Music and movies are like peanut butter and jelly, they just go together (and are quite filling, wouldn’t you say?) I got thinking recently about fake bands in movies and how they have the ability to elevate a film from mediocre to outstanding. So of course I had to make a list of my favorites.
RULES:
-Must be from movies (no TV themes or appearances, sorry Zack Attack)
-No traditional musicals (sorry Hedwig)
-No real bands portraying themselves (sorry Oingo Boingo and Tenacious D)
-Must have original music written for them (sorry Lone Rangers)
Pretty straightforward, right? Let’s get started!
14) Sex Bob-omb (Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World)
Michael Cera stars as himself again and is remarkably surrounded by good-looking people and multiple love interests. While there are other bands in Scott Pilgrim, I think the pivotal one really is his own Sex Bob-omb, a mixture of The Strokes and every garage band you watched in high school. But with way more expensive guitars.
13) Infant Sorrow (Forgetting Sarah Marshall)
Russel Brand’s portrayal of ex-drunk free-love rocker Aldous Snow in Forgetting Sarah Marshall (and subsequently Get Him to the Greek) could easily have barreled into ‘obnoxious’ territory, and while Snow and his music is incredibly over-the-top, it seems to me that Brand just toes the line between being funny and being insufferable.
12) Big Fun (Heathers)
Anti-suicide PSA’s are rarely this infectious. But I mean, who didn’t accidentally pour bleach down the popular girl’s throat and make it look like a suicide in high school? It wasn’t your fault though – Christian Slater’s drugged-out stare would scramble any teen’s developing gray matter.
11) Stillwater (Almost Famous)
No list of fake bands is complete without the fictional Allman Brothers/Skynyrd pastiche of Stillwater in Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical Almost Famous. Beyond having the most perfect handlebar mustaches seen since 1979, the band had music written for them by Crowe’s then-wife Nancy Wilson. You might remember her from a little band called HEART, but if you don’t, I might go Crazy on You.
10) Josie and the Pussycats (Josie and the Pussycats)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwoZi_NFQhA
Did you expect me to gloss over Rachael Leigh Cook’s best cinematic performance? Come on now. Add in Rosario Dawson and pre-botched plastic surgery Tara Reid, terrible fake instrument playing, villainess Parker Posey and her sniveling assistant Alan Cumming, and the most 90s female singer ever (Kay Hanley of Letters to Cleo), and you have this fantastically entertaining piece of crap. And to answer your question, no, I don’t know all the words to all of the songs on the soundtrack, why would you ask such a thing?
9) Steel Dragon (Rock Star)
Marky Mark living the dream as the lead singer of a heavy metal cover band, only to be skyrocketed to stardom by joining the actual heavy metal band he used to cover. How many singers in cover bands had their hopes raised and ruthlessly dashed by the hands of fate after watching Rock Star? Incalculable.
8) Lovebürger (Can’t Hardly Wait)
Breckin Meyer and Donald Faison argue about cowboy hats, frilly costumes and band shirts, and ALMOST get to play a song. I may be bending my rules a bit to shoehorn these guys in, but you gotta admit that stick count is sick and gets stuck in your head for days.
7) DuJour (Josie and the Pussycats)
Did you seriously think I wouldn’t leave a slot open for the most enduring fake boy band in cinema history? Sub-question: aren’t all boy bands fake? Breckin and Donald buried the hatchet after Lovebürger’s breakup, forming DuJour with Kenny Fisher, and the results are catchy as hell. I’m telling you, these guys are on fire.
6) Vicious Lips (Vicious Lips)
Ah, Vicious Lips. A great concept diminished by poor execution in the third (and kind of second) act. But if nothing else, it yields this fun little slab of Dayglo insanity, plus 3 other tunes that will make anyone reach for the leg warmers, Aquanet and maybe a bag of space grass.
5) Low Shoulder (Jennifer’s Body)
One of the best parts of movies featuring (but not focusing entirely on) fake bands is when their song keeps showing up to bother the main character. It doesn’t hurt when the song is fantastic, either… This one was written by a band called No Country, who also portrayed part of the band in the movie. I wouldn’t be surprised if they really were Satanists, this song is so good.
4) Lustra/Unnamed party band (Euro Trip)
Here’s another song that is presented in the first act and pops up regularly throughout the rest of the movie. “Scotty Doesn’t Know” was written for Euro Trip by an Aussie band called Lustra, fronted by neck-tattooed Matt Damon in the movie, becoming the unofficial anthem of the trip. Can you blame Scotty’s friends, though? This song is still awesome after over a decade of having it sung to me at parties.
3) Brian Slade (Velvet Goldmine)
While I would have preferred to feature Curt Wild instead of Brian Slade in this list, all of his songs are covers, and Brian had original material written for him. If you like glam rock and, in some strange universe, never watched Velvet Goldmine, go do it now. It’s a perfect time capsule back to the 90s obsession with the 60s.
2) Spinal Tap (This is Spinal Tap)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-9cFQJCCKE
The greatest and loudest fake metal band ever! It would be criminal as well as idiotic to not toss them up near the top of any list of this type. Volumes have been written about Spinal Tap, so I will let the music speak for itself, but be prepared for ROCK N ROLL.
1) The Wonders (That Thing You Do!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baWSsZRoj-M
While it’s difficult to pick a favorite fake band, I must hand the top slot over to The Wonders (pronounced Oh-need-ers, of course) due to the sheer perfection of the title track. I think that’s the big gamble you take when building a film around a fake band with a fake hit song – if the song is lackluster, no amount of cinematography or Oscar-worthy acting can save your premise. Luckily, Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne) knocked it out of the park here, but what would you expect from the guy who helped write the music for Cry-Baby?
EDIT: It has come to my attention that I missed 2 very important fake bands that require mentioning here:
Matt Noonan (Dead Man on Campus)
https://youtu.be/_j9BbR6bI_I?t=1m31s
And Rex Manning (Empire Records)
What do you think? Did I miss anybody worth singing about?