unflappable

“Kate is unflappable. Her mantra is very like the queen’s keep calm and carry on approach in life"

#1. University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

#1. University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

#1. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN - ANN ARBOR | - Tuition: $51,200 (out-of-state); $15,558 (in-state, #10 most expensive) - Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan - Students: 28,702 (student-to-faculty ratio: 11:1) - Acceptance rate: 27% (ACT: 30-33; SAT: 1330-1500) - Outcomes: graduation rate: 92%; six-year median earnings: $63,400 And the winner is...the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, a school that has been ranked the #1 public research university in the country, and that offers some of the top business, engineering, and psychology programs in the nation. Of course, for out-of-state students, that prestige comes with a high price tag: The Board of Regents approved a 3.7% tuition increase prior to the 2019–20 academic year, taking the $49,000 cost above $51,000. However, the cost of tuition seemingly doesn't bear too much of a burden: Niche still ranks UMich as having the #3 student life in America. (Ken Wolter // Shutterstock)

Beach Boys

Beach Boys music could have been a catastrophe. Consider their starting point: a conglomeration of novelty genres most of which were out of date - doowop, barber shop quartet, and surf. Not the stuff of rock classics.

The image, which is important in pop, didn't stand on very much. Only Dennis looked like a rock star. Brian was shy and stiff on stage, Carl and Al look like accountants, and Mike Love you want to punch in the face. In the early days, they wore identical stripped preppie shirts and ill-fitting pants that only looked too tight and not sexy a la Jim Morrison. After the Beatles made it big, they set fashion trends. The Beach Boys put on Hawaiian shirts. 

Even the name - Beach Boys. What is that? Sounds like a hot dog stand on the boardwalk. It's not a name that grabs you like the Who, the Guess Who, the Kinks or so many others.

But here's what Brian Wilson did with this mess. And when I offer to explain it I only offer to give a very rough outline for to know the secret of the Beach Boys is like knowing the secret recipe to Coca Cola or the atom bomb. I can't tell you exactly what they did. But it was a bit like this:

Brian crafted several dozen of the best pop songs ever written. Interesting songs. The wild girl who'll have fun until her father takes away her T-bird. The young couple who long to be older so they don't have to part every night. Rhonda, who'll help me get the other girl out of my heart.  The girlfriend who will help me not to worry. Some of them are fun, some are introspective, some are funny.

The song crafting is superb. It's insane how superb. Imagery, hook lines, characters and story lines that are setup in seconds. The songs were lean and they popped on contagious melody.

And top of that granite foundation sat the doowop and surf and barber shop harmonizing. It came together like a symphony of Spektor sound and Motown. It was circuslike. You didn't know what was coming next. They had so many tools. A soaring vocal, a ba ba ba, a harmony, a guitar riff, a snare shot. 

Classical music orchestras are like this too. There are some strange instruments - the bassoon, the bass drum, the bass, the piccolo. Each on its own is OK, but weird in any quantity as are their players. You put 'em together the right way and you have Tchaikovsky.

The Beach Boys were a Tchaikovsky of pop music. They could step awkwardly side to side all night in shirts your 60 year old uncle might wear and you'd find yourself singing like there was no tomorrow and feeling such joy. When they really get going on Help Me Rhonda, there is nothing else I'd rather be doing than listening to that song. Nothing.

The band executed wonderfully. Brian and Carl had tender, sweet voices. Al and Mike sounded like teenagers. And I mean that as a complement. They really sounded like authentic teenage boys telling their story. It made the songs so real.

As musicians they were good enough. The studio musicians of Pet Sounds of course executed to perfection.

The Beach Boys are in the top echelon of rock. Every one agrees. You say their names along with the Stone, the Beatles, Dylan. That's where they stand. They could have been so bad as to not even qualify to be a bar mitzvah band. Instead, they are rock royalty.