10 Greatest Rock Documentaries Ever Made
9. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart - Wilco
From an outsider's perspective, the life of a rock star seems like one of the most care free jobs in the world. What...all you have to do is play your guitars halfway decently and play for adoring fans night after night?...where the hell do I sign up? Then again, sometimes we need a band like Wilco to remind us just how arduous the process can really be.
Documented by Sam Jones, most of this film details the production hell that went into making Wilco's record Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Though we now know the album as one of the classics of modern rock at the turn of the century, the ins and outs of recording here are certainly no picnic, as we see Jeff Tweedy and Jay Bennett continually getting into fights with each other about where the songs should go.
To add insult to injury, we also get to see a peek into just how committed the record industry is to serving the bottom line, as the band get more and more notices from their record company to either make more commercial material or even threatening to drop them altogether if they don't go along with the program. It's not the most pleasant of experiences, but hey, at least the guys were able to tell the tale after the fact.