I didn’t expect much from The Sing-Off, the new a capella competition show that combines American Idol, Glee, and America’s Got Talent with host Nick Lachey and the sad little caterpillar pasted to his upper lip. But during its two-hour premiere, The Sing-Off offered some pleasures both intentional and inadvertent.
Some of the groups, culled from around the country, were Glee-fully good and others were bad (no surprise that Face was sent home — over-emoting the already over-the-top “Livin’ On A Prayer” just doomed those guys). A couple of the acts — Voices of Lee; Noteworthy — made such a point of emphasizing their religiosity in their taped introductions, I wondered when one of them was going to realize that one of their opponents was a bunch called the Beelzebubs. Beelzebub. As in demon. As in Satan. Don’t let those nice blazers the Bubs wore fool you, kids! E-e-e-e-k! Run for your lives! (For the record, I thoroughly support the Beelzebubs, as the group was founded in 1962 and named by a Tufts student who was reading Paradise Lost, thus the source of their name.)
But getting back to running for your life: Maxx Factor, the all-female barbershop quartet, broke into a version of “Rehab” that was meant to make us chuckle warmly and say, “Awww, see? The ladies covered an Amy Winehouse song — how racy!” I was racing to the fridge for a soda before they finished that bit of cutesiness.
Click on the wrench in the upper left-hand corner to see what else you can do.