Roxy Muzak: has there ever been a decent film about pop?

Dunno, it seems that the only rock films that really work are concert films, and even they range sharply from great (Woodstock, Abba The Movie) to middling (U2 "Rattle & Hum") to embarrasing. (Song Remains The Same)

Old Fart!!!!!!

Meanwhile,

2. Actually, I think VELVET GOLDMINE was more good than bad.

3. By my lights, U2:RATTLE&HUM is magnificent.

I think a problem with Hollywood style films about pop is that they usually demand a narrative, and that means closure and some kind of emotional growth from the characters. And that for me isn't much to do with pop, which is at its best as a kind of emotional snapshot. So the problem is that what gets set up, generally, is a narrative of growing out of pop - pop in films tends to be something that gets set aside, having taught the characters its "lessons". But pop has no lessons.

1) 'ghost dog' - the wu-tang and reggae and free jazz songs that ghost dog listened to showed his connection with modern culture, with those whom he believed carryed on the samurai ethic along with him. the fact that the wu 'sound' was stretched into instrumental passages on the score confirmed this. the 'pop music' of wu-tang worked as immediate and historic at the same time.

2) 'romeo must die' - on the flip side, this was just cinematic pop. you knew what the end would be by the beginning, and the usually energetic pop songs in the film were as simple as the scenes they augmented. it's like a 12" movie.

What qualifies as a film about music? Clearly, Almost Famous is about music, but it's not a documentary, another genre that's been brought up (without mention of Gimme Shelter, fucking shameful, people). Are Ghost Dog or Romeo films *about* music? *shrugs* I dunno what the criteria really would be for a pop film.

Help!, incidentally, is NOT a film about pop music at all, it's a film about the Beatles cashing in. A fairly entertaining film, but it's about as much to do with music as, say, How I Won The War. Hard Day's Night, on the other hand, is clearly about pop, and it's clearly the best one around. This is Spinal Tap is the only other pop- music-film I'd deem worth watching.

Oh, and Quadrophenia, if it counts.

Its a proper pop movie because it does not get bogged down in the very tedium of pop. Films which do that (like That Thing You Do and to some extent Grace Of Your Heart) are tedious - because business, and by extrapolation the music business - is tedious. This is the one thing Twenty Four Hour Party People may have going for it, the business side of Factory Records was almost as amusing as the bands they released.

Spice World should get an honorary mention as well - for trying to rip-off Hard Days Night - which is still the all-comers champion at doing the pop thrill thing.

Slade In Flame is fantastic though whilst Velvet Goldmine is an incoherent selection of piss poor pastiche videos. And before you say I am Yank bashing - his previous film Safe was bobbins too.

and yeah, 'ghost dog' and 'romeo must die' are totally about pop (surely as much as 'high fidelity' was). pop exists as a character in the film. hell, pop stars are actually characters in these films (aaliyah, rza), which is more you can say for fake- ass musician lisa bonet.

I always end up a little disappointed by pop/rock movies - maybe I expect too much from them. Even the Spinal Tap movie, funny as it is, didn't measure up to everything I had heard about it. Maybe nothing could have. Stop Making Sense is awesome though. High Fidelity too.

Clearly, High Fidelity is not a pop film by my criteria because it's in no way, shape, or form ABOUT music. It's about a guy who is crap in relationships. The fact that he has a record collection seems irrelevant, other than providing jokes.

I don't take into consideration the inclusion of so-called musicians like Aaliyah since I wouldn't call Caveman a pop music film and it stars Ringo Starr...

Nick Dastoor once said (in public) that pop should always be about small and humble, not epic, things. Does that claim square with, or triangulate against, the idea that pop is vs narrative?

2. I still say that U2:RATTLE&HUM is tops. And that really is a film about music.

1) Velvet Goldmine - I def fall on the this is ace side of the love it or hate it argument on ehtis one

2) Last days of disco - really its about class, but pretty much a music film

Come on, it's got sex, drugs and rock'n'roll in abundance.

"You're a starchild..." "Well, you're a bitch."

;-)

Also, I saw a movie with David Essex in the early 80s that I remember kind of liking, but I can't remember what it's called. It's probably crap, Essex seems like the English Rick Springfield - as a rocker he's pretty good soap opera actor.

The now fictional Tom Ewing was correct, back then, when he said:

I think a problem with Hollywood style films about pop is that they usually demand a narrative, and that means closure and some kind of emotional growth from the characters. And that for me isn't much to do with pop, which is at its best as a kind of emotional snapshot.

But I think Stevie is wrong (and this is I think where "Tom on Almost Famous" falls down, though I'm not exactly sure he was on Almost Famous) in characterising Almost Famous as a film about pop. Not to try and state the obvious but surely it is a film about Rock, even pop in its widest sense isn't apt. And isn't one of the Great Rockist Values (I don't use the word often, only when I am prepared to back it up) is the insistence on narrative: the Album as a readable whole, singles as just moments, the Story, etc (etc?).

(Didn't Meltzer trash this? He called it 'third spud from the sun', right? Why? Surely not for its treatment of Bangs: that's the best part about the film: this fiction is much (!) better than the one that the 'new' music press pay bloated obeisance to: Bangs as Human: because when I read Bangs that's what I take from him: "the record locked in the run-out groove, his distrust of the synthetic, that band [the Human League], that album title [Dare - now write your own biography".)

Surely this is a movie about the flight from home: I liked it, for all its rom-com leanings, its sentimentality, its turgidness in places [I stopped watching it three times and concluded the film over a course of three sittings: each time I restarted the video I was greeted by one of the stadium rock scenes: now write your own biography] - but for all of this: where are these people's homes? Which makes it an extremely romantic view of that era, I suppose: the eternal flight.

Ethan otm re:Ghost Dog and Romeo Must Die

Don't worry I turned off RP after 3 songs (urgh!) and only skimmed through the Young records ('Expecting to Fly' & 'Broken Arrow' - surely Young's two greatest songs - he never hit these heights ever again).

The coldness of RoxyMuzak.

1. Dude asks her a stupid question.
2. Freezes him out for 5 years.
3. Dismissive jpg. Drops mic. Peaces.

Old Fart!!!!!!

― Old Fart!!!, Friday, March 2, 2001 8:00 PM (10 years ago)