Tap of the pops

10 April 2012

When T.S. Eliot was once complimented fulsomely by an admirer of the German translation of The Waste Land, the poet replied drily, 'Yes, I suppose it loses something in the original.' Rob Reiner's spoof documentary, This Is Spinal Tap, is like that - you can't imagine the 'original' rock group, which of course never existed, could be as outrageously funny as Reiner's fictitious English group, Spinal Tap, who are touring America in order to promote their controversial album 'Smell The Glove'.

This so-called 'rockumentary' has, rightly, become a cult hit, remarkable for its unsparing dissection of the whole crazy business - and even more remarkable, perhaps, because it's Americans who are getting so right the story of a bunch of British musicians at large (and adrift) in the wasteland of the US music biz. Accents, period slang, even the rock parodies - cheered to the echo by insanely appreciative fans at their gigs - all have the ghastly ring of truth. Fake archive footage even replicates the look and sounds of British TV shows in the Sixties, such as Pop, Look And Listen. The mishaps, muddles and marathon squabbles that erupt on the tour - including a catastrophic decision by the record company to pull the sexist cover of the new album and substitute a plain black one - are exact in everything but the ultimate real-life obscenities. Every catastrophe is plausible: from the Army radio messages that seep into the sound system from the military base next door to the gig, to the use of astrology to plan the route of the tour. Rob Reiner himself puts in a cameo appearance as a film-maker named Marty DiBergi, complete with a Francis Ford Coppola beard and a manner ('Hi, I'm a film-maker') that recalls the in-your-face enthusiasm of Martin Scorsese.

Since its opening in London in 1984, This Is Spinal Tap has become a model for a half-dozen later rockumentaries. But none has surpassed the culture-clash comedy of the original. There's a gag in the film about rock musicians being 'in the Where Are They Now? file'. This reissue, which has a preview at the NFT and then goes on general release from Fri 13 Oct, shows that 'they' are still in circulation, so to speak. At its first showing, the distributors circulated lyric sheets among us film critics to make up for the fact that the awfulness of the words is rendered all but inaudible by the vocal hysteria of the group. Intelligibility was felt, if I remember accurately, to be piling on the agony.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in