By Yianni Metis
Most of us, including myself, are absolutely horrible singers. So having a club on campus specifically for people who lack the talent is a great idea. Last Friday, I went to see what the huge brains of Cornell could put together when prompted to do something they were bad at.
I went to the Mediocre Melodies Concert. Previous to my experience, I had only known Mediocre Melodies as a club that had rejected applications from a few people I know. I didn’t know if their selling point was turning average singers into a great a cappella group or just performing a different form of comedy.
The theme of this concert was the dating app Hinge and the melodists’ experience joining the app. The concert started at 8:30 p.m. and ended at 10 p.m. on a Friday night, which was a bit inconvenient.
Considering this, I’ll be rating the concert on two scales: how good the concert was and how it compares marginally to the other things one could do on a Friday night.
Honestly, I was very impressed by the turnout of this concert. Before going, I was fairly worried it would be me, the president’s grandma and 20 other people watching the show. But Call Auditorium was packed, and there was a line of people outside the auditorium waiting to get in beforehand. And from the beginning the crowd was pretty into it, which was a good sign for someone who was unsure of what to expect.
All the ticket sales from the concert went to the Advocacy Center of Tompkins County, which provides support to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, and the Center gave a quick presentation on what they do. So, I definitely felt better about getting a ticket considering it was going to charity.
The concert started with no singing, just a comedy bit. They showed a video about the dating lives and hinge experience of the members, which was entertaining and very well-put-together.
The transition to actual singing in the video was through a skit in which the members were writing songs to impress all of their previous failed Hinge dates, whom they invited to the concert (in theory). I thought that was a particularly creative fourth wall break.
The first song was “She Looks so Perfect” by Five Seconds of Summer. They had four people at the front of the stage singing the lyrics, and the majority of the club behind them doing background music and sounds. The singers were definitely mediocre, but I obviously won’t hold that against them, since it's clearly the point of the group.
The group did a pretty good job of getting the energy up during the song, which was a fitting choice to start out the show with. The crowd seemed to generally enjoy it.
For the second song, they did “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield. This song was completely carried by one girl who went all out. I don’t know who she was, but the song would have been pretty dead without her. I’m pretty sure they were trying to get the crowd to sing along during the chorus, but it didn’t work, which was a tad awkward.
For the third song, they did “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen. It was definitely the best song choice out of any they did, just for being the most recognizable and catchy. Towards the beginning, they had the background singers sing together with some of the parts, and the vibe and energy in the room started to really pick up.
But then when it came to the chorus, it reverted to one person on the front singing it, and the energy died when they were so close to really getting exciting.
This unfortunately happened with pretty much every song, so I would say the biggest thing they could do to make the show more appealing is have more people involved in the chorus of songs to get the crowd more into it.
The fourth song they did really irked me. I’m a horrendous singer myself, so seeing people who were also not that great get the center stage was pretty cool. But the two main singers for Valerie were in no way mediocre.
Now, I don’t know if they entered the club as mediocre singers and just became good, or were good from the start, but either way, they were pretty good singers.
If I had to guess, they’re probably like those annoying people in art class who would draw a renaissance level masterpiece, and then proceed to say it was awful as you struggled to draw stick figures. That was the vibe I got, anyway.
Throughout the show, the group had been running a competition where whoever donated the most to the Advocacy Center of Tompkins County would get a personal serenade during the show.
The melodists sang “Umbrella” by Rihanna to a guy who was absurdly enthusiastic to be on the stage, and it was honestly one of their best songs. The crowd was very into it by the end, and the energy in the room was high.
For their final song of the night, they performed “Love Song” by Sara Bareilles. For mediocre singers, they should probably stick to simpler songs with more short, catchy choruses because this one just never really caught fire with the audience.
So, was the show good. 100%. They put on a well crafted performance, with comedy sprinkled in between that was fairly funny. I’ve seen worse from people who are supposed to be better.
Would I go there on a Friday night over something like going to a party or watching a movie with friends? Probably not. It's truly best for people who know someone in the club, so they can watch them sing. But if you don’t really have anything else going on, it's definitely not a negative way to spend the evening, especially for only $3.
Yianni Metis is a first-year in the School of Applied Economics and Management. He can be reached at jpm395@cornell.edu.
