About me: ABOUT THE BOOK: Pitch Perfect, coming from Gotham Books in May 2008, is a behind-the-scenes look at the bizarre, inspiring, and hilarious world of competitive collegiate a cappella.
A cappella has come a long way in the past one hundred years, evolving from glee clubs into a tradition that is hugely popular, considerably profitable, and much publicized. There are more than 1,200 collegiate a cappella groups in the United States alone. And the good ones, well, it’s not what you think.
Pitch Perfect will take readers inside the a cappella subculture and explores what the proliferation of these amateur—but phenomenally accomplished—groups says about us, our quest for fame and our taste in music. The story unfolds over the 2006-2007 school year and concerns three groups, each at a crossroads: the legendary Tufts Beelzebubs, the upstart Hullabahoos from the University of Virginia, and the ladies from University of Oregon’s Divisi. Along the way we'll run into boldface names like Jessica Biel, President George W. Bush, David Letterman, Nick Lachey, Merv Griffin, Jim Carrey, Harvey Weinstein, Microsoft’s Paul Allen, Prince and more. We’ll meet the father of contemporary a cappella, investigate a New Year’s Eve incident that sent members of a Yale a cappella group to the hospital and made international news, and find out what made Ed Helms from NBC’s The Office quit the Oberlin Obertones after just one semester in college.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Mickey Rapkin is a writer living in Brooklyn. His work has appeared in The New York Times, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, Details, and Time Out New York. He is currently a senior editor at GQ and his first book, Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory, will be published by Gotham Books in May 2008.
Just a quick note to let you know that the videos I had provided on YouTube (including Divisi's ICCA quarterfinals and semifinals sets with "Hide and Seek") are no longer available. Apparently the major music studios don't think too highly of a cappella covers being distributed online, and my YouTube account has been "Permanently Disabled" as a result.
