It took me shamefully long to blog about this awesome film. As an avid classic rock fan, Pirate Radio hit all the right notes for me. The very minimal plot line – a bunch of music fanatics struggling against the government – holds up with interesting subplots that never bore, but honestly, who could resist such an awesome soundtrack? The opening sequence is set to the Kinks’ classic “All Day and All of the Night,” which could not be more fitting, as the Davies brothers are the true pioneers of rock who are often credited with introducing the distorted guitar sound to the genre (the myth has it that Ray Davies took a knife to a poor amp, shredding the speaker cones to create that crunchy riff). The opening is very classy even from a designer’s point of view, with well-timed cuts and simple graphics.

While the entire movie is set to a commendable catalog of early, foundational rock bands such as the Turtles, the Yardbirds and the Who, they do stretch the plotline a little bit by never explaining exactly how they evade the government plots to destroy them. The ending credits did include a Taylor Swift album cover, a blasphemy in my opinion to include among actually great albums like the Who’s Tommy and Queen’s A Night at the Opera, but I liked the film so much that I decided to let it slide. Go see it! Oh, and it will make you wanna smoke cigarettes.