Everybody gettin down make no mistake
Nothing sounds quite like an 8 0 8
– The Beastie Boys
I’m not hip enough to write this review.
But in a way, that is also exactly why I’m writing this review. I’m not a music buff, and the deeper I get into film and television, the less time I have for broader interests like keeping up with the latest music or video games or comic books or, like, knowing what “bae” means. But when I do indulge in active music listening, I’m quite prone to hip hop, most especially elemental hip hop focused on the old school basics. As a musical movement, hip hop’s rise to prominence is nothing short of the most important musical revolution of our time. Hip hop speaks to me in a unique way, and it turns out perhaps that unique effect can be traced back to a small box filled with faulty circuitry that was only produced for a small window of a few years in the 1980s.
808 is an exhaustive and energetic documentary exploration of the Roland TR-808 drum machine that is omnipresent in popular music to a degree that most of us have no grasp of. Through somewhat typical “talking head” interviews with artists all across the world, exciting animations and (obviously) completely killer soundtrack cuts, 808 has the ability to inform and excite anyone who’s ever nodded their head to a beat instinctually. If one is at least open to enjoying hip hop music, 808 offers entertainment and education in spades. But if you really aren’t a big hip hop fan, it turns out artists like Marvin Gaye and Phil Collins also utilized the 808 in their music to a shocking degree. So there’s something here for everyone.
Year by year, country by country, 808 weaves a fascinating tale of musical evolution and experimentation which happens to be intimately tied to a small programmable drum machine invented by some Japanese technicians who had no way of knowing how profoundly their product would saturate the next several decades of popular music. And yes, 808 goes so far as to begin its story with the Roland company in Japan, and then tracing the very first instances of the machine’s use in recorded music. Perhaps overly exhaustive and prone to drag at times, I was nevertheless thrilled to be learning such fascinating history of the sound of hip hop which I always took for granted but which wouldn’t exist without this amazing little old school programmable beat machine which, by all accounts… really doesn’t even sound like actual drums.
Among the various filmed interviews, I probably wasn’t even familiar with 50% of the featured artists. Often the songs being referenced as hugely influential were totally unknown to me. But there were times when writer/director Alex Dunn veered into elements of my musical upbringing, such as The Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, and Run DMC, which gave me goosebumps. The narrative being spun about the 808 machine was so engaging that it didn’t matter how unfamiliar I was with many of the artists.
808 charts a musical revolution before your very eyes. And even in those sections when the film clearly could have been tighter, you get the sense that certain interviews and moments were included out of genuine love for the subject matter on the part of the filmmakers. The level of musical legend these filmmakers were able to interview is impressive, as is the depth of musical knowledge they display in interviewing perhaps more regionally influential artists whose names haven’t remained on the forefront today. Legends like The Beastie Boys, Africa Bambaataa, producer Rick Rubin, and Phil Collins, are interviewed. Newer talents like Goldie and Pharrell Williams are also included, with Goldie being a standout personality in the film topped only by The Beasties… who also happen to be my favorite band of all time.
Not really departing much from the go-to doc formula of talking heads and propulsive animation and music, 808 isn’t breaking much new ground with the documentary format. It would likely benefit from being trimmed down by 10 minutes or more as well. But it also gave me goosebumps, taught me a lot, and wove a compelling narrative about the signature sound of the music of every generation since the 1980s which is largely unknown to the average music listener. This documentary has a wide appeal to any music or pop culture enthusiasts and comes highly recommended. Long live the 808!
And I’m Out.