There are many movies which need to invent fake bands for the sake of the story, and if many of them actually don’t need to be even noticed, others are pretty credible.
The release of ‘Scott Pilgrim versus the world’ with the two fake bands Sex Bob-Omb!, whose songs are written by Beck, and Crash and the Boys, whose songs were written by Broken Social Scene, made me do this list of some more or less credible fake bands in movies:
1. Vesuvius and A.D.D. in ‘The Rocker’: Two bands in competition, the hard rocking glam metal band Vesuvius, a mix between Van Halen and Kiss whose mean-spirited members have adopted a fake English accent to look cool, and the teen pop-rock A.D.D. whose songs were actually pretty good.
2. Stillwater in ‘Almost famous’: A band that has borrowed not only the music from several 70’s bands from Led Zeppelin to The Allman Brothers, but the ups and downs of the rock star life style; groupies, drugs and rock’n’roll.
3. Steel Dragon in ‘Rock Star’: The singer of a Judas Priest tribute band who was chosen to replace the real singer. It’s hardly a fictional band since the film was inspired by a real-life story. One word: long hair.
4. Spinal Tap in ‘This is Spinal Tap’: Heavy metal and a funny parody of everything about it. Again fake English accents, long hair and the world’s loudest band.
5. The Folksmen in ‘A mighty Wind’: Another mockumentary with the same actors transposed this time in the folk scene. Very funny and a song of the movie was even nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song!!
6. Sonic Death Monkey in ‘High Fidelity’: Jack Black’s band changing its name to Barry Jive and the Uptown Five at the last minute to perform a rendition of Marvin Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get It On’, but being on the verge of changing again to Kathleen Turner Overdrive.
7. No Vacancy in ’School of Rock’: an all-kid band whose front man (Jack Black again) was a fake substitute teacher and rock’n’roll star wannabee
8. The Wonders in ‘That Thing you do’: one hit-wonder American band trying to beat the British invasion and raising to the top with a catchy song before falling down soon after.
9. Pop! in ‘Music and Lyrics’: a Wham!-like band, but I have never seen this movie and I have a hard time to buy Hugh Grant as a rock star.
10. The Blues Brothers in ‘The Blues Brothers’: Is it still a fake band after all? Belushi and Akroyd were on a mission from God and embodied the soul and the blues with the help of an all-star cast.