Twisted Measure breaks the Internet: Elon a capella group’s cover of ‘Chandelier’ goes viral

What began as a BuzzFeed Community post has erupted around the web. Elon University a cappella group Twisted Measure’s cover of Sia’s “Chandelier” has been featured on websites like Teen Vogue, USA Today and TIME Magazine.

Within 36 hours of the BuzzFeed post, the music video received more than one million views and broke the iTunes Top 50.

Senior Tyler Meacham, president of Twisted Measure, created the video and the original BuzzFeed post as a way to promote the song.

“I often find myself thinking of different ways to promote Twisted Measure, and I think I just found myself searching BuzzFeed for a cappella a few days ago,” she said. “A light bulb went off that I could share ‘Chandelier’ as a community post.”

Meacham thought BuzzFeed would be the perfect platform for advertising, especially because of the amount of articles from the site that are shared from other social media platforms.

“Something about BuzzFeed's brand is really attractive to social media users — specifically Facebook,” Meacham said. “Although a lot of people thought that Twisted Measure had been randomly picked up by the site, it was really an idea that stemmed from thinking outside the box and looking for new ways to promote that we hadn’t really explored before.”

The song, was arranged by alumnus Kyle Witaker ’14, is more raw and stripped down than Sia’s original version. Soloist alumna Abby Franklin ’15 said the arrangement gave her the freedom to experiment, and once she got confortable she was able to make the song her own.

“[The listeners] go nuts for the same song at a totally different pace,” Franklin said. “It’s so much slower and has a totally different meaning. We forgot how special it was because we were performing it so much. People reacting this way reminds us how incredible the song is and how incredible the arrangement is.”

As a cinema major, Meacham has always wanted to create a music video for Twisted Measure, but found it difficult to find time with 19 schedules to coordinate. With “Chandelier,” the group booked a single day to record with Liquid 5th Productions in Durham. That’s when Meacham found the opportunity to film everyone.

The day of the recording, Meacham brought her camera with the goal of producing a music video. She had no immediate vision for the video but filmed a few takes of each member singing different notes and planned to mesh it together.

“It ended up that the visuals of the song built with the intensity of the audio, especially with Abby’s solo,” Meacham said. “Intercutting everything ended up being really fun and, as it is with everything Twisted Measure, was really a labor of love.

She said editing the video took more than 20 hours because she wanted to include clips of every member and needed to find the right takes to match the song.

After posting the video and the BuzzFeed article, Meacham expected only a few shares from family and Elon students. Instead, the group has received support and comments from all around the virtual world.

“We’ve definitely received a handful of performance requests and interview requests, and I’m really hopeful that something really awesome comes along in the media world,” Meacham said. “The most important thing to me is the impact that this song is having on people. It’s humbling.”

From the comments, Twisted Measure has been told people cry or get chills from hearing their arrangement — there have even been a few marriage requests for Franklin. One viewer commented, “The soloist has my heart...this is legit.”

Other than fans from the Internet, “Chandelier” has lead to something greater for Franklin — a recording company has reached out to her, allowing her to move forward with her dream of singing.

“This is the first time I have ever been contacted by a bigger industry,” Franklin said. “It all has happened so fast.”

Franklin said she has always been told she should pursue a career in music, but she’d never considered it until “Chandelier” exploded on the Internet and she got a positive response from a larger audience. She also believes she wouldn’t have reached this point without Twisted Measure.

“The fact that I’m getting recognized with this group is better than anything,” Franklin said. “It would make the most sense that this would happen to me with them backing me up. These past three days have really fueled this drive I’ve had all through college. I’m definitely going to ride the wave for as long as I can and see where it takes me.”