Pentatonix misses out on a precious opportunity with ‘Volume IV’
Pentatonix released their newest EP Volume IV, also known as “Classics”, on Friday April 7th. The EP consists of seven songs: Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”, John Lennon’s “Imagine”, the World War Two tune “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”, Abba’s “Take On Me”, Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling In Love”, and Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” with Dolly herself featured in the song. PTX announced and advertised this EP with the release of their music video of “Imagine”. They also released the song early for anyone who preordered the EP. On the surface, this may seem like a good move on Pentatonix’s part. PTX has suffered some criticism for their newer albums such as Deluxe Edition when they switched from covers to originals. So when I saw the track list on this EP, I got really excited. I have been a Pentaholic since they won the Sing-Off in 2011. I admit I was not an avid fan of the show so I didn’t really hear about them much while the season was airing, but I looked back at all of their performances during the season. The fact that Pentatonix was moving back to covers and also covering such brilliant masterpieces, I was pumped. Unfortunately, the EP is fairly mediocre with numerous tracks committing the sin of repetitive arrangements with not much dynamic range. When reviewing the EP I will be scoring based on the Innovative Arrangement of the collection, the Entertainment Value and the Importance of the music.