Life imitates art (Spinal Tap) again
Posted by Sven on 21 December 2007 - 4:12pm.
Did I really hear the voice over on the recent OK-ish Pink Floyd rockumentary say something like 'getting the Floyd back together for Live 8 was akin to making poverty history'with no hint of irony? How crass is that?
I wonder what decent TV rock type documentaries there have been. My feeling is that things like the Classic Album series worked - eg Dark Side of the Moon and Who's Next? - since they didn't try to cover too much in one hour. But has there ever been anything that was really great?
I would definitely rate the Dylan/Scorcese thing, mainly because of Dylan's input. I'll happlily watch anything on reasonably decent music and enjoy it, even if it's a bit ropey. Oh and the BBC4 films on Factory and Stiff were excellent I thought.
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Dancing In The Street
It's by no means perfect, but this 10 part 1996 series is the high watermark as far as I'm concerned.
Tony Palmer's
'All My Loving' and his exhaustive series 'All You Need Is Love' were both pretty definitive. Why hasn't anyone released the latter on DVD I wonder?
Brazil
The best TV documentary I saw this year was a three-part series on BBC4 about Brazilian music called Brasil Brasil. The second part, which mostly covered the Tropicalia period of the late 60s, was especially good, and contained some astonishing footage of X-Factor-style battle of the bands shows, but with a) great music, b) added protest and politics, and c) no Simon Cowell. Brilliant stuff.
That was made by Robin Denselow...
....who I went to mali with a few weeks ago. I'll tell him. He'll be very gratified.
Seven Ages of Rock
I enjoyed it, although I know not everyone did.
Pete Frame
I enjoyed most of Pete Frame's "Rock Family Trees" series from a few years ago.
Worst ever rock doc has to be that one (forget its name - shown 20-odd years ago) featuring Jeff Bridges delivering the classically naff line "Rock n' Roll! Phew!"
The Dude abides
Andrew Solt and Malcolm Leo's Heroes Of Rock'n' Roll, shown on BBC2 in 1979? It's the cornerstone of my musical education. I still have it on video.