Movies: Music history

Ye Xiang Lun, a talented piano player is a new student at the prestigious Tamkang School. On his first day, he meets Lu Xiao Yu, a pretty girl playing a mysterious piece of music....

This documentary chronicles the rise, fall, and rise again of the soft rock epitomized by artists such as Christopher Cross, Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Steely Dan, and Toto in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Retroactively dubbed "Yacht Rock," t...

Chronicles the rise and fall of legendary blues singer Billie Holiday. Her late childhood, stint as a prostitute, early tours, marriages and drug addiction are featured....

In this short subject (which mostly represents a departure from Disney's traditional approach to animation), a stuffy owl teacher lectures his feathered flock on the origins of Western musical instruments. Starting with cavepeople, whose crude implem...

Think of early electronic music and you’ll likely see men pushing buttons, knobs, and boundaries. While electronic music is often perceived as a boys' club, the truth is that from the very beginning women have been integral in inventing the devices, ...

The Compleat Al (a title parody/homage of the 1982 documentary ‘The Compleat Beatles’) is a mockumentary about the life of "Weird Al" Yankovic, the Grammy® award-winning master of musical parody and rock-and-roll comedy, from his birth to 1985. Altho...

This made-for-TV documentary introduces the layperson to concepts and technologies that were emerging in computer interface design in the late 1980s and early 1990s: hypertext, multimedia, virtual assistants, interactive video, 3D animation, and virt...

A documentary that explores the challenges that a life in music can bring....

A Documentary film exploring the history and evolution of vinyl records. Featuring Interviews with the experts, musicians and fans alike, 'Stuck in the groove' takes you on a journey of vinyl-mania, music and nostalgia....

An owl teaches his class full of birds about melody. It's all around in nature. Only birds and man can sing; man "sings" even when he speaks. We see a quick survey of the stages of life, as captured by songs: the alphabet song for primary school, Her...

In the feature documentary, Summer 82 - When Zappa Came to Sicily, filmmaker and Zappa fan Salvo Cuccia tells the behind-the-scenes story of Frank Zappa's star-crossed concert in Palermo, Sicily, the wrap-up to a European tour that ended in public di...

Two brothers reflect on their chaotic journey to stardom, as part of the legendary punk rock bands The Rezillos & The Revillos. Navigating friendships, fame, and fallouts....

It’s the hit musical that changed Broadway forever and brought the genius of Lin Manuel Miranda to the attention of legions of fans across the world. A story of how a group of mavericks made an unlikely marriage of hip-hop and history to create the b...

Class Acts is a feature-length documentary tracing the genesis of Singapore's creative scene in the '90s through intimate conversations with its pioneering personalities. These are the stories of individuals who started creating with nothing, who pu...

"What would the world be like without Beethoven?" That’s the provocative question posed by this music documentary from Deutsche Welle. To answer it, the film explores how Ludwig van Beethoven's innovations continue to have an impact far beyond the bo...

A journey through the artistic life of the British-American rock band The Pretenders, formed in 1978, and a portrait of its leader, the charismatic singer and songwriter Chrissie Hynde....

The history of New York City's Apollo Theater in Harlem is given the full treatment....

Equal parts punk and psychedelia, the Flaming Lips emerged from Oklahoma City as one of the most bracing bands of the late 1980s. The Fearless Freaks documents their rise from Butthole Surfers-imitating noisemakers to grand poobahs of orchestral pop ...

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Documentary about the life and career of Elvis Presley produced for Sky Arts. Includes rarely seen clips and photos from throughout Elvis' career as well as comments from music historians and musicians, songwriters, producers, actors, etc. who worked...