No, really, hear me out. We've made movies out of books, comics, TV shows and amusement park rides (Pirates of the Caribbean, anyone?), and as of lately, a new trend has popped up: making films out of video games. Which is great, don't get me wrong, but you know what's happened a couple of times but never really became a thing, the way making movies out of video games became a thing? Making movies out of concept albums. Oh, sure, it's been done. But it usually was borne out of a desire to create a franchise (think the Monkees TV show or, like, pretty much every single Beatles film ever made). I can only think of a few albums that were ever genuinely turned into a film for the sake of turning an album into a film. And some of them, like Quadrophenia, weren't even direct adaptations, more like dramas loosely based on the original music.
So these are the albums I'd most like to turn into a film if I could. Some of them are Greats. Some of them are...well, not. But they're all close to my heart and if I ever got the chance to make any of them into a movie, you bet I'd take it.
Avery's Top 5 Rock Music Films:
I saw this show performed last year at the Palace of Auburn Hills and...holy shit. I love artists like TSO because it's almost like they set themselves up for this kind of thing. Their albums are mostly rock operas, and The Christmas Attic is no exception. The album tells the story of a little girl who goes up into the attic and finds a box of letters that tell a love story with a sad ending. Now, this might sound entirely cliche, but if you've seen their live show, you know it's anything but. And if I were to make this album into a movie, I'd try to channel that same intensity (though given that it's a movie, maybe I'd dispense with the laser show) and I'd try to include as many members of TSO in cameo roles (or, heck, if they're up for it, major parts) as possible.
Rock Spectacle is the first live performance album from the Barenaked Ladies and it contains some of their finest songs: "When I Fall," "Straw Hat and Old Dirty Hank," "Brian Wilson," and of course the famous "If I Had $1,000,000." This was one of the defining albums of my childhood. When I was a kid my dad would put this on and we'd dance to it - sometimes there'd even be stretches where I made him play it every night. I always felt like there was a story to the music, even when I was little and could understand literally none of the lyrics. Well, now I'm older and (theoretically) wiser, and I feel it now more than ever. This is also probably the album with the most room for fun, because I swear if I made this into a movie, it would have the biggest ensemble cast ever - and, as an added bonus, this band loves to sneak little bits of humor into their music, even some of their less-upbeat songs, which leaves plenty of room for comedic interpretation.
3. Bat out of Hell (Meat Loaf)
There's been a movie (or TV special) or two about the making of this album, but I don't want to do a biopic or documentary. I want to do the story of Bat out of Hell. I want to take the stories that Jim Steinman told in his lyrics, and bring them to life. I mean LOOK AT THE COVER ART for heaven's sake and tell me that's not one of the most cinematic things you've ever seen. Imagine that on a movie theater screen. Of course it would be violent--with a title track about a motorcycle crash, how could it not be?--but the more "fun" songs, like "All Revved Up" and "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" would usher in the chance to show off Steinman's infamous sense of humor, and that would be the major hook for an audience.
It's not exactly a concept album in the vein of Bat out of Hell or Quadrophenia, but you can't deny there's a cohesive sound in Don't You Fake It. It's one of the most underrated albums of all time, and undoubtedly RJA's best. And if you listen to the lyrics, the songs really are mini-stories of their own. Watch Ronnie Winter's Half of Us interview and the inspiration for those stories becomes painfully clear. And that would be the storyline for the movie: the story of the formation of Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, with the real-life events behind each individual song getting a spotlight. And it probably wouldn't be as fun as some of the others (let's be honest though, none of the ones I've thrown out there so far would be straight comedy, except maybe the Rock Spectacle movie), given that it's based in real life as opposed to, say the theatricality of Bat out of Hell, but it's because it's so heavily based in reality that I feel like it's a story that really, really needs to be told.
WHY HAS NO ONE DONE THIS YET!?!? Springsteen once said that he could see every song on Born to Run taking place at the same time, over the course of the same summer night in different places. There's your film plot, right there. And of course "Jungleland," the operatic epic about the Magic Rat and his involvement in an unfortunate street war on Flamingo Lane (my God, Springsteen should've been a novelist), would be the entire third act. The whole thing would, of course, take place in 1970s New Jersey, a shout-out to Springsteen's hometown. The film practically writes itself. If only Clarence Clemons could be here to see it...
In the end, I know the odds of actually making any of these films are so impossibly low that it's almost laughable. But that's part of the fun of filmmaking: having an idea that's so out there it'll never happen...and knowing that someday, somehow, if you try, you just might have a chance.
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