This is a list about fictional bands. There are a lot of lists like it, but this one is mine. And I might as well tell you up front that it doesn’t include Spinal Tap.
Here goes:
#1 – Crucial Taunt
“I hear they can really wail!”
I’ve wished Crucial Taunt were a real band ever since I first saw Wayne’s World and always lamented the fact that their covers of The Sweet’s “Ballroom Blitz” and Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire” were never included on the soundtrack.
And while we’re on the subject of Wayne’s World, I’ve always been curious what The Shitty Beatles would have sounded like, too…
#2 – Prestige Worldwide
Because “BOATS ‘N HOES!” should be injected into every song. I would totally hire these guys to play my next wine mixer. However, I don’t know if I’d be able to resist Uptown Girl, a band who only plays ’80s era Billy Joel… I do love me some ’80s Joel.
#3 – The Eradicators
Doctor Vader may have eradicated The Eradicators from Rock and Roll High School Forever, but she can’t eradicate them from my list of awesome fake bands. Corey Feldman has done a lot of embarrassing things for his “music career” but I’ll give him a free pass for his performances in this movie because The Eradicators’ songs (like this one) are surprisingly enjoyable and his singing actually isn’t half bad. For once.
#4 – The Lone Rangers
Brendan Fraser is a bit of an enigma to me. I don’t understand how he went from his amazing performance in School Ties to doing stuff like George of the Jungle, but I’ll save that musing for another blog post. Outside of School Ties, one of the only films I can tolerate him in is Airheads, which had the ironically-named fictional grunge-rock band The Lone Rangers. I would pay actual money for tickets to a show where Steve Buscemi dry-humps his guitar.
#5 – Sex Bob-omb
You just have to love a fake band named after a Super Mario Bros. enemy. The fictional indie rock outfit from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World had a couple of pretty kickass tunes, too.
#6 – Hey, That’s My Bike
“I have the occasional run-in with an anti-Hey-That’s-My Biker and to those people I say nobody… nobody can eat 50 eggs.”
I love Reality Bites for many, many reasons and one of the biggest ones is that it has an awesome alternative rock soundtrack on which Ethan Hawke and his fake band Hey That’s My Bike perform a cover of Violent Femme’s “Add it Up.” It’s enough to make me forgive him for being a total dick in this movie.
#7 – The Weird Sisters
One of the coolest things to ever come out of the Harry Potter movies was the fictional band The Weird Sisters, who were played by members of these four, very awesome non-fictional bands: Radiohead, Pulp, All Seeing I, and Add N to X. I must have listened to “Magic Works” thirty-seven times when it first came out. Just one of the many reasons why Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is my favorite film of the entire septrilogy. (Or is it octrilogy?? Someone help.)
#8 – Sexual Chocolate
Coming to America has got to be hands-down one of the funniest films to come out of the 1980’s. It was from the golden era of Eddie Murphy’s career, before it digressed into a long string of shitty family-friendly movies. And it gave us two epic examples of pop culture fakery: Soul Glo and Sexual Chocolate.
“GODDAMN that boy can sing!”
#9 – Steel Dragon
Rock Star is a sorely underrated movie, which I suspect is because a lot of people seem to have an irrational hatred for Mark Wahlberg, as well as the film having a stupidly generic title that’s easily confused with the energy drink.
Admittedly Mark Wahlberg’s career has been a mixed bag of good and bad performances, but his role as Chris “Izzy” Cole of the fictional hair band Steel Dragon is one of the better ones (although it’s a shame he didn’t do any of his own singing). Songs like “Stand Up and Shout” sound like they came straight out of the mid-80’s glam metal era.
#10 – Ellen Aim and the Attackers
Streets of Fire was one the weirdest movies to come out of the ’80s, but it had a lot of awesome things going for it, like a creepy-ass Willem Dafoe (when is he ever not creepy?), sexy Diane Lane, and a glorious soundtrack that featured two Wagnerian rock songs by the short-lived Fire Inc., which were performed in the film as the fictional band Ellen Aim and the Attackers. Just listen to this Meatloaf-esque “Nowhere Fast” and tell me it’s not totally rad. I dare you.
#11 – Robbie Hart, The Wedding Singer
If I ever get married again, I want to have an ’80s-themed wedding where all the bridesmaids wear big, puffy dresses with ass-bows and Robbie Hart is my wedding singer. I won’t even complain when George does his signature cover of “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?”
Y U NO SPINAL TAP!?
Just in case you’re wondering where the hell Spinal Tap is…
While I love This is Spinal Tap and its music, I had to disqualify it for two reasons:
- Spinal Tap appears on EVERY GODDAMN LIST about fictional bands ever.
- Although Spinal Tap started out as a fictional parody band, the actors have since gone on to perform as Spinal Tap and release albums under the Spinal Tap name; so technically they’re not even a fictional band anymore. Technically.
Besides, I paid tribute in a different way. See the number of bands on this list.
