Recently Bronwyn and I have been educating ourselves by watching a number of documentaries and docudramas about bands and musicians we didn't know as much about as we thought we should. Not that she isn't far more au fait with such matters than me, I hasten to add.
God knows there's not a lot else to watch on our various streaming sites at present except tormented dramas about world-weary detectives going back to their home towns to dig up the past, or drug-addled fools trying to make their way up the corporate ladder (or High School: the rules seem to be much the same in both places) ... So documentaries of sundry stripes appear to be the order of the day.
I suppose the great-grandaddy of all such extravaganzas is the late lamented Rob Reiner's This is Spinal Tap. But given that was originally meant as parody of an already flourishing subgenre, the band autobiography, it's safe to say that there's unlikely ever be a shortage of them.
Let's see, where should one start? I suppose the Woodstock concert movie is as good a place as any. Is there anyone in the world who hasn't seen it? Or, rather, those selected scenes - Jimi Hendrix playing the Star-Spangled Banner, for instance - endlessly replayed in subsequent films.
Charlton Heston is even shown rewatching it for the umpteenth time as the last surviving relic of a lost civilisation at the opening of 1971 disaster flick The Omega Man.
After that the genre gradually began to take shape via movies of Rock Operas such as Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) and The Who's Tommy (1975) until we reach the bloated excess of Led Zeppelin's auto-hagiography The Song Remains the Same:
This early phase of development might be said to have culminated in Julien Temple's infamous Sex Pistols mockumentary The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle.
There seems, in retrospect, a certain vigour and innocence about these early attempts to fuse cinema and rock 'n' roll: "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, / But to be young was very heaven!," as William Wordsworth remarked on a not dissimilar occasion.
That's certainly not the case now. But with increasing sophistication, the form has begun to move in strange directions. For the sake of focus, I've managed to reduce my sampling to 9 recent examples - though one could easily double that without breaking a sweat. Rather than arranging them chronologically, I've listed them more arbitrarily, in alphabetical order of Band names.
- Bowie: The Last Five Years (2017)
- David Bowie: Finding Fame (2019)
- Moonage Daydream (2022)
- Bowie: The Final Act (2025)
- Robbie Williams (2023)
- A Better Man (2024)
- Take That (2026)
This is in many ways the most carefully curated of these (so-called) "tell-all" documentaries. There's lots of interesting footage of Culture Club's early performances, but the main attraction must be, as usual, the interviews.
These are amusingly juxtaposed to show just how and why Boy George drove his fellow band-members so crazy. His instinctive hogging of the limelight ensured that only he and his close friend, drummer Jon Moss, made it to the recording of the 1984 Band Aid "Do they know it's Christmas?" song. The others weren't even told it was happening.
He went one better in managing to get Culture Club excluded from the 1985 Live Aid concert, which they'd been positively begged to take part in, by his on-again off-again antics with organiser Bob Geldoff. This clearly still rankles with the rest of them forty years on. O'Dowd, as usual, is blandly dismissive.
"Condemned out of your own mouth" is the usual aspiration of such productions. It seldom operates quite so well as here, however.
This one is actually a three-part miniseries rather than a single documentary. I have to say that as it unfolded, particularly when the deep emotions set off by band-member Stephen Gately's death were discussed in detail by the survivors, the true human cost of such enterprises began to become a little clearer.
Ronan Keating had always struck me previously as unusually plastic and bland even for a pop-star, but listening to his unvarnished memories like this allowed me - if not exactly to sympathise, at least to understand him better.
To tell you the truth, I have pretty much zero interest in the whole boy-band phenomenon, but I did find the ins-and-outs of their early history far more engrossing than I'd anticipated. Their original manager Louis Walsh, who - weirdly - agreed to appear on the documentary, came across as the closest thing to a human wolf I've ever seen in the flesh.
When he gets to hell, I can't help feeling that he'll end up bossing round all the other demons within a few days of his arrival ...
