About
Also known as: PTX
Pentatonix got their start through a somewhat chaotic scramble: five people who had barely met assembled the day before auditions for NBC's The Sing Off, went on to win the whole thing, and walked away with $200,000 and a Sony recording deal. The group, Scott Hoying, Mitch Grassi, Kirstin Maldonado, Matt Sallee, and Kevin Olusola, is built around pure voices, with no instruments except what the members produce themselves, blending vocal percussion, beatboxing, close harmonies, and the kind of scat and riffing that keeps an a cappella set from feeling like a school recital. Their name comes from the pentatonic scale, five notes per octave, one for each member, though they swapped the final letter for an X to give it a bit more edge. After Epic Records dropped them post show, they leaned hard into YouTube, releasing covers of tracks by Gotye, PSY, and Fun that racked up viral numbers and kept them relevant while they built toward an actual release. That bet paid off: their holiday album That's Christmas to Me became the highest charting holiday album by a group since 1962, and their self titled record debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. They have picked up three Grammy Awards along the way, including back to back wins for Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella, and in 2023 they received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.