Rock and Roll Documentaries
Since I've been at UNC, I have had the occasion, twice, to teach the Popular Music and Youth Culture class. We have that class in the Communication Studies department because we have Larry Grossberg, who is the American academic scholar on cultural studies and was the leading American academic writing about music and culture in the 80s and 90s. As opposed to someone like Greil Marcus, who certainly did academic work, and lectured at university, but at heart was still a Rolling Stone editor. Grossberg is an academic, through and through. Anyways, teaching this class was fun, especially because my master's thesis was on The Who, and I thought at the time I was going to revolutionize rhetorical criticism by introducing it to music. Well, that didn't work out so well, but teaching the class was still a blast.
Nevertheless, one of the things that always challenged me about the class was trying to find a good documentary about popular music to show to the class on occasion (read: rock and roll, since few students today really want to "waste their time" with things like Jazz. And to be sure, the "youth culture" part of the class gave us an out on that, since it was Rock that really first became a "youth" phenomenon, as defined by capitalistic revenue and moral panics). But there have been a couple, and I thought I would write a little about them as I have been inspired by my xmas gift of the Who documentary I have previously written about.
For me, the first really good documentary series on rock and roll was the BBC's 1995 Rock and Roll. This was a ten-part series of hour-long episodes that tried it's best to encapture all of the different forms and twists of "rock and roll" over the years, from its origins to rap and hip-hop. It's actually quite breathtaking in its ability to do this, and this goes to its writers and editors, who instead of trying to just survey the history, focused on key themes of the history. For example, the "British Invasion" is treated as an in-depth focus on the Beatles and Bob Dylan, and how the rest were really just a side show. That particularly brilliant episode is one I showed all my classes.
Nevertheless, what you usually tend to notice in documentaries is not what they include, but what they leave out. For me, I was (at the time) infuriated that the BBC Rock and Roll series did not mention once The Who, my favorite band of all time, and one I think deserves a little mention in the history of things. In retrospect, I can understand it from an editor's perspective, but it still curls me to watch drivel about the Grateful Dead and see nothing about The Who.
Unfortunately, at the same time the BBC documentary came out, and American "version" of the same series came out just a few months later. This was The History of Rock and Roll, and was a VH1 production, if I remember correctly. They tried to create, in again, 10 hour-long episodes, an even more complete history of the music. They interviewed more people, and included more bands and artists. But, in the interest of documenting everything, they essentially documented nothing. The end result was a really piss-poor documentary that watches like an eigth-grader's book report. It lacks all the depth the BBC series had, even if it included The Who.
I write this because I have just finished watching the new VH1 series, The Seven Ages of Rock. I like this series because it doesn't try to play nice and include everything under the monicker of "rock": instead, it declares the start of "rock" as a distinct vehicle of music in 1965. There are no Beatles in this documentary. And they include the Who! But what I liked about this recent series is that they pay attention to certain elements of music that have been very influential but often overlooked. My favorite episodes were the ones about American Alternative music and British Indie Pop, which would not have been possible in the BBC doc.
But, again, you notice what is missing and not what is there. The American Altermative episode was on target, even though it never mentioned Husker Du, which, to my mind was way more influential than many give credit for. But I can understand that with the editorial choice of the episode, which focused on R.E.M. and Nirvana, and that is probably right, especially considering the narrative connection between the two.
What made me most intrigued, if not mad, was the Brit Indie episode. It focused on a straight line from The Smiths to The Stone Roses to Blur/Oasis. Now, in the narrative of the episode, I can understand that. And I have nothing against the individual bands. But it just seemed weird to have an episode about British music in the 80s and 90s without even a single mention of Radiohead.
Nevertheless, there are good documentaries out there. My favorite is still the old BBC one. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to find. They released it to VCR, but only it seems to college libraries. You cannot buy it today, and they haven't released it on DVD. Seven Ages of Rock, I am sure you will be able to pick up, as it is VH1's product of the moment. Don't waste your time with the "History of Rock and Roll" series. Try instead to find the BBC version. Or 7 Ages. I liked it.
