At Cone HQ we’ve brought together an amalgamation of personal interests, recommendations and highly regarded bodies of work to present to you here | Cone Magazines list of the 25 best music documentaries ever made.
Creating a list as ambitious as this one has proven to be a real head scratcher of a challenge. In the filtering process we had to discard some absolutely fantastic titles which should get a mention, including: Elton John – Tantrums and Tiaras, All Jungalists: A London Something Dis, Some Kind Of Monster, 1991; The Year Punk Broke, A short film about chilling, and Nick Broomfields Biggie & Tupac.
With that formality out of the way we can now delve into a treasure chest of educational gold that spans titles from as early as 1967, up to the present. These choices are ofcourse completely subjective, yet our choices have been made based on four factors: Relevance, Journalistic rigour, Critic reviews and Production Quality. Whilst some titles rate very highly with critics, they may lack a level of journalistic integrity that others perhaps surpass in. And titles such as Sun Ra – A Joyful Noise, may not rate as highly as a title like The Devil and Daniel Johnston, yet the influence that Sun Ra had on Jazz, alongside his bewildering biography makes that title one of greater importance – In our opinion.
And whilst this list has been ordered numerically – offering you a guided tour to one of the all time greatest music documentaries ever made, their order can be subject to debate. As such, viewers must accept for us to agree to disagree, and instead enjoy this valuable archive that you can refer back to whenever you like. Enjoy /\
25. Scratch
24. Beats, Rhymes & Life
23. Beware of Mr. Baker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwygA3BBUvs
22. 20,000 Days on Earth
21. What Happened Miss Simone
20. Still Bill, The Bill Withers Story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0thRH4qucU