Order Straight No Chaser’s new album One Shot, featuring a mashup of two of Straight No Chaser’s favorites “MotownPhilly/This Is How We Do It”, "Homeward Bound", and "When A Man Loves A Woman"! Straight No Chaser (SNC) is a professional a cappella group which originated in 1996 at Indiana University. In 2007, a 1998 video of "The 12 Days of Christmas", went viral with over 8 million views and subsequently led to a five-album record deal with Atlantic Records in 2008. In 2009, Atlantic Records SNC won the CARA award for Best Holiday Album (Holiday Spirits) and was nominated for Best Holiday Song ("Carol Of The Bells" on Holiday Spirits).
In 1992, Warner Bros. figured that lightning could strike twice at a time when oodles of (mostly horribly bad) funk-metal acts were following in Faith No More and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' footsteps. They sent the former into the studio, where they went in, recorded, and released a bizarro masterpiece. Mike Patton's work in Mr. Bungle proved just how strange and inspired he could get given the opportunity, and with that try-anything-once spirit now brought to his similarly minded colleagues in his more famous act, nothing was ignored. "Land of Sunshine" starts things off in a similar enough vein to The Real Thing, but Patton's vocal role-playing comes out as smarter and more accomplished, with the lyrics trashing a totally smug bastard with pure inspired mockery…
Heavily influenced by Spock’s Beard, apparently, themselves heavily influenced by the likes of Gentle Giant, ELP, King Crimson, and Pink Floyd, No More Pain dwell in 60s and 70s progressive rock, with a modern edge to it. There’s nothing new that’s brought to the table here, nothing that’s a game changer, and they probably won't be very influential. That being said, "The Post Human Condition" is a great album for fans of the genre, and for those who actually like the standard prog rock formula.
While they use pretty much all common tropes of the genre and stick to the paradigm, it never (well, almost) sounds cliché or overtly retrograde…
Straight No Chaser's 2013 album, Under the Influence, features more of the acclaimed a cappella group's takes of tunes that they love. Produced by Take 6's Mark Kibble, the album features many guest performances by the artists whose songs appear here, including Jason Mraz, Phil Collins, Dolly Parton, Seal, and more. Also included are the vocal ensemble's reworkings of such hit songs as Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" and Fun's "Some Nights/We Are Young." Straight No Chaser were the only male a cappella vocal ensemble on campus when the group formed at Indiana University in 1996. Taking an unconventional approach, Straight No Chaser began working up a repertoire that included not only traditional songs, but also modern pop tunes performed without the use of instruments.