truehubbins

"Won't Anybody Listen" is a must see for any aspiring artist or any artist for that matter. This film captures seven years in the life of the little known Orange County, CA rock band named,"NC-17". The result is as painful a documentary as I've encountered. Like "Hoop Dreams" before it, "Won't" is a compelling tale documenting the passionate hard work of talented individuals struggling for acknowledgment. Unlike a doctor, lawyer, or carpenter, a musician has no entitlement to make a living at their profession. All talent aside, hard work will indeed carry you far in this life. Unless you're in a band, then the nearly concrete rules of success in business seem give way to entropic nothingness.

One of the great things about this film is its ability to be equally effective whether you love, hate or are indifferent to the music of the subject. One doesn't need to watch it to know that talent often has little to do with success in music. We're reminded of that nearly every time we turn on a radio or watch any of the latest music videos. This film isn't able to inform what will make a band successful, but that's an unknowable equation, anyway. The documentary is actually about an ill-fated journey. The subjects run afoul of no less than and an unscrupulous Hollywood manager preying upon the naivete of the transplants from Michigan, and of course, the A & R execs. The band suffers still other numerous, faceless, shipwrecks: The loss of "air time" to lip-syncers Milli Vanilli, and audits from the IRS.

Ultimately, the experience of being dashed against the craggy rocks of record labels proves fatal to the dream. The business model employed by the companies that we receive our popular music from is clearly a damaged bureaucracy. This experience puts faces on the casualties of that ill system.