{"id":42545,"date":"2024-02-04T19:43:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T00:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=42545"},"modified":"2024-02-04T19:43:00","modified_gmt":"2024-02-05T00:43:00","slug":"the-greatest-night-in-pop-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/04\/the-greatest-night-in-pop-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"The Greatest Night In Pop (2024)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Now Streaming Exclusively on Netflix.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1985, Quincy Jones teamed up with Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie to create one of the biggest music hits of the 1980\u2019s. It also happened to be one of the biggest bits of performative activism ever staged for a worldwide audience. While America was in the throes of the Regan era, more and more celebrities stepped up not only to act as idols but as activists striving for some kind of change. With \u201cThe Greatest Night in Pop,\u201d Bao Nguyen chronicles the making of \u201cWe Are The World.\u201d The surefire hit and Grammy Winner became a legendary anthem for activism teaming up some of the all time greatest singers of the 1980\u2019s who stepped on to sing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While often self congratulatory in tone, \u201cThe Greatest Night in Pop\u201d is primarily for fans of the song as well as Michael Jackson fanatics to revel in his creative ingenuity. It\u2019s not a bad thing that the documentary chooses more to celebrate the creation of the song, rather than step back and explore the effect it made, but if you\u2019re interested in a serious look at theses issues, then you won\u2019t find them here. \u201cThe Greatest Night in Pop\u201d is nevertheless a fun and exciting look in to the making of \u201cWe Are the World,\u201d focusing primarily on Lionel Ritchie and Michael Jackson. Both men who were longtime friends, worked overtime to produce this massive hit that wouldn\u2019t just have an effect on the charity but their overall reputations as well.<\/p>\n

This is where the documentary falters as too much emphases is placed on how these performers were very obsessed with how this performance would affect their images and career. Nguyen does look in to a lot of the lesser known aspects of the production. There\u2019s the fight to get Prince on to the production, Sheila E\u2019s unfortunate role in this scheme, and Waylon Jennings literally walking out of the studio mid-session. Along the way there is also some great raw, candid footage of these legends mingling, joking with each other, and adding a sense of levity to a very daunting task at hand. There are also some wonderful interviews with folks like Springsteen, Huey Lewis, and Lionel Ritchie, respectively.<\/p>\n

Oddly there\u2019s no real explanation for Dan Akroyd being on the chorus, nor is there actual discussion for why Michael\u2019s siblings also tagged along for the recording session. \u201cThe Greatest Night in Pop\u201d may be more a celebration of \u201cWe Are The World\u201d than a dissection of it and its social relevance, but it squeezes by in sheer nostalgic value and insight in to the creative process of one of the biggest pop songs of the decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now Streaming Exclusively on Netflix. In 1985, Quincy Jones teamed up with Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie to create one of the biggest music hits of the 1980\u2019s. It also happened to be one of the biggest bits of performative activism ever staged for a worldwide audience. While America was in the throes of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,292,658,698,766],"class_list":["post-42545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-biography","tag-documentary","tag-michael-jackson","tag-music","tag-performance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42545"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42547,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42545\/revisions\/42547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}