Feel-good, with deeper implications

Rating: 8/10 (29 September 2019)

When I saw the list of 56 songs featured in this movie, I realized that I had sung and still knew the words to all of them. Hence the feel-good. Does every generation listen with such breathless anticipation and greet each new song as it emerges with such passion? Did we embrace this music because our feelings and beliefs created it, somehow, as well?
But under the on-ship camaraderie and rivalries, there is a darker, deeper note: that of the tendency of British governments to fall into incredible authoritarianism, to go through phases in which they want to relive the most egregious features of their colonial days. Then, thank goodness, they come out of them as the British people vote in fairly forward-looking, more or less tolerant leaders. This time, the early through mid 1960's, was one such time of quasi-fascism.
The quirky heroism of the DJ's of Radio Rock stands as both fictive and actual testimony of British rockers to fight back against the kind of censorship that British government officials tried to foist on them, censorship which aimed to destroy them and eviscerate rock itself.
Radio Rock rocks on in other forms today. Thank you, Pirate Radio, for reminding us.