We’re all in this together—and we’re also all cooped up at home right now. Try as we might to keep things as normal as possible, it’s tough to not find yourself plopped in front of a TV, phone or computer screen. And with that in mind, we figured we’d share some of our favorite music flicks and where you can watch them from the comfort of your own home.
Hulu
High Fidelity
Taking the baton
from John Cusack, Zoë Kravitz assumes the role of
record-store-owner Rob from Nick Hornby’s highly regarded 1995 novel, High
Fidelity, now updated as a new series set in Crown Heights, Brooklyn,
which just so happens to include an appearance by everyone’s favorite East Williamsburg music venue, Brooklyn Steel.
Shut Up and Play
the Hits
This documentary covers the lead-up to what was originally billed as LCD Soundsystem’s final performance (nine years ago this Thursday at Madison Square Garden) through the day after. The show includes appearances by Arcade Fire and Reggie Watts, and if you look closely enough, you’ll see Aziz Ansari,Donald Glover and Spike Jonze in attendance.
STREAM Shut Up and Play the Hits
Netflix
Echo in the Canyon
Bob Dylan plugging in reverberated across the world of music, allowing folk musicians
everywhere to go electric, perhaps nowhere more so than the Laurel Canyon
neighborhood of Los Angeles, which in the late-’60s and early-’70s became a hotbed
of counterculture, creativity and changing music, like the birth of the
singer-songwriter movement—with acts like Crosby, Stills & Nash,
Joni Mitchell, Buffalo Springfield, Jackson Browne, the Mamas and the Papas, Linda
Ronstadt and the Byrds coming to define the California sound. Hosted
by Jakob Dylan, Echo in the Canyon explores the Laurel
Canyon scene via never-before-heard personal details behind the bands and their
songs and how that music continues to inspire today.
Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé
Beyoncé’s famed, groundbreaking 2018 Coachella shows set a new standard for what a festival performance can be. And the documentary behind it provides an intimate, in-depth look at the concert and its emotional road from creative concept to cultural movement.
STREAM Homecoming:
A Film by Beyoncé
Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool
Get to know legendary jazz trumpeter, composer, innovator and bandleader Miles Davis through this music doc featuring never-before-seen footage, studio outtakes from his recording sessions, rare photos and new interviews.
STREAM Miles
Davis: Birth of the Cool
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese
Employing fictional
and nonfictional material—you’ll have to decide which is which—Martin Scorsese’s
most recent documentary uses new interviews and previously unseen concert footage to tell the tale of the 1975-76 tour for
Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, which included the likes of Joan
Baez, Mick Ronson, Roger McGuinn, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and many more.
STREAM Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese
Taylor Swift: Miss Americana
Miss Americana delves into Taylor Swift’s whole life and career—and covers the making of her two most recent albums—through a series of interviews, flashbacks, studio footage, home videos and concert recordings.
STREAM Taylor Swift: Miss Americana
Prime Video
24 Hour Party People
This dramedy biopic, starring Steve Coogan,
covers the music scene in Manchester, England, from its late-’70s punk heyday
through the city’s excessive Madchester rave culture a decade and a half later.
Festival
Express
Back in the summer of 1970, a group of musicians led by Janis Joplin, the Band and the Grateful Dead made their way across Canada by rail, from Toronto to Winnipeg and then on to Calgary. And while the performances in each city were impressive and noteworthy, this movie shines in highlighting the onboard drunken jam sessions between provinces, like Rick Danko, Joplin, Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir covering Lead Belly’s “Ain’t No More Cane.”
Gimme Shelter
Ostensibly, this
tells the tale of the Rolling Stones’ fall 1969 American tour, which culminated
in December with the Altamont Speedway Free Festival, alongside Santana,
Jefferson Airplane, the Flying Burrito Brothers and Crosby,
Stills, Nash & Young. The Grateful Dead were also scheduled to
play but bowed out due to escalating violence capped off by the Hells Angels’
murder of a concertgoer caught on camera. For many, Gimme Shelter has
become synonymous with the end of the ’60s.
The Last Waltz
Perhaps the
greatest concert film ever, this Martin Scorsese–directed doc captures the
Band’s legendary star-studded farewell performance—with appearances by some of the very biggest names in the music world, including the likes of
Bob Dylan, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton and many, many more—on Thanksgiving 1976 at the
Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. (The festive night also included a full turkey dinner for the 5,000 in attendance.)
Sound City
Produced and directed by Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, this documentary tell the story of some of the iconic albums recorded at the famed Sound City Studios in the San Fernando Valley, including Grohl’s previous band’s ground-shaking second long-player, Nevermind.
Stop Making Sense
Before going on to
direct documentaries for Robyn Hitchcock, Neil Young and Justin
Timberlake, Jonathan Demme captured Talking Heads at the
height of the band’s prowess, closing out the 1983 tour in support of their
stellar fifth studio album, Speaking in Tongues (stream it here), big suit and all.
YouTube
Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert
While we haven’t
yet seen Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert—which opens up the
vault for the first time to present the performances and behind-the-scenes
stories that have shaped the iconic California music festival—the trailer
for this YouTube collab has us counting down the days until the flick’s 4/10
release.
STREAM Coachella:
20 Years in the Desert beginning on 4/10
Vulfpeck Live at Madison Square Garden
This funk-filled party with a heavy dose of Vulfpeck’s friends and family happened just six months ago on the big stage at the World’s Most Famous Arena, but we already find ourselves reliving it in all its glory again and again.
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