NXT Rockumentary Film Series: The Kids Are Alright (1979)

Jeff Stein, 1h 49m

From Maximum R&B-playing mods to arena-rock anthem makers: Jeff Stein’s scrapbook of The Who’s career collects tidbits from the band’s TV appearances, Woodstock performance footage, interviews and other flotsam and jetsam in an attempt to pay tribute to one of rock’s greatest (and loudest) groups. Like the quartet themselves, the movie is often disjointed, totally chaotic, and hits with the force of a Fender Stratocaster being smashed on a stage. It also doubles as a history of rock and roll’s British Invasion-and-beyond era, as blues fixations give way to Pop Art, feedback, psychedelica, ambitious attempts at high-art evolution and self-expression, and the power of a well-placed power chord. It also inspired the “This one goes to 11” scene from This Is Spinal Tap, for which we owe this movie an immeasurable debt. —Rolling Stone

Co-presented with Next Chapter Records.