Vinyl Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Vinyl Blu-ray Movie Review

Did the British music industry get punk'd?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 30, 2014

For those of you who have refused to give in to the march of progress and still occasionally (or even more than occasionally) play records on turntables, there’s probably no need to explain the nostalgic allure of old school technology and the equally powerful pull of music from a bygone era. Even younger folks who only indulge in this activity due to some sort of hipster ethos that is probably tinged with more than a bit of post-modern irony, the sound produced by a needle cutting a pathway through the grooves of a vinyl album can be quite enticing. Truth be told, the fifty-something erstwhile rock stars who are the center of the agreeable if ultimately lightweight Vinyl probably hit the big time during the transition from LP to CD, or perhaps even well into the compact disc era, but the title of the film is an obvious metaphor for something that is generally perceived to be out of date, past its prime, and the refuge of a few rabid cultists rather than anything the public at large will embrace. Vinyl is loosely based on an actual hoax which was something of a cause célèbre in Great Britain in 2004, when a once hot Welsh band called The Alarm released a single under the fake name of The Poppy Fields. The single rocketed toward the top of the British charts before the hoax was revealed. Vinyl takes this basic idea and adds in a few trenchant observations about the vagaries of the music industry. The film has a somewhat melancholic air which tends to undercut its humor, but when accepted on its own terms, it provides its own version of “a blast from the past”.

Johnny Jones (Phil Daniels, Quadrophenia) was a member of a fairly big Welsh band called Weapons of Happiness, a troupe which traversed a kind of middle ground between punk and pop and which was successful enough to have toured with the Buzzcocks and U2. That was then and this is now, however. Johnny is a washed up middle-aged pot head who traipses around a farm scoring weed from a local adolescent with which he pays his even older landlady, a woman who tokes up out in the middle of a cow pasture, evidently finding her bovine companions preferable to humans. Johnny at least has a relatively decent relationship with his long suffering girlfriend Jules (Julia Ford), a woman who wants kids with Johnny but who is afraid he’ll never be able to support them in his current haggard state of disarray.

The death of a comrade brings Johnny to a funeral, where he’s initially aghast to see a coterie of former rockers (including real life Alarm member Mike Peters), including his old Weapons of Happiness band mates. They, like Johnny, have segued into middle age with various amounts of grace. One former group member has made a fortune owning a string of retirement homes, while others have, like Johnny, seemed to largely coast in the wake of the band’s split up (blamed squarely on Johnny himself) twenty years previously. Despite what are obviously some lingering grudges, the guys go out together after the funeral, get suitably wasted and have a jam session which is recorded. Against all odds, the fruit of their drunken labors, a punkish anthem called “Free Rock ‘n’ Roll” is their strongest effort—ever—and Johnny feels certain a reunion and Number 1 single are obviously in the cards.

The vagaries of music stardom and the current state of the “record” business soon deal Johnny a one-two blow, however. He quickly finds out that though Weapons of Happiness actually had a trio of gold records back in the day, they’re considered passé by a younger demographic and in fact the twenty-something CEO of the label the Weapons were once signed to outright rejects the band’s comeback attempt, letting Johnny know that listening to aging rockers is like “watching your parents have sex”. After a few intermediary plot machinations, Johnny and his cohorts decide to “create” a cover band of youthful rockers who can lip synch to the Weapons’ new tune. And thus a Welsh Idol group is born, known as The Single Shots.

That leads to both vindication (albeit vicarious) and ultimately a raft of new problems for Johnny. There are some gently amusing bits here, especially with regard to The Single Shots’ breakout star, Drainpipe (Jamie Blackley). In the best tradition of Dr. Frankenstein and his Monster, or perhaps more appropriately Don Kirshner and The Monkees, The Single Shots soon decide they don’t want to be mere “fronts” and want to claim their own piece of rock ‘n’ roll history. Things don’t get too melodramatic in this generally affable enterprise, however, and a suitable resolution finds most of the major players—well, playing to their hearts’ content.

Vinyl might have been a bit more enjoyable had it jettisoned some of its morose undertow in favor of a more lunatic comedic edge. This is certainly not a “new” Spinal Tap, as one pull quote on the Blu-ray insert alleges. Vinyl is instead much more of a character study, and it’s a rather well done one, at that. Johnny’s slow realization that he’s not the swaggering young punk rocker of yore is soon supplanted by a more realistic but no less meaningful realization of exactly what he’s capable of at this point in his life. Vinyl proves that sometimes the good don’t die young, and that in fact there may be a little life left in otherwise arthritic rock bones.

Vinyl Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Vinyl is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. This appears to have been a digitally shot feature, and it features a largely problem free image that is stable, with excellent clarity and some appealing fine detail in midrange and close-ups. Colors are nicely saturated if not overly vivid some of the time (perhaps because of the setting, flesh tones are a bit on the pallid side). Contrast has been intentionally boosted here, leading to some blooming whites, especially in scenes where an effulgent light source is placed in back of the actors.

Vinyl Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Vinyl features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 mixes, both of which offer excellent accounts of the film's fun music (co-written by Alarm alum Mike Peters). The 5.1 track significantly opens up this use, as well as providing more punch in the low end. Even dialogue scenes have a bit more life in the 5.1 rendering, with good use of ambient environmental effects nicely delineating the differences in various locations. Fidelity is excellent and dynamic range is very wide on both of these problem free tracks.

Vinyl Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes (480p; 5:42) is a brief but relatively informative little featurette that gets into some of the parallels between the real life story and the film.


• Trailer (1080p; 1:36)


• "Free Rock 'n' Roll" Music Video (480; 2:20)


• Photo Gallery (1080i; 3:07)

Note: I encountered a slight but still annoying authoring error when I played this disc on my PC Blu-ray drive. Once two of the bonus features (Behind the Scenes and the Music Video) are selected, pressing Pop Up actually returns you to the Main Menu, but the choices there are no longer selectable. The only way I found to work around this problem was to reboot the disc. Strangely, the other two bonus features correctly return to the Pop Up menu where the rest of the selections are still accessible. It's also possible to correctly access the Main Menu from these two selections.

Vinyl Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Bolstered by some refreshingly rumpled performances by Daniels and the other aging once and future rock stars, Vinyl isn't often laugh out loud funny, but it's rather sweet natured in its mix of nostalgia and middle aged rage. This may have a bit of a fairy tale feeling, despite ostensibly being based on "real life" events, but that tone serves this fable quite well. Technical merits are strong all around on this Blu-ray, and Vinyl comes Recommended.