I can't say for sure when the first film mocking documentaries was made but as far as my life is concerned Spinal Tap is the first one I was aware of. They are all the rage these days although very rarely will the actually be about a band because there are so many creative elements that have to go into doing something like that.
The music in Spinal Tap is all original and this would only be interesting of the music was actually something that you can believe that someone would be interested in listening to. While the songs are ridiculous they are actually pretty catchy and if you were alive in the 80's and remember glam rock you already know that this sort of music isn't really all that different from what the serious music was like at the time.
Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer are the stars as the main people in the fictional band Spinal Tap and the story behind this mockumentary becomes more interesting when you find out that the actors actually DID play their own instruments while filming this. They are all quite accomplished musicians and while they of course are not necessarily performing the songs live while it is being filmed they actually did record all of it themselves.
I know a bit about stringed instruments and would be able to tell if someone was actually playing the notes that are happening and I can find no fault in any of the sequences that we see on screen.
That isn't necessarily what makes Spinal Tap (the actual name of the film is "This is Spinal Tap") special though. What makes the film special is that they are taking the piss out of how serious musicians take themselves even when their music and their lifestyles are actually completely absurd and to be honest, rather stupid. If you ever listen to an interview with members of popular bands throughout time it is kind of funny to listen to some of them try to pretend as though they are intellectuals when the reality of the situation is that they are gifted musicians most of the time while not exactly being terribly scholarly at the same time.
One of the best scenes that exhibits this, even though the whole film actually does this pretty well, is the famous "these go to eleven" scene where Nigel is showing the documentary's director around his instrument room and is really proud of his amplifier that is custom made so all the knobs go up to eleven for that "extra push" that you sometimes need in music. When "Marty" the director (played actually quite well by Rob Reiner) that it might make sense to have an amp that is just more powerful but still only goes to 10, Nigel doesn't understand what he means and insists "yeah well these go to 11".
The performances to me are all quite entertaining and I particularly like the inappropriately sexual nature of most of their songs such as when they perform "Sex Farm Woman" at a military base for the older crowd that doesn't really even know who they are.
They have other songs that you can probably determine are very stupidly sexual such as "Big Bottom" and "Tonight I'm gonna rock you tonight".
The thing about these ridiculous songs is that harmonically speaking and just from a listener's point of view, it is extremely conceivable that most of these songs would actually end up being hits if they were seriously released.
"Big Bottom, Big Bottom, talk about bum cakes my girl's got em. Big bottom drive me out of my mind, how can I leave this behind?"
Now that's just pure poetry. haha and if you go anywhere and sing this there's a good chance that someone nearby will recognize what you are singing and congratulations! You probably just made a good friend with a keen sense of humor.
I wasn't really all that familiar with how silly the music of the 80s was because like a lot of people, I liked the music of the 80's in the 80's. My very first cassette was a hard rock band with silly material and I would end up buying many more glam rock albums in my pre-teen years. While the above picture is a piss take, the people in these bands really did dress like this in those days and it was kind of funny to watch the music videos because all of the guys had on more makeup than the women they were objectifying in the same videos. Who knows why we liked that at the time but we did.
I wouldn't end up seeing this film until I was already in college and if my parents had caught me watching it when it was released in 1984 I probably would have been in quite a bit of trouble. I wasn't allowed to see R-Rated movies at that age with the only exception being Conan that Barbarian and I will always be thankful to my parents for breaking their own rule and allowing me to see that masterpiece.
It seems silly but since the stars of this movie were relative unknowns when the film was released a great deal of the population believed that Spinal Tap was a real band and the albums sold relatively well. I guess that was in a time when people also didn't know what Rob Reiner looked like because that was kind of a dead giveaway.
Should I watch it?
I don't think it is absolutely necessary that you were alive for the hair metal / glam-rock parts of life in order to appreciate what a cultural phenomenon this film was. To collectively pull the wool over basically the entire world's eyes with this is honestly a pretty amazing accomplishment and while I don't think it was their intention to do so, that's exactly what ended up happening.
It's not rolling around funny or anything like that, but it is dare i say, a more intellectual level of humor that will always stand the test of time because even though we don't really hear about it anymore these days because of social media, rock stars are prima donnnas just like it is portrayed in Spinal Tap.
This is a piece of music and cinema history and people have tried to replicate the same thing in following years but nobody will ever be able to accomplish it on the level that they did with this one.
In a fun twist, this is the ONLY film that you can rate up to 11 out of 10 on IMDB.
this can be legally streamed on both Prime and HBO Max and it is for rent almost anywhere else. It is NOT on Netflix.
