Rock music is in need of new hosts. A spate of recent films betray an anxiety about this.
Two moments are irresistible to rock biopics: the birth of a good song, and its activation in front of an audience. The scene where the initial idea strikes the songwriter, usually while tapping idly at the piano, is a virtual requirement in the genre. Malek-as-Mercury hits on the “Bohemian Rhapsody” theme while pecking at the keys lying upside down. In the truly lovely Love and Mercy, in which a mumblecore romcom slowly swallows a rock-and-roll trauma plot, Paul-Dano-as-young-Brian-Wilson pulls “God Only Knows” out of the æther in much the same way. He then plays it for his overbearing father and onetime manager, who more or less tells him it sucks.
We heard hoarse yellers, loud belters, even soft mumblers.
There were times when the drama in the lives of certain streamers conquered our interest in the show. One curator, after skipping from feed to feed, found a streamer who would go on to broadcast heroically for nearly the remainder of the night, and we stuck with her, too. She had brought her young child. At one point, the child asked: “Why are you crying?” “Because I’m having the best time with you.”
