FUSE TV - Sharper Than Ever: A Cappella Is YouTube's New Favorite Obsession

Over the past few years, unlikely as it may be, a cappella music has become a big part of the pop culture landscape. This massive surge in "a cappopularity" can be attributed to two successful projects featuring the all-vocal artform. The first is NBC's Nick Lachey-hosted competition show The Sing Off, and the second is 2012's sleeper hit comedy Pitch Perfect. The former recently returned for a 4th season, and the latter has been aired on HBO roughly every 6 minutes for the past 5 months. Its sequel is one of 2015's most anticipated projects.

The bottom line: A cappella music is ridiculously hot right now. And perhaps no one knows this better than Mickey Rapkin, the author of Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory, which served as the inspiration for the Anna Kendrick-starring flick. 

The adaptation of his novel was both a critical success and a huge smash at the box office. In total, it's earned over $100 million worldwide. Rapkin, whose real-life college career mirrored that of Ben Platt's Pitch Perfect character, spoke to Fuse News about the film's success. 

"The soundtrack has sold over 900,000 copies, it won the American Music Award for Best Soundtrack [and] Anna Kendrick's song from the movie, 'Cups,' is on the radio all the time," he told us. "It seems like every week there's another a cappella hit that goes viral on YouTube. I don't think it's a growth in popularity as much as it is an explosion."