The past few years have given us some incredible behind-the-scenes looks into the lives of history-making musicians. From the world seeing Ray Charles’ humble beginning in Ray to watching Johnny Cash’s struggle in Walk the Line, musical biopics give audiences a unique cinematic experience. They show the world how these beloved artists grew up or rose to fame or met their downfalls.
With two incredible musical biopics/documentaries recently hitting the silver screen, Amy (about Amy Winehouse’s brief but powerful life) and Love & Mercy (following the early and then later years of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys), we decided to take a look at some musicians who really should have biopics of their own.
Take a look at Ryan and Brenna’s dream biopics. Directors, take note and help us out!
[tps_title]Ryan’s Dream Biopics[/tps_title]
1. The Fall
2. David Bowie
3. Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen
4. The KLF
5. The Plastic People of the Universe
Flip through to find out why!
[tps_title]The Fall[/tps_title]
A movie about this long-lived post-punk band would certainly involve a lot of casting, as there’ve been over forty members, aside from sole constant member and leader Mark E. Smith. And perhaps that’s the angle a movie on the mighty Fall could take for a frame story. In 2008, journalist Dave Simpson wrote a book called The Fallen, in which he recounted his attempt to track down every former member of the group for a Guardian article. From there, perhaps a movie could go through all the unbelievable twists and turns the band has taken.
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m2lfk4Bm34]
[tps_title]David Bowie [/tps_title]
Bowie has such a long and varied career that it’s been begging for a movie for decades. The question lingers, though–you can’t do it all in one movie, so it has to be a specific era. There are four in particular that could each make a good film–or perhaps a non-linear story like Todd Haynes’ “I’m Not There” was for Dylan: his mid 60’s struggle to become famous by any means pre-“Space Oddity,” the height of Ziggy Stardust mania, his Berlin period, and (in a surprise choice from my part) his work with the band Tin Machine in the early 90s, which isn’t considered to be a particularly shiny part of his career.
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B5zmDz4vR4]
[tps_title]Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen [/tps_title]
Who? Well, they were a one-hit wonder in the early 70s for an decent-ish cover of Charlie Ryan’s “Hot Rod Lincoln,” but that’s not why they’re here. One of the greatest books ever written on the music industry is Geoffrey Stokes’ scathing 1976 work Star Making Machinery, which told the story of how the suits at their label tried to force them to turn their sound into something more middle-of-the-road, and their refusal to do so basically tanked their career. The book has been out of print for years and is screaming for a film adaptation.
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5ZycJC-pmo]
[tps_title]The KLF[/tps_title]
The true story of acid house masters Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty is so bizarre and outrageous that perhaps it’s too unbelievable to be a real movie. Here’s a band that once burned all the copies of their debut album in a Swedish field, wrote a book on how to simple it is to have a number one single, burned £1 million in actual money in yet another field, performed a version of one of their songs with grindcore band Extreme Noise Terror at a British award show where Drummond fired blanks from a machine gun, dropped off a dead sheep at the after party of said award show, and, perhaps most brazenly, retired from the music business at their artistic peak and the height of their fame and deleted all of their albums from sale. And to top it all off, they put out some incredible music and influenced much of what was to come in European electronic music through the next twenty years. Now that EDM is at its peak, now’s a good time as any to make a film out of its most unusual stars.
[tps_title]The Plastic People of the Universe[/tps_title]
Perhaps the most astonishing story in all of rock music, and it’s unfortunate that it’s not as well known as it should be. In 1976, the members of this Czechoslovakian psychedelic band were arrested by the communist government and convicted on the trumped up charge of “disturbance of the peace,” with some of the members serving sentences of up to sixteen months in prison for playing rock & roll music. In response to these arrests, the famed playwright Vaclav Havel co-wrote the Charter 77 criticizing the government’s human rights record. It’s considered to be one of the major cornerstones of the Velvet Revolution, which ultimately toppled the Communist government and eventually installed Havel as the then-Czechoslovakia’s first democratically elected leader. Because of this, the Plastics are one of the very few rock & roll groups that will probably be mentioned in world history books outside of popular culture sidebars. Even aside from that, the group’s perseverance and resistance to the regime is one of the most inspiring in all of music. The band was included in Tom Stoppard’s 2006 play Rock ‘n’ Roll, but they were not the main focus of that work. A film about the Plastic People of the Universe is the music film I’d personally most like to see made.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYLKwvGkRy0]
[tps_title]Brenna’s Dream Biopics[/tps_title]
1. Justin Vernon
2. Liam and Noel Gallagher
3. Christopher Owens
4. 50 Cent
5. LeAnn Rimes
Flip through to find out why!
[tps_title]Justin Vernon[/tps_title]
While Vernon would never go for it, the eclectic, crazy-haired musician has a biopic-worthy talent and life. Bon Iver is the alter-ego and the brainchild of Justin Vernon. He is a member of the bands Volcano Choir, The Shouting Matches, and Gayngs. He was also named “one of the baddest white boys on the planet” by Kanye West, which sort of makes you biopic worthy in general.
