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The 10 Pop-Music Documentaries I Most Wish Someone Would Make
From Steely Dan to Patti Smith to Otis Redding to Supertramp, here are the pop-music stories the cinema most needs to tell.
Rare subjects like the Beatles are universal (or close enough to it), but not everyone wants to seek out a documentary about Sparks (“The Sparks Brothers”) or ZZ Top (“ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band From Texas”) or the Go-Go’s (“The Go-Go’s”) or Blood, Sweat & Tears (“What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears?”) or Gordon Lightfoot (“Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read Me Mind”) or Sinéad O’Connor (“Nothing Compares”) or David Bowie (“Moonage Daydream”) or Tiny Tim (“Tiny Tim: King for a Day”) or the Grateful Dead (“Long Strange Trip”) or Nina Simone (“What Happened, Miss Simone?”) or the Velvet Underground (“The Velvet Underground”) or Mad Dogs & Englishmen (“Learning to Live Together: The Return of Mad Dogs & Englishmen”) or Frank Zappa (“Zappa”) or Milli Vanilli (“Milli Vanilli”). As the composer-arranger-producer-mastermind of the Electric Light Orchestra, with songs like “Evil Woman” and “Nightrider” and “Livin’ Thing,” he built sonic castles in the air — and the fact that you could hear the layering was part of the magic. Yet though Nile Rodgers went on to become one of the most celebrated producers of his time, what he and his partner, the late Bernard Edwards, created in Chic is a chapter of music history whose monumental arc has yet to be definitively told.
Or read this on Variety