Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza

I'm a late Gen-xer, junior high in the early 90's, but damn did that music move me! Nine Inch Nails, TOOL, Rage, Ice Cube, the entire Grunge era!! My god, how lucky I feel to have been a teen at that time... Fast forward to today, I'm not sure what this says about society or young folks now, but when the documentary starts to show the Lollapalooza lineups of recent years, I can't help but wonder if we had it rough, or do they have it too easy now? Because the stark difference in not only genres from today and 30 years ago, but the messages that are conveyed in the music have flipped 180. Before it was, well, literally rage against the machine. Now it's love songs(Miley Cyrus), shake your ass songs(Sza, Ice Spice) or straight up pop music/top 40 (Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish)... I'm not meaning to judge better or worse, I'm wondering why this type of music resonates with young people now? Has life become too easy? To me, it seems like young people should be MORE angry than we were, yet their art doesn't seem to reflect that.

Also, there's seems to have been a shift in political alignment and musical taste. The younger folks I've met who are into more heavy, rock, Rage-type music now seem to lean more conservative, whereas the "activist" type, with liberal leaning seem to enjoy more of the pop, light, "fun" styles of music. 30 years ago, we were liberal but angry as f@*k. Hmm just my observation, especially watching the last episode of this mini-doc series. It really made me take notice, the stark difference.

Also, whatever. Music is awesome, and wholly subjective, so whatever gets you going is great music to you.

But, TOOL, NIN, Nirvana, Cypress Hill, Ice Cube forever, man! God I'm getting old.

The saddest thing in the world is when something that actually stands for something and is trying to go against the mainstream, eventually gives in(Sells out) and tries to pretend its still about the same things it started with. How can you have T Mobile sponsor your show and not be a sell out? But this review is not trying to say the doc was bad since it was well done, but it really exposed the whole idea of Lolla and I don't think the people in the doc even realize that. As another review said, if you're headlining your show with musicians who wont grammys you're going in the wrong direction. Lady Gaga, Miles Cyrus? Seriously? Those two aren't "alternative" they are pop music in a nutshell. They should have just stopped after the first 7 years if they were sincere about their intent but money corrupts everything and everyone, including Perry Farrell.

In the first episode they talk about this festival being a champion for all the youth and all these various very important causes. Including fighting back against censorship and ripping down the walls of racism. Then during the final performance Paramount decides self censor and they go ahead and censor Perry Pherell's "Don't Call Me" performance with Ice-T. Way to undercut the message you were building up for forty five minutes. So just to be clear.... censorship is bad up to the point until it could cost the corperation some money, then it's ok. Is that the message I was supposed to take away from this? Make it make sense please.

I stopped watching this after Flea, and Matt said that Jane's Addiction were game changers! Iggy Pop and the Pixies did it first and better. Jane's Addiction is a ok band that started a concert that celebrated bands with way more talent than they had. Perry Farrell does not deserve the celebrity he has received. I would love to watch a documentary about lollapalooza but not if it means suffering through a fool acting like he had any real substance to add to the music seen! We won't make great pets and he won't make great music! I do appreciate that this was a huge festival, but we need to understand that big doesn't equal quality. There is something to be said for a concert with an opener and a headliner. Keep it simple stupid!

Where's the sound? Watching on Paramount Plus and the commercials are nice and loud but this documentary itself is extremely quiet. I have the sound on 100 and I can barely hear it. Horrible production.

ABOUT MY REVIEWS:

I do not include a synopsis of the film/show -- you can get that anywhere and that does not constitute a meaningful review -- but rather my thoughts and feelings on the film that hopefully will be informative to you in deciding whether to invest 90-180 minutes of your life on it.

My scale: 1-5 decreasing degrees of "terrible", with 5 being "mediocre" 6- OK. Generally held my interest OR had reasonable cast and/or cinematography, might watch it again 7 - Good. My default rating for a movie I liked enough to watch again, but didn't rise to the upper echelons 8- Very good. Would watch again and recommend to others 9- Outstanding. Would watch over and over; top 10% of my ratings 10 - A classic. (Less than 2% receive this rating). For Lifetime Movies for Chicks (LMFC), drop the above scale by 3 notches. A 6 is excellent and 7 almost unattainable.