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Amy Scott, dir.: Counting Crows: Have You Seen Me Lately? (2025)(3) - Counting Crows: Have You Seen Me Lately?
There's a scene early in the documentary where the then-still-obscure band Counting Crows has been invited to make an appearance on hit TV show Saturday Night Live. They're asked to sing two songs, their anthemic "Mr Jones", as well as another early release, "Round Here." But, given the exigencies of live TV, the producers want to cut each song by a minute or so. Lead singer Adam Duritz refuses point blank to do this, and it's agreed that both songs will be included in full.
Once they get to the studio, it soon becomes apparent that - surprise! surprise! - due to slight overruns in the show, the songs will indeed have to be cut. Adam isn't having any. They have an agreement, and he demands that they stick to it. He won't appear at all if there's any question of cutting the songs. Eventually the Saturday Day Night Live producers are forced to give in. One of them comments to a mutual friend that they may be a good band, but Adam is an asshole. Counting Crows has never been asked back on the programme.
There is no Counting Crows without Adam Duritz. He dominates the documentary as he clearly continues to dominate his bandmates' lives. He comes across, here at least, as a melancholic, self-pitying, self-obsessed individual, whose wailing voice sounds much the same now as it did thirty years ago, when they first started to make waves. Take it or leave it, that's who he is.
He must have some hidden charm, though, as it would be hard otherwise to account for the succession of A-list stars and other famous beauties who've dated him. For myself, while I do admire some of his songs, and the general style of his lyrics, it's hard to believe that it was all worth it. Somewhat surprisingly, most of the other band members seem to conclude that it was.
It seems a little odd that I can't find any mention of the existence of this documentary on the Wikipedia page devoted to obscure British rock band The Darkness, even though it appeared a couple of years ago and has now even made it to a streaming service near me.
There are whole scenes in it which could be inserted into This is Spinal Tap without any sense of disproportion: turning up at an Irish pub to perform to an audience of roughly a dozen punters; earnest discussions of how long their latest new drummer is likely to last ...
You wonder at times if they're joking, but there's no denying that they, too, had their moment in the sun. Nor, unfortunately, are our ears yet free of their shrieking anthem "I Believe in a Thing Called Love."
I guess I took it against them after watching an earlier documentary about the 2004 "Band Aid 20" rerecording of the anthemic "Do They Know It's Christmas?" song. Justin Hawkins of The Darkness got into an argument with Bono over who should record a particular line. The conceit and arrogance of Hawkins alongside these bona fide giants of Rock 'n' Roll contrasted not only with the latter's comparatively relaxed demeanour, but with everyone else's pretty accurate sense of the durability of The Darkness's "fame."
One does end up feeling a little sorry for them, but not very sorry. They're too ridiculous and repulsive for that. One pities the filmmaker more, but then he did succeed in getting his revenge with the final cut of this horribly funny film.
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Zoe Dobson, dir. Duran Duran: There's Something You Should Know (2018)(5) - Duran Duran: There's Something You Should Know
Again, I was never a fan, but one has to admit that not only was Duran Duran a considerable hit machine in their heyday, but they're still a pretty good act all these years later.
The funny thing, for us, was how obviously all the others loathed Simon Le Bon, and how oblivious he was to the fact.
It's a good, straightforward examination of the band's history, which has the advantage of not being quite so long as some of the more self-indulgent entries on this list.
This one is pure pleasure from start to finish. It's a weird combo of The Commitments and Straight Outta Compton, set against the backdrop of post-Troubles Belfast.
The boys play themselves with wit and energy, and their innumerable enemies - not so much the Brits as the more "respectable" arm of the Irish language movement, not to mention the RRAD [Radical Republicans Against Drugs] who try to kneecap them (literally) - are all shown up as hypocrites and fools.
It's hard not to root for a band who proudly describe themselves as "low-life scum." Long may they prosper - and keep on waving forbidden flags at large English Rock Festivals!
