Hippy Hippy Shake

Rating: 9/10 (16 July 2010)

If you are a fan of popular music, or even contemporary pop culture, PIRATE RADIO is A Must See. It is absolutely shocking that corporate radio in The United Kingdom devoted less than an hour a day to Rock music during the 60's. And, this idiotic blunder forced lover's of the music to take matters into their own hands--Broadcast The People's Music from offshore so that the staid and conventional arbitrators of Taste and Morality could not touch them. Bill Nighy, appears as the boss of the pirate radio station, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, plays one of the motley collection of DJs who broadcast the Love of Rock from the isolation of the North Sea. We watch as the British establishment (the foremost official played by Kenneth Branagh sporting a mustache and glasses which render him almost unrecognizable) are completely blindsided as creative and innovative English musicians capitalized on the nascent American music scene, and create an entirely new and vibrant musical aesthetic. After The Pretty Things and The Rolling Stones, Elvis's quaint Hip Shake, and the straight-laced Hootenany scene were recast as mere footnotes in the history of contemporary music. It could be argued that the British musical and cultural invasion of the 60's was that nation's biggest sociological influence of all time. However, I have one fairly serious criticism with PIRATE RADIO. Although the film is an amazing musical compilation of sixties English music, it is mystifying and inexplicable as to why they chose to overlook the music of The Beatles? Regardless of the cost, it needed to be there. It's like an examination of Christianity without Jesus.