My 10 Favorite Fictional Bands in Movies
Honorable mention goes to Cap'n Geech and the Shrimp Shack Shooters.
After finally seeing the Broadway smash-hit Stereophonic this past weekend (review pod coming later this week!), I’ve had fictional bands on the brain. There’s something inherently dramatic about the rise and fall of a band (especially because there are so many great real-life examples to find inspiration in) and it’s a cinematic well that never seems to run dry.
In my brainstorming, I’ve come up with my personal favorite fictional bands. It’s important to preface my list by reminding you that it’s just that, my list. Your list is probably different! It probably has Spinal Tap and Josie and the Pussycats and The Blues Brothers and, if you’re really cool, the Hex Girls. Mine doesn’t! And that’s okay. But I would love to hear your list in the comments.
10. Pink Slip - Freaky Friday (2003)
We all collectively let Lindsay Lohan down. As a child, she was such a naturally talented and instinctual performer. As she aged into teen roles, like in Freaky Friday and Mean Girls, she seemed destined to perfect those sensibilities. We don’t need to get into all of the tabloid crap, but needless to say, I’ve been delighted to see her comeback these past few years.
I’ve also been happy to see both Lindsay and Jamie Lee Curtis return for a Freaky Friday sequel, if only because there’s a chance we will get more from her band Pink Slip. Did every ‘90s and ‘00s kids/family movie end in a Battle of the Bands?
9. We’re Not A Band - Hearts Beat Loud (2018)
Hearts Beat Loud is one of the best father-daughter movies of the past few years. Nick Offerman has raised his daughter, Kiersten Clemens, right, putting her on an omnivore diet of classic vinyl records and interesting and inventive new stuff. When they talk music, they bond. When they make music together, it’s familial harmony.
And when their lives inevitably go their separate ways as she goes off to school and grows up, their music becomes this beautiful symbol of the last time it was just the two of them.
8. Soggy Bottom Boys - O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
In the Coen Brothers’ version of Homer’s The Odyssey, the song “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow” is but a side quest in this sprawling Southern tale. However, interestingly enough, that folk diddy has transcended the movie’s charm and has found its own success. Sure, it was plenty popular in the country world before the film, but the Soggy Bottom Boys version brought it to Hollywood. The folks behind the record won the Grammy for Best Album and the musicians appeared in their own concert film, Down from the Mountain.
Plus, I just get a giggle out of hearing another voice come out of George Clooney’s mouth. It reminds me of a certain documentary…
7. Ellen Aim and the Attackers - Streets of Fire (1984)
Walter Hill’s 1984 classic Streets of Fire (it’s no big deal that he had just ripped off Hard Times, The Driver, The Warriors, The Long Riders, Southern Comfort, and 48 Hours…) is described in the credits as “A Rock & Roll Fable.” It’s an anachronistic mashup of ‘50s music and ‘80s attitudes and has this real everywhere and nowhere feeling.
Diane Lane plays Ellen Aim and leads Ellen Aim and the Attackers. Their music both opens and closes the movie, previewing the insane speeds of Hill’s vision and curtain-calling another one of his masterpieces.
6. Shaffer Conservatory Studio Band - Whiplash (2014)
Since the Shaffer Conservatory is a fictional school, we can count Terence Fletcher’s Conservatory Studio Band as a fictional band. Unlike most other films on this list, they don’t play music written for the film. Instead, Damien Chazelle pulls a Damien Chazelle and just makes you listen to music that he likes for two hours. Luckily, he picked all the right classic jazz tunes for this one.
We reviewed this one for the site last year, and I think my sentiment still stands: “I feel like he's (Chazelle) become the worst version of himself, while Whiplash remains his best attempt at the themes he loves most: ambition, excess, and the price of greatness. A lot of that, however, is thanks to the brilliant Simmons in the very definition of a supporting performance.
5. Various - Phantom of the Paradise (1974)
If you’re going to do the Phantom of the Opera tale, you need to make damn sure that the Best Freakin’ Song Ever Written is actually good. I think Andrew Lloyd Webber gets the job done in the Broadway musical. In Brian De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise, Paul Williams (who also co-stars as an evil producer) does it four or five times over in a handful of mid-century pop-adjacent genres.
I watched this for the first time last Halloween and really dug it (according to Letterboxd, it was my 3,000th movie ever!) but it really came to life for me when I saw it a few months later at a repertory screening with a really excited crowd. If you get the chance to see this one on the big screen, don’t pass it up.
4. School of Rock - School of Rock (2003)
When Jack Black inspiredly teaches a group of pre-teens about the joys of rock and roll, his passion is infectious - and not just for students. This isn’t just his character talking, this is Jack Black through and through. He hears the world through kick-ass music and Richard Linklater’s film follows his lead.
The culminating song, “School of Rock” (I would’ve bet my life savings that this song was called “Teacher’s Pet” and apparently I’d be flat broke. I was truly shocked when preparing this piece..) is performed at another Battle of the Bands. It’s not just a great movie song, it’s a truly groovy and moody tune performed by a supremely talented group of student singers and musicians and led by the charmingly screechy Black.
3. Still Water - Almost Famous (2000)
The ‘70s rock group in Almost Famous, Still Water, is what the band in Stereophonic thinks it is and what Daisy Jones & the Six wants to be when it grows up.
And, believe it or not, I don’t even necessarily mean that as an insult to those projects. Still Water just has that secret sauce. When I saw the Broadway musical, I realized that the movie just had its own magic and simply couldn’t be duplicated, (it doesn’t help that the phrase “This is the coolest rock group of all time!” and “Music & Lyrics by Brian Kitt” is completely contradictory.) The best song in the show was “Fever Dog” - the best original song in the movie!
2. Hedwig and the Angry Inch - Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
Anybody who knows me and my taste might be surprised to see me put Hedwig and the Angry Inch in this list’s runner-up spot. To be honest, I've almost surprised myself. I think Hedwig is both a perfect musical and a perfect movie.
The ONLY reason I just can’t bring myself to give it the top spot (even though I know every word to every song intimately - and have blown out my voice on more than one occasion trying to keep up with Neil Patrick Harris on the Original Broadway Cast Recording) is that Hedwig wasn’t written for the screen. It was the beautiful piece of theatre that it is long before it was a movie.
But did I mention it’s perfect?
1. The Oneders - That Thing You Do! (1996)
The Oneders (pronounced Wonders, not oh-nee-ders - a running joke in the film) are a one-hit-wonder group (get it?). Fortunately, that tune, the title song, is perfect. In both full-length form and various snippets, it’s heard 11 times in the movie and I never get sick of it. In fact, I’ve been listening to each band as I write these blurbs and this one is taking me the longest because I can only focus on the great song and not my writing! I think I’m at five listens now…
That Thing You Do!, both the movie and the song, top this list because of one truly magical scene: when the band hears it on the radio for the first time, they literally jump for joy. They turn it all the way up, sing and dance along, run in circles, scream at the top of their lungs, hug and kiss. It’s beautiful watching a group of people be more excited than they’ve ever been about anything in their entire lives. They’re fictional people, but you just feel so proud of them. It’s one of my all-time favorite movie scenes.
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