Vernon not only has an incredible knack for writing beautiful and heartbreaking songs, but he’s a pretty interesting guy. One of the most interesting parts of Vernon’s life to depict in a biopic might be when he pulled a Thoreau when the bad news started piling up. Prior to 2008, his band of the time was splitting up, Vernon and his girlfriend had called it quits, and he was bed-ridden sick with mononucleosis and having trouble with his liver. He was lost, confused, broke, and contemplating quitting music.
So he resorted to his father’s cabin in the woods of Medford, Wisconsin for three months. Alone.
During his hibernation and solitude, For Emma, Forever Ago, Bon Iver’s debut album, was created. Most of the tracks were recorded by Vernon alone in this cabin.
I don’t know about you, but I think it would be fascinating to watch a cinematic interpretation of Vernon’s time in his cabin and see what went behind the creation of Bon Iver’s hauntingly beautiful debut album. It could have an “Into the Wild” feel with a music element. I can’t see Vernon really being down for biopic about his months spent in solitude, being the sort of private guy with the tendency to disappear that he is, but I definitely think it would be worth watching.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62i9Sodwp5o]
[tps_title]Liam and Noel Gallagher [/tps_title]
Everyone and their mother has talked about an Oasis biopic for years. Both brothers have talked about the possibility or desire for a biopic on their band, so come on boys, we want to see it.
It would be a pain to make for sure, considering Noel would most likely have a lot of opinions and problems with something every step of the way and Liam would probably ask for the movie to be called off more than once, but it would be entertaining and important to watch.
The famous brothers have had just about as much drama as the Kardashians. (The Gallaghers would hate me for comparing them to the Kardashians.) Over Oasis’s eighteen active years, the brothers quit the band, refused to go on tour, walked off stage during shows, got too drunk to perform–and the list goes on and on. The brothers hated each other and then loved each other and then just had no opinion of each other at all. Regardless of all this, the brothers’ influence on the British music scene and music in general is undeniable. They hold several music records in England, and they’ve influenced several of modern music’s biggest acts such as the Artic Monkeys, Elliott Smith, Coldplay, and the Strokes. Oasis took the world by storm, and a biopic of these talented brothers rise to fall is long overdue.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJKpUH2kJQg]
[tps_title]Christopher Owens [/tps_title]
If you don’t know who Christopher Owens is, you should. A biopic might help the world learn about his fascinating upbringing and his under-appreciated indie-rock band, Girls.
Christopher Owens’ parents were both members of the Children of God cult. At age sixteen, he raised enough money by playing guitar on the street to escape to Texas where his sister lived. He got a job stocking shelves at a store–and here is where the story gets even better.
Owens befriended a group of kids who regularly stole from the store, quit his job, joined a band, and became a self-proclaimed punk. He said he would only eat out of the garbage, he was in and out of jail, and he was always protesting the war because he was “against the world” at the time. Then, with the help of a mutual friend, Owens befriended much-older Stanely Marsh III. Marsh was a billionaire, artist, and businessman who hired Owens to work as his personal assistant. Owens later moved to San Francisco, started using a lot of drugs, and joined several bands before eventually forming Girls.
Talk about a story that you can’t even make up. That’s a story worth telling right there.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVaoCTFgMww]
[tps_title]50 Cent[/tps_title]
![utrr]](https://www.theyoungfolks.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/utrr.jpeg)
50 Cent lived the life most rappers only rap about.
At just eight years old, his mother was murdered, his father left shortly after, and he was put in the care of his grandmother. Once reaching his teenage years, he followed in his mother’s footsteps and began selling drugs. After spending most of the year 1994 getting in and out of trouble with the law, he got into hip hop.
Bad luck seemed to follow Curtis James Jackson II. In 2000, even after leaving the drug game, he was struck by nine bullets in a shooting and lived to tell the tale.
Overcoming his rough and dangerous start, 50 Cent became one of the best selling rap artist of all time. He has a Grammy, thirteen Billboard Music awards, and four BET Awards to his name.
His story is an inspiring one about giving your life a complete 180 and using your past to make yourself successful in the future. I want to see it on the big screen.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3rdQnZ_mV8]
[tps_title]LeAnn Rimes[/tps_title]
LeAnn Rimes accomplished more by sixteen years old then I might accomplish in my whole life. She has ten studio albums and two greatest hit albums and she’s only thirty-two. Oh, and she is the youngest individual Grammy winner ever.
In 1996, Rimes broke into the country music scene with her release Blue at age thirteen. Her debut album, Blue, reached number one and was certified multiplatinum. It sold 123,000 copies, which at the time was a record. Her voice blew people away and appealed to people in the country world and pop world alike.
Besides just making it at a young age and having a ridiculously mature voice, she’s had her fair share of other “biopic-worthy” elements of her life. In 2000, Rimes sued her father and ex-manager for taking an alleged seven million dollars from her fortune. A few months later, she filed a lawsuit again her label because she wanted out of her contract and wanted the rights to all of her music.
LeAnn Rimes grew up in the public eye, from a dewy-eyed preteen to a powerhouse, superstar, TV personality with a story made for the movies.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GozdIQx1Wow]
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