If it weren't for the fact that it drags a bit at the end, I'd nominate this documentary for the unintentional humour award. "Welcome to the Darkness" is its only real rival, but - at least on some level - Justin and his Darkness buddies do seem to know that they're rather absurd.
Not so Nickelback. They still can't work out just why they were the butt of so many jokes - why being a "Nickelback fan" was the ultimate putdown - why no-one respects the long decades they've spent in the studio recording, if not the same song, certainly the same album over and over again.
What tips the balance into the surreal is the visit they pay to their Godforsaken hometown in Canada. They see all their old friends! (None of them have moved away). They're recognised in the street! (By a couple of oldsters from next door). The same plywood houses stand on the same empty streets ... You could probably find the same dopedealer they frequented back in the day, still plying his trade round the same corner.
And yet they are, genuinely, a very successful band. People still come to their concerts. They're all - apparently - very rich. It's understandable that they should feel that they deserve some respect after all these years, but I fear that the curse of Manilow is upon them. Wherever two or more smartarses are gathered together, there shall be jokes about Wayne Newton, Barry Manilow, Metallica and - Nickelback. World without end. Amen.
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Linus O'Brien: Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror (2025)(8) - Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror
I suppose, as a fellow Kiwi, I might be a bit prejudiced, but the creation of The Rocky Horror Picture Show is surely one of the more significant events in the moral history of man, and its progenitor, Richard O'Brien, albeit a bit sharp-tongued at times, is clearly a genius on a par with Cole Porter or George Gershwin.
Unconvinced? Well, just watch this wonderfully affectionate and informative documentary made by his son Linus, and tell me it's all just a flash in the pan.
Joking apart, I honestly had no idea of the sheer extent of its influence all over the world. The stage show and feature film were just the beginning. It's a fundamentally joyous story, told here with humour and finesse.
Like Nickelback, O'Brien has a fearsome hometown too - only this time it's Hamilton, New Zealand!
Here's another drama "based on" the real events, rather than a bona fide documentary. There have many attempts to tell the story of the Sex Pistols, most of them centred on either Macolm McLaren, the band's (alleged) Svengali, or John Lyden (aka Johnny Rotten) their supremely articulate lead singer.
This, by contrast, is based on the autobiography of Steve Jones, the band's lead guitarist. And (it would appear, if you believe his version of events) the leading light of pretty much everything that went down in its heady days of fame.
Alas, I fear that it's mostly of antiquarian interest at this point in time. What interested me most about this TV series, I'm sorry to say, is just how unconvincing Steve's revisionism seemed. The actor cast as Rotten, Anson Boon, was almost as incandescently charismatic as the original, and effortlessly stole every scene he was in.
The more special pleading was heard from the rather averagely talented Steve, the more the accepted story of the band - as delineated so brilliantly in Jon Savage's 1991 masterpiece England's Dreaming - shone through.
Best just to let all those ghosts lie after all these years, I suspect. No-one is ever likely to displace Rotten and Sid Vicious from their rather dismal eminence, however little you may feel the latter (at any rate) deserves it.
The more I think about it, the more examples of band and music documentaries spring to mind. One could probably go on forever. The late, great David Bowie alone has given rise to at least four that I can think of, and there are probably others I missed along the way:
His only possible rival in this respect is Robbie Wiliams, with two (plus another one coming):
And don't even get me started on Beyoncé (Renaissance) and Taylor Swift's (Miss Americana) exploitation of their back catalogues. There's no sign of that fountain drying up anytime soon.
I suppose that it's a little unorthodox to mix in feature films (such as Kneecap) and drama series (such as Pistol) with straightforward documentaries, but I think it's justified if one wants to understand the form.
Is it all worth it? Yes, I think so. I grew up on British TV documentary histories of musical genres: The 10-part Dancing in the Street: A Rock and Roll History (1995-96) was probably the best of them, but it's given rise to many heirs - most recently the excellent Canadian Hip-Hop Evolution.
And how else am I to repair the ravages of a childhood spent listening almost exclusively to Bach, Handel and Mozart?
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