This Chapter Goes to Eleven This Is Spinal Tap and the Blurring of Authenticity and Fabrication

This chapter explores the production of This is Spinal Tap (1984)-including the creators' interactions and immersions in parodied cultures, unorthodox approaches to production, and the actors' musical abilities-alongside the film's lasting impact on professional popular music and the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Routledge Companion to Popular Music and Humor pp. 281 - 289
Main Author Helb, Colin
Format Book Chapter
LanguageEnglish
Published Routledge 2019
Edition1
Subjects
Spinal Tap
High School Confidential
Christopher Guest
Young Man
UK Chart
Beach Blanket Bingo
Joe Satriani
Kwaito Artists
Bakhtin's Dialogic Theory
Milk Man
Pop Stars
Professional Popular Music
Country Music
Luigi Boccherini
MTV Video Music Award
Max Miller
Abdel Fattah Al Sisi
UK Garage
Aforementioned Tracks
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Summary:This chapter explores the production of This is Spinal Tap (1984)-including the creators' interactions and immersions in parodied cultures, unorthodox approaches to production, and the actors' musical abilities-alongside the film's lasting impact on professional popular music and the role of humor to present, as Christopher Guest stated in a 2004 Guardian article, characters who are "not very good or successful at what they do and yet take themselves enormously seriously." Additionally, the chapter will explore the continued collaboration between Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer in other musical-comedic collaborations as well as their continued relationship with their Spinal Tap personae, seemingly as a result of both mutual respect for one another as well as decades of legal battles regarding intellectual property.
ISBN:1138577561
9781138577565
DOI:10.4324/9781351266642-39