Nine down, 17 to go

I attended school at the University of Virginia, which, in the early 90s, boasted about 80 a cappella groups. OK, not really, but there were many many many. All men, all women, co-ed, religious, comical, classic,  and so on. A group sing was held with these groups and visiting schools at least every other week. "Pitch Perfect," by Mickey Rapkin features one of these groups, my beloved Hullabahoos.

"Pitch Prefect" examines college a cappella and the contests, organizations that sponsor the contests and the VH1 Behind The Music stories behind it. They're not as salacious as Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue almost dying, but there are break downs, medical issues and more.

However, Rapkin has fun with the scandals, and writes about it with heart and a little bit of mocking. Not hurtful mocking, but college a cappella is fun activity, and he has fun with it. In the epilogue, he reveals he was a member of a group at Cornell. Rapkin's writing conveys his enjoyment of this college phenomena, but doesn't write a love letter to it.

Aside from the Hullabahoos, Rapkin profiles the all-male Beelzebub's from Tufts and female group Divisi from the University of Oregon. The Tufts group has been around for almost a century, Divisi about five or six years now. The Hullabahoos, since the late 80s.

I read this on a plane, and there were parts where I laughed out loud. Because his tone is slightly tongue in cheek, he uses some hilarious similes and metaphors that you might hear on "Chelsea Lately," and I adore Chelsea Handler. (I once had the passenger next to me politely ask me what I was reading because I was snorting aloud at "Chelsea Chelsea, Bang Bang." She just wanted me to shut up so she could sleep.)

This was the best piece of feature journalism that I have read in a long time. My dad, as well as some other folks that I've worked for, don't like feature writing. Now, I'm a hard news junkie like the rest of them, but sometimes, you need the fun. Not fluff, fun. These stories have compelling characters, drama (real drama, not the "Real Housewives" kind) and wonderful writing. Rapkin even did research! Some folks just interview, but research can make a good book great. There are facts and quotes in here that I would have never though existed. I cannot recommend this book enough. This is what excellent journalism does, research, filters, and paints a picture.

Full disclosure: I still have my cassette tapes with the Hullabahoos "Full Glottal Stop" on my shelf. Oh, and check out the NPR interview with Rapkin here. He also has a blog, which he hasn't updated in a while, but it's still fun to page back through to see the stuff that didn't fit in the book.

Seriously - go read this book.