Review of Sound City (2013) by Russell G — 03 Sep 2015

Dave Grohl must have learned a great deal from James Moll during the making of the documentary Foo Fighters: Back and Forth. This time Grohl not only tells the story, but steps behind the camera as the director.

Grohl shows skill and makes a seemingly insignificant story interesting. The film tells the tragic, yet glorious tale of the Sound City Studios in Los Angeles. Against the odds, a seemingly a rundown sound studio in a former manufacturing facility produced several classic rock n roll albums.

Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Neil Young, Rick Springfield, and Slipknot recorded watershed albums there. The film walks through the formation and history of the studio and explains a great deal about the process of making a recorded.

It also comments on how different the process is today, not necessarily for the better. It is almost a perfect documentary, but the end drifts into the making a reunion album involving collaborations of various artists who recorded at Sound City.

The resulting music from that album is nice, but watching the making of the reunion album is less interesting. It is still a very well made documentary with tons of great interviews. Any fan of rock music from the 70s-90s will love it.