Usually, when the world's of film and rock music combine, we end up with something as gloriously camp, but undeniably awful as Arnold Schwarzenegger's appearance in rock legends ACDC's video for "Big Gun" (though some actor cameos in music videos were good -
as these 10 prove.) But
Sound City - Dave Grohl's documentary focusing on the legendary, but sadly unheralded Californian studio that gave birth to an embarrassment of rock riches in the years before digital music killed its trade and caused its demise is far from that campy excess. In the grand vein of other emotionally touching musical tales (including the wonderfully pathos-touched This Is Spinal Tap) Sound City is about loss, of a studio, and a cultural iconic and a musical tradition, because of what it represented. And while film fans may be looking forward to the more explosive releases like Man Of Steel or The Hobbit Part II later in the year, it is Grohl's documentary - which you can see from February - lovingly crafted and comparatively simple that goes down as the first essential movie of the year. And here's exactly why...
6. It's A Love Letter To Legendary Music
Sound City is a visual monument celebrating a geographical monument that never got the accolades it deserved before it was pulled down by the rise of digital music. It would be foolish to try and list every classic artist who ever recorded at Sound City, brought from around America for the studio's sound and its almost unique technology, but among the auspicious list are Nirvana of course, Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, and Johnny Cash, and the walls would have sung with as many colourful anecdotes as licks and hooks. But most importantly, Sound City itself has its own sound. Thanks to the presence of a super-rare Neve soundboard (which now belongs to Grohl), and the studio's acoustics, bands and artists flocked to record within its walls, and the studio left an imprint. As Grohl confirmed in his Sundance Q&A Nirvana's "Nevermind" owed a lot to that particular impression:
I dont know what would have happened if we recorded it at some other studio in the Valley. It might not have sounded like Nirvana.
That is testament to how important the studio was, and just as numerous talents left their mark on the studio when they recorded there, so too did the studio on the recorded music - and it is that exchange which seems at first to matter so much to Grohl.