Rocking with laughter ... Tenacious D is funny, but so are indie, pop and endless others
Before This is Spinal Tap, films about rock music were either autobiographical, such as Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains the Same, or heavily dramatised, like David Essex's teen-idol-gone-bad hit Stardust and Mariah Carey's Glitter. Spinal Tap did what no film had done before: it parodied rock, revealing it as so ridiculous that it launched a niche genre of satirical music films, including the British answer to Spinal Tap, Bad News, and Jack Blackís new one, The Pick of Destiny.
What they all have in common is that they're about heavy metal bands. Well, they make easy targets. Even now, 24 years after Spinal Tap, old-schoolers like Def Leppard and Iron Maiden can be relied on for shock-and-awe stage decor and the kind of stretch jeans that Russell Brand wears because he thinks they're funny. There are still bands around who would call an album Break Like the Wind, if the Spinal Tap actors hadn't released a CD of that very name in 1992. Heavy metal lives, in all its ready-for-parody majesty.
But why is it always metal that inspires comedies? There are other genres that offer equally rich pickings, but their potential seems to be unrecognised. Spinal Tap's Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael McKean did attempt to satirise the acoustic folk scene in 2003's A Mighty Wind, in which they played a finger-in-ear trio called The Folksmen, but with far less success than This is Spinal Tap. Well, of course - folk isn't inherently funny.
Many other genres are, however, and would make rib-tickling movies. Where's the one about the hapless boy-band whose attempt to be taken seriously results in their touring as opening act to Cradle of Filth? The "poetic" indie boy who gobbles down drugs to blot out the fact that he really prefers a slim volume of Nuts to Rimbaud? The superstar act that rued the day they wanted a fancy stage set when they got stuck in a giant lemon conveying them to the stage? That last actually happened to U2 during their Popmart tour. These are films waiting to be made!
Make your pitches for some more.