Nevertheless, one of the things that always challenged me about the class was trying to find a good documentary about popular music to show to the class on occasion (read: rock and roll, since few students today really want to "waste their time" with things like Jazz. And to be sure, the "youth culture" part of the class gave us an out on that, since it was Rock that really first became a "youth" phenomenon, as defined by capitalistic revenue and moral panics). But there have been a couple, and I thought I would write a little about them as I have been inspired by my xmas gift of the Who documentary I have previously written about.
For me, the first really good documentary series on rock and roll was the BBC's 1995 Rock and Roll. This was a ten-part series of hour-long episodes that tried it's best to encapture all of the different forms and twists of "rock and roll" over the years, from its origins to rap and hip-hop. It's actually quite breathtaking in its ability to do this, and this goes to its writers and editors, who instead of trying to just survey the history, focused on key themes of the history. For example, the "British Invasion" is treated as an in-depth focus on the Beatles and Bob Dylan, and how the rest were really just a side show. That particularly brilliant episode is one I showed all my classes.
Nevertheless, what you usually tend to notice in documentaries is not what they include, but what they leave out. For me, I was (at the time) infuriated that the BBC Rock and Roll series did not mention once The Who, my favorite band of all time, and one I think deserves a little mention in the history of things. In retrospect, I can understand it from an editor's perspective, but it still curls me to watch drivel about the Grateful Dead and see nothing about The Who.
Unfortunately, at the same time the BBC documentary came out, and American "version" of the same series came out just a few months later. This was The History of Rock and Roll, and was a VH1 production, if I remember correctly. They tried to create, in again, 10 hour-long episodes, an even more complete history of the music. They interviewed more people, and included more bands and artists. But, in the interest of documenting everything, they essentially documented nothing. The end result was a really piss-poor documentary that watches like an eigth-grader's book report. It lacks all the depth the BBC series had, even if it included The Who.
I write this because I have just finished watching the new VH1 series, The Seven Ages of Rock. I like this series because it doesn't try to play nice and include everything under the monicker of "rock": instead, it declares the start of "rock" as a distinct vehicle of music in 1965. There are no Beatles in this documentary. And they include the Who! But what I liked about this recent series is that they pay attention to certain elements of music that have been very influential but often overlooked. My favorite episodes were the ones about American Alternative music and British Indie Pop, which would not have been possible in the BBC doc.
But, again, you notice what is missing and not what is there. The American Altermative episode was on target, even though it never mentioned Husker Du, which, to my mind was way more influential than many give credit for. But I can understand that with the editorial choice of the episode, which focused on R.E.M. and Nirvana, and that is probably right, especially considering the narrative connection between the two.
What made me most intrigued, if not mad, was the Brit Indie episode. It focused on a straight line from The Smiths to The Stone Roses to Blur/Oasis. Now, in the narrative of the episode, I can understand that. And I have nothing against the individual bands. But it just seemed weird to have an episode about British music in the 80s and 90s without even a single mention of Radiohead.
Nevertheless, there are good documentaries out there. My favorite is still the old BBC one. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to find. They released it to VCR, but only it seems to college libraries. You cannot buy it today, and they haven't released it on DVD. Seven Ages of Rock, I am sure you will be able to pick up, as it is VH1's product of the moment. Don't waste your time with the "History of Rock and Roll" series. Try instead to find the BBC version. Or 7 Ages. I liked it.
posted by cc at
3:46 PM
1 Comments:
There was a very good one that ran on PBS about 12 years ago; maybe produced by WGBH out of Boston, but I can't recall. As always, debates about what goes in and what got taken out, but I remember being impressed with some of the interviews they did with De La Soul, among others.
I'm looking for something like that to show Linus. He's picking up more parts every day, but he could use that narrative/time line, to see what begat what.
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