Why A Capella is my main basis in gauging the abilities of a pop vocal group.

When I look at and listen to boybands, my gauge for how good they are is a capella work. That's what matters to me because boybands should be able to sing extremely well together - there are at an average five members so they should have something that solo singers don't. In this case, it's the ability to do a capella work extremely well.

My definition of a capella for bands is is 3 or more guys in a boyband singing different lines of a music score at the same time with no accompaniment from musical instruments whatsoever - their instruments are their voices. Once you add drums or guitar it's not a capella to me even if they sing different lines of the music score.

A good a capella piece/performance has members' vocals in their proper places, each one cleanly executing their part (no mistakes in the harmonies or phrasing) with strong but not overpowering volume and timbre, on tempo with the correct dynamics and all voices blended well at the same volume/level.

OK - why use a capella as a judge? Because music is the main thing - it always SHOULD be. To be able to judge how musical the group is and how well they work together, I look at the a capella work.

The most obvious reason is because a capella work shows me whether or not every single member can sing together with the group and individually. Since they're singing different notes, you know which part isn't being done well if it sounds off and since they're singing the same words, at the same tempo and phrasing at the same time, you know if they have the ability to listen and work with the group to make a whole. It's the most basic thing they can show with a capella - if they don't pass this, it's game over for me.

A deeper reason for using a capella as a basis is to show how technically musical the group is. Since they don't have a steady drum part that doubles as a metronome to depend on, they have to have someone or all of them have to have a good sense of tempo and time because they'd fall apart otherwise. They also have to have a sense of dynamics - there's no instrumental to tell them when to go forte or piano, that all has to be done by the members themselves. At the end of the day, they have to know what the crap they're singing - there's no room for mistakes when harmonies are concerned.

Frankly, everything about the performance has to be perfect and that's hard for five guys who most often have never met each other before they became a band.

Over time, I've found good and bad a capella and eventually I've found my standard for amazing performances. The boyband in question is none other than Westlife. There's one performance/song in particular that I use because one, it passes all my basic and further requirements for a strong a capella performance and two, this was done as a joke in their early days. A JOKE that was THIS GOOD.

For further proof and evidence that they truly deserve to be called Gods of a capella, see this video:

Westlife are my benchmark for all other groups - those 40 seconds or so say more than what a whole collection of a capella performances of BSB do. Strong vocals, tight, clean harmonies and conviction - that's what makes them the best for me.

Other notable acts who do a capella almost as well are Ju-Taun (the American representative) and DBSK/TVQX/Tohoshinki (the Korean respresentative) - below are some performances of DBSK in one video for your viewing convenience.