Pitch Perfect (2012)
Being a musical comedy, which trailed along the now ebbing trend of acapella groups, revived by shows like Glee, Pitch Perfect obviously has a pretty good soundtrack. In fact, it is currently the best-selling soundtrack album in digital history – so aca-scuse you. The collection of songs, all carefully fused into sets performed by the groups using only vocals, is incredibly catchy. The ending performance of the film’s main acapella group, the Barden Bellas, is particularly wonderful, as it combines songs of old and new (Jessie J’s ‘Price Tag’, Pitbull’s ‘Give Me Everything’ and Simple Minds’ ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me’ – made famous by the 1985 classic, The Breakfast Club) to make for a spectacular finale.
However, the most iconic song from this soundtrack has to be the Anna Kendrick’s simplistic, but nevertheless memorable rendition of ‘Cups’. Originally a 1931 track called ‘When I’m Gone’ by the Carter Family, a band called The Landshapes revived and improved the song in 2009 by adapting the lyrics and using the “cup-clap” technique as a percussive beat. This soon became an internet craze, and was only increased in popularity by its feature in the film – to the point that Kendrick was later asked to film a music video, performing a longer version of the song, which can be found here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2mawaBrvFg