While “Jesus Christ Superstar” doesn’t necessarily rival “It’s A Wonderful Life” or “White Christmas” in terms of popularity during the holiday season, the film’s subject matter make it entirely appropriate during some family down time. Continue reading
Ready your headphones along with your popcorn. Soundbytes compiles a list of the best musical moments in the history of the movies. Continue reading
With summer ending, the media’s 40th anniversary retrospectives on the Summer of Love have nearly run their course. Before it’s over, a new documentary — released on DVD — aims to reawaken the public’s consciousness to an ’60s psychedelic-rock talent whose often overlooked in these remembrances. Continue reading
Industrial-rock icons Nine Inch Nails might have reclaimed much of their original fire with their last album, but the group’s new DVD captures the mechanized experience of them live but with little feeling that human artistry is involved. Continue reading
A BBC documentary about ’60s country-rock icon Gram Parsons has finally made it to DVD, wallowing on the high points of a seminal cult artist while taking on some of the legends surrounding his story. Continue reading
“No Direction Home: Bob Dylan,” the new Martin Scorsese-directed documentary broadcast this week on PBS and available on a two-disc DVD set, is exhilarating to watch because it’s one of the great heroic stories in pop music history. Continue reading
The Flaming Lips’ career is a story of artistic endurance. A new DVD, “The Fearless Freaks,” follows the psychedelic band’s 20-year, zig-zaging ascent from oddballs of the early ’80s hardcore punk scene to MTV-knighted, one-hit wonders to one of underground rock’s premier groups. Continue reading
The new documentary about the making of Metallica’s latest album is a backstage pass to dysfunction. For two hours, fans and lay people alike can watch metal’s prevailing band wrestle with allusive creativity, substance abuse, epic ego clashes and talk about their tender-est feelings to unintentionally make one of the most entertaining music movies ever. Continue reading
A newly released BBC documentary, “Man In The Sand,” takes viewers on the journey that saw Billy Bragg and Wilco attempting to put music to incomplete works by folk-music icon Woody Guthrie. In the process, the musicians literally follow in Guthrie’s footsteps, visiting the places that he stopped in America’s heartland and giving an insider’s view of the recording process. Continue reading
A new “Classic Albums” documentary on Bob Marley’s major label debut, “Catch a Fire,” transports listeners back in time to see how an unknown Jamaican band -– with the help of Island Records guru Chris Blackwell –- designed a record to capture rock fans’ attention and brought reggae to a world audience. Continue reading
Soundbytes Music Column 