What is the greatest music documentary ever made? The best ever film about music? The finest rock doc / rockumentary / biopic / live in-concert video / DVD or whatever else you want to call it?
Yesterday’s announcement that (Don’t Look Back Director) DA Pennebaker will receive a lifetime achievement Oscar, plus the forthcoming release of Magical Mystery Tour, the Rolling Stones’ Crossfire Hurricane and ahem, my own modest contribution to a BBC music documentary (did I mention that previously? I’m going to be on TV you know. What’s that? Only about ten times? Oh, OK I’ll shut up about it) has lead me to ask the question what are the greatest Music Documentaries of All Time? Or perhaps (given that The Magical Mystery Tour is hardly a documentary) what are the best music DVDs / films?
It seems that hardly a week goes by without the release of a new documentary. Bands now appear to be regularly plagued by marauding film crews swarming round them, recording their most intimate moments for the enjoyment of all, to varying degrees of success. Fans can thrill to the sight of Dave Grohl relaxing with his family, laugh at Ozzy clearing up dog faeces and gasp at the sight of Bob Dylan picking his feet*. This is a good thing for music fans like me, although admittedly not every film is a nailed-on classic. Indeed some look like they may have all the visual appeal of the Oxford University Dungeons and Dragons team. And they’re not pretty – believe me.
When it comes to picking the good ones, it is easier than picking the right book, and you don’t have to invest as much time. Thanks to BBC4 and Sky Arts they also appear on TV far more than they used to. It is fair to say that if you are a fan of a band, then you are likely to enjoy seeing the band on film.
I remember buying Journey: Frontiers and Beyond on VHS when I was younger. It was partly an on-the-road documentary following the road crew around and partly an in-concert movie. It was great for a Journey fan to see backstage footage, but I suspect the film is of limited interest to anyone else, unless you like to see footage of roadies driving trucks (and who doesn’t?) or seeing their reaction to Neal Schon catching a pair of knickers thrown from the crowd with his guitar. (Spoiler: it’s comfortably the best thing they see during the tour – which reaffirms how dull a roadie’s life might be most of the time).
Radiohead’s Meeting People Is Easy is okay if you are a fan, but it is somewhat haphazard, featuring a collage of a bemused band on tour, but is far from a comprehensive document of what it is like to be in Radiohead (and to be fair, isn’t meant to be).
I wrote about the Kiss Exposed! Video and its appropriation of the Playboy Mansion in a previous post…
The Kings of Leon‘s Talahina Sky is great for fans – lots of footage of the band surrounded by their family and neighbours in scenes resembling the Dukes of Hazard, only without the cars. But it doesn’t rival The Foo Fighters documentary Back and Forth, which has more structure and is far more revealing about the band, including the time when Dave Grohl recorded over his drummer’s parts because he thought he could do better. Which to be fair, he probably could. If you’re a drummer, and the lead singer in your band used to be The Drummer In Nirvana, that’s pretty intimidating I would say. To take a Shakespearean analogy, you’d probably feel the same way Scar felt about Simba in The Lion King.
The best documentaries however, can take a band that perhaps you are less familiar with and bring them to life.
The number one documentary on my list, MC5: A True Confessional is one of those films. I knew The MC5 principally from their song Kick Out The Jams, which distils everything that’s great about rock n roll in three minutes. But that was about it. It so happens that the band were at the forefront of a movement that was considered such a threat to the US Government that we see in-concert footage of the band sourced from none other than FBI surveillance tapes. Which says more about the paranoia of the US Government in the sixties that any actual threat the band posed.
Sadly the film is difficult to get hold of (I found my copy on eBay) due to a dispute between the band and the film makers over money (what else?). Hopefully they will work things out and the film will reach the audience it deserves.
Let it Be is another film on the list without an official release, presumably because it documents a difficult time in the life of the band. That is, of course, the very thing that makes it interesting. Seeing George Harrison getting narky with Paul McCartney (“I’ll play it any way you want me to. Or not play it”) whilst recording the album is uncomfortable viewing. Again, eBay, record fairs or file sharing sites are the only ways to see this film.
You can see the full list on a permanent page on the Every Record Tells A Story site or by clicking through this link to The Top 25 Music Documentaries of All Time.
Have I missed any? Do add your favourites in the comments section…
* I may have made this up
Record #88: Spinal Tap – Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight
Every record tells a story 
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