Shows and dramas on the music business: money does not talk, it sings Premium

A look at music shows and dramas such as Hotstar’s Vinyl, Roadies and Netflix’s The Playlist which give an insiders look into the industry and the lives of artists

One of the crushingly saddest things about HBO content not being available on Disney+Hotstar after March 31, apart from not being able to watch Game of Thrones on repeat or taking another trip with Joel and Ellie through a post-apocalyptic U.S., is the horror of not being able to watch Vinyl again.

Vinyl has an impeccable pedigree counting as it does Rolling Stones’ frontman, Mick Jagger, director Martin Scorsese, author and Rolling Stone contributor, Rich Cohen, and Boardwalk Empire’s Terence Winter as its creators. With an almost feature-length (113 minutes) pilot episode, directed by Scorsese, Vinyl looks at the music scene in the 1970s through the eyes of a record executive, Richie Finestra (Bobby Cannavale), as he desperately looks for the next big act to promote.

Cannavale is on fire as Richie who is trying to hold it all together even as he struggles to stay sober while keeping his label, American Century, and marriage to former Factory model, Devon (Olivia Wilde), afloat. Featuring a cavalcade of historical personalities from Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant (Zebedee Row) complete with the blue, puff-sleeved shirt from the Madison Square Garden concerts of 1973, Alice Cooper (Dustin Ingram) and David Bowie (Noah Bean) to Elvis Presley (Shawn Klush), his manager Colonel Tom Parker (Gene Jones) and Beatle, John Lennon (Stephen Sullivan), there is an air of hyper-reality to the show.

Though Vinyl features all these incredible musicians and Jagger’s doppelganger son, James Jagger, as the lead singer of the punk band, Nasty Bits, the 10-part series also focuses on the industry, the managers, the executives and all the support staff including the sandwich girl, Jamie (Juno Temple), who discovers Nasty Bits.

A large part of being a rockstar is the relentless touring and the toll it takes on the musicians as we saw in the recently dropped, faintly soap-operatic Daisy Jones & the Six. Roadies, created by rocker royalty, Almost Famous’ Cameron Crowe, with J. J. Abrams as one of the executive producers, stars Luke Wilson as the tour manager Bill Hanson, and Carla Gugino as the production manager Shelli Anderson, for the Denver-based The Staton-House Band.

Roadies begins with a quote by singer and guitarist, Tom Petty. “I think the general public has no idea what roadies do. Bless ’em all, I just play the songs, they make the show happen.” That, in a nutshell is what the Roadies is about. From finding a nanny/manny for the lead singer’s “devil child”, Winston, (Ethan Michael Mora), to protecting the microphone used by Bruce Springsteen in the ‘Dancing in the Dark’ video (yes the one featuring Courteney “Monica” Cox) from a fanatical groupie, the roadies make it all happen. Again featuring beautiful music, Roadies is a warm and lovely paean to the default family of a touring rock group. There is the lighting rigger Kelly Ann (Imogen Poots), who is torn between the tour group and film school, her twin Wes (Colson Baker), heartbroken because he is fired from Pearl Jam as a roadie, show-me-the-money accountant Reg (Rafe Spall) and Gooch (Luis Guzmán) the tour bus driver who feels Bob (Dylan) knew the truth.

If Vinyl celebrates the excesses of rock ‘n’ roll, complete with lush needle drops and a glorious wardrobe, of the 1970s, and Roadies looks at the challenges of getting a ginormous show on the road in times of consuming content on tiny screens, Netflix’s The Playlist is a fictionalised look at the music streaming service, Spotify.