“And Then It All Went Wrong”—VH1’s Behind The Music

By Emily Carney

Finally, the Rock Gods have heard my prayers, and they are bestowing unto us an episode of VH1’s infamous rockumentary series Behind the Music on. . . the Rock Widow of the Ages herself, Courtney Love.

This show will debut on June 21, and previews have shown it to be, well. . . interesting. At two hours length, I am curious if it will fill the void left from the 2006 Return of Courtney Love documentary from the UK’s Channel 4; will it address her musical output instead of her many tabloid travails over the last decade?

At any rate, Ms. Love’s life certainly has the makings of a rich rockumentary: a bad childhood, insane teenage years, a troubled marriage to a rock icon, the suicide of that rock icon, and the varied, sometimes depraved (but always interesting to watch!) aftermath. I think this documentary will appeal more to seasoned fans of Courtney than just random VH1 viewers—I can’t imagine most people would be interested in seeing her nodding off during a recording session—but the Behind the Music series has never really appealed to the casual music fan.

Every episode of this series—from groups seemingly innocuous and “clean cut”as TLC, to drug-addled rappers like DMX—has always focused upon the infamous Ugly Side of Rock. A Saturday Night Live sketch from 2000 famously lampooned the series (featuring Val Kilmer in full Jim Morrison regalia moodily intoning, “Man, I think I’m having a nervous breakdown,” in an “interview”). Behind the Music digs specifically into the drug problems of rock stars.

The DMX episode (basically, the entire last half of the show) focused on the gifted rapper’s treacherous crack addiction. His problems culminated in his eventually posing as an FBI agent at an airport (needless to say, DMX was arrested). I feel as if the show spoke more as a testament to the addictions and temptations in the world of hip hop than a meditation upon his musical output.

I’m not entirely sure why VH1 chooses to pimp out Behind the Music in this manner, so I guess we should look at the history of “rockumentaries.” Urgh! A Music War and The Decline of Western Civilization (part one at least) focused mainly on performance and music versus the insane personal lives of the musicians profiled. I suppose the first rockumentary was actually This is Spinal Tap. Of course, Spinal Tap isn’t even about a real band, and it is a comedy film, but it DOES go into the hilarious, nefarious personal circumstances of the “musicians” in the film. This basically set the tone for shows like Behind the Music (even MTV had their own show called—very appropriately—Rockumentary in the late ’80s and early ’90s).

You’d never see a band like Pavement having their own rockumentary, because the show would be to damn boring. There are no stories about Spiral Stairs shooting eight bags of heroin a day, and Malkmus overdosing backstage at Lollapalooza. They’re just too. . . normal. Which is actually a good thing, since their musical output wasn’t spotty or forced.

So will I be watching Ms. Love’s Behind the Music? You bet your ass I will. She even has an interesting soundbite in the advert for the show: “I’m a screamer.” This shows that whoever did the editing has a great sense of humor, so this rockumentary should be a hilarious and hopefully, mega-entertaining.

The Courtney Love episode of Behind the Music will air on VH1 June 21 at 7 p.m. CST. US viewers can watch a sneak peek of the episode on VH1’s website.