Best Music Documentaries?

Just finished the doc for RUSH.

I liked the concert for Bangladeshi doc!

A great doc was Sound City.


But nothing compares to the gold standard of the film Woodstock.
 
As an avid watcher of documentaries, there's just too many I've seen down the years to remember. I've seen hundreds and I tend to remember the last ones I saw as opposed to a great one I might have seen 14 years ago.
So many; Syd Barrett, sibling rivalries in rock, Miles Davies, David Bowie creating Ziggy Stardust, the Rolling Stones 5X5, The Monkees, Record shops, the making of Magical mystery tour, Rock managers, Dancing in the street, All you need is love, A to Zeppelin......where do I start and where do I finish ?
There are literally hundreds. We've long been fortunate in England since the 70s in terms of good documentaries. And at the moment, good ones turn up on BBC 1, BBC2, BBC 4, Sky Arts 1&2. And they repeat them endlessly most of the time so if you miss one, there's a good chance you'll catch it at some point before Jesus returns.
Something I've found about rocumentaries is that you don't have to even like the artist{s} in question or have heard of the engineer or manager or liked the album or whatever. The other thing I've found leads on from this ~ rocumentaries cover a really wide spectrum of subject matter and degrees of seriousness. I find the ones trying to be comedic and sarcastic really tiresome, despite the odd funny comment.
 
Two of my personal favourites are The Definitive Buddy Holly Story and The Crazy World Of Joe Meek. (It would've been Buddy Holly's 77th Birthday today had he lived)

I watched a really good one about The Eagles a few weeks ago. I'm not a fan of them at all but their story was a good entertaining 3 hr journey on film.
 
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I watched a really good one about The Eagles a few weeks ago. I'm not a fan of them at all but their story was a good entertaining 3 hr journey on film.
I was going to mention the one about the Eagles as it was the last one I saw. I thought Glenn Frey came across as terribly smug and arrogant in it. I almost felt sorry for Don Felder when they tossed him out of the band. Almost.
I only like two of their songs {"Take it to the limit" and "Hotel California"} but their story was fascinating.
 
I made a comment that the one about Les Paul, Chasing the Sound, was so incredible and the innovations he pioneered, I just don't see how it was missed.

I posted about this film before, but to me, any list that doesn't include this (forget his guitar, his recording techniques alone should warrant it) didn't really do much research to compile, just took the most popular.
 
I made a comment that the one about Les Paul, Chasing the Sound, was so incredible and the innovations he pioneered, I just don't see how it was missed.
It's a good one but it's pretty long and here they always seem to show it really late into the night as tiredness is creeping up on me !

Just watched a great documentary about Jeff Lynne on BBC4.
Was it "Mr Blue Sky" ? I was really disappointed with it {if so} because it never really went into detail about his time with the Idle Race, the Move or ELO. It never really went into detail about alot of his feelings on things, unlike the Eagles one. Whatever I might have thought of Glenn Frey, he left you in no doubt as to what he thought about every stage of the Eagles' time and legacy. Actually, they all did and that's mainly why it was so good to watch. I was amazed by Joe Walsh's honesty and openness and for that matter Don Felder's.
The Jeff Lynne one isn't nearly as interesting as the "Rock family trees" that deals with the mid 60s Birmingham scene.
I also saw two lengthy, honest documentaries that made your toes curl with the honesty, one was a 3 hour one on the Hollies and one was of similar length on the Moody Blues.
But as I said in my first post, I couldn't even pick a top 10 because I've seen too many. Sometimes, they group similar ones together. In a week I saw a whole load on Hendrix, another time there were like 5 on the Doors. And thinking about it, two of the best recent ones I've seen was a] Ian Anderson talking the interviewer through Jethro Tull's performance at the Isle of Wight and b]a brilliant one I saw on Big brother and the holding company, whom I knew absolutely nothing about, except that Janis Joplin was their lead singer at one point.
 
It's a good one but it's pretty long and here they always seem to show it really late into the night as tiredness is creeping up on me !

Of course it is long because he did so much, sold millions of record with his wife Mary Ford, created the solid body guitar, Multitrack-recording innovations, recording techniques. I mean man, he did more for music than any other person except for Thomas Edison, so yea it is going to be long! The dude was still playing at 91 :cool:
 
one of the best ones ive seen thats not on the list is "the fearless freaks". its about the flaming lips. not that im a fan of them but its a really good story about the band and how it came to being.

i though sound city was so overrated it was all just dave grohl masturbating over himself all the time.
 
An observation: you kind of need to draw a distinction between documentaries and concert films. Many of the latter do include a good bit of backstage stuff which kind of blurs the line, but they're still different genres.

Another one: if you include all the episodes of "Behind the Music" and its ilk, there are at least hundred and perhaps thousands of them. The story line is sufficiently indentical that a lot of them are hard to distinguish, though.

Some I don't think have been mentioned (surprisingly):
"Standing in the Shadows of Motown"!
"I am Trying To Break Your Heart." This one does a great job of getting "inside," in a number of different ways.
"Twenty Feet from Stardom," which is brand new. It's well made, though the people who made it seem to have a narrow and not very well formed view of music.
"The Great Rock and Roll Swindle." I'm not sure where this one fits. It's a bit too fictional to be considered a documentary.
What about the Pearl Jam one that Cameron Crow made recently? I haven't seen it.
"I'm Not There." Okay. That's not a documentary. But still....
 
Of course it is long because he did so much, sold millions of record with his wife Mary Ford, created the solid body guitar, Multitrack-recording innovations, recording techniques. I mean man, he did more for music than any other person except for Thomas Edison, so yea it is going to be long! The dude was still playing at 91 :cool:
Totally agree. I prefer them long. I should really tape it and watch it at my leisure which I tend to do most times. Unless it's kids' TV I never watch anything live. Except late at night/in the twee hours when randomly I'll catch a music documentary.
 
An observation: you kind of need to draw a distinction between documentaries and concert films.
I would agree with that maybe 75% of the time, but there are some that are both, like the aforementioned one about Jethro Tull. And "Woodstock", though primarilly a concert film is also very much a documentary, as is "Gimme Shelter". Then you've got the likes of "Let it be" which straddles the line between the two.
"The Great Rock and Roll Swindle."
It's actually a good film. But right from the first time I saw it in the early 80s, it irritated me because I simply don't believe Malcolm McClaren. I really do not believe he engineered the whole thing from the start as opposed to being a smart guy who took advantage of things that happened purely by chance.
There's a pretty interesting documentary on Sid Vicious called "Sid ~ by those that knew him". Interesting because I can't think of a more irrelevant character in popular music's history than him. He really can be summed up in one four letter word ~ 'hype'. Yet, with huge historical irony, his is the iconic and much remembered face of punk. By the documentary makers and writers of the period, anyway.
 
Totally agree. I prefer them long. I should really tape it and watch it at my leisure which I tend to do most times. Unless it's kids' TV I never watch anything live. Except late at night/in the twee hours when randomly I'll catch a music documentary.

I watched more kid's tv when my kids where young than I ever did when I was a kid, I hear ya. :confused:
 
Found a really good music movie, not a documentary, The Late Quartet. It has Christopher Walken in a straight role. Anyway, good movie if you get a chance to give it a view. I think this bunch can appreciate the content.
 
That new Bob Marley documentary MARLEY deserves a shout as well I think. I never knew a lot about his life although I've always loved his music. I really enjoyed that.

Another good one but not musical was the 2 part. I Am Bruce Lee. Could've been longer and included more but still a great doc.
 
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