for people you LOVE to sing, but aren't really that good." It's a very interesting group, as the members perform the standard college a cappella fare of classic rock and other popular songs from the past few decades, however they show no regard for the standard measures of "good" singing; i.e. melodic accuracy, pitch, harmony, etc. Despite performing in a highly untraditional fashion, they have attracted audiences, as one can see in their YouTube clips, many of which can be found on this YouTube profile: http://www.youtube.com/user/luuuuucious.

Is this group's performance practice indicative of some cultural trend? They invest their performances with a great deal of enthusiasm and deadpan choreography—is this "camp" style entertaining to audiences? Is the audience more interested in the unselfconscious performance of this group of people who "LOVE to sing, but aren't really that good" than the performance of a more traditional a cappella group? Do the members of the audience, many of whom are probably not accomplished singers, take pleasure in the success of people with whom they may identify (in terms of singing ability) in the seemingly-exclusive field of a cappella?

There are many interesting questions that the existence and popularity of this group raise, and I hope to delve into some of them over the course of this semester.