In 1985, 46 music icons, including Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper, Diana Ross, and Stevie Wonder, came together for the most star-studded recording session in histo...
The by-the-book documentary “The Greatest Night in Pop” isn’t particularly well made or insightful, but it is an absolutely blast. This film, from director Bao Nguyen, amounts to a 1980s time capsule and walk down memory lane for Gen Xers. And seeing the behind-the-scenes footage of the recording of the hit “We Are the World” in January 1985 delivers a dopamine hit like no other.
Envisioned as a fundraiser for African famine relief, the song (the quality of which can and should be debated) ended up generating a lot of money for the cause. It’s still known as one of the most collaborative efforts in pop music, and the documentary uncovers the whole story about how the song came to be, the writing process, the recording session, and the collaborative process that turned the tune into a global smash hit.
People who weren’t born during that time truly cannot understand what a huge deal this was. It was massive. Almost every music superstar (46 icons in all) were involved in the best selling track, from Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross, Cyndi Lauper, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie and more. Nguyen includes never-before-seen archival video, photos, and audio recordings of the event, and it’s so much fun to see these superstar musicians at work. Some of them had never met each other before, and there were so many A-listers that even the stars were star struck. (In fact, this prompted Lauper to go around asking for autographs). Little tidbits like that are what make the documentary so much fun.
Nguyen shows the disagreements and problems behind the scenes too, and touches on the not often discussed questions that we all want answered (like the real reason why Prince and Madonna weren’t involved).
The best parts of the film are the one-on-one interviews with Lionel Richie, a man with a massive personality and an endearing honesty. His storytelling is great, especially when he reminisces about the songwriting process with Michael Jackson (and the King of Pop’s pet snake).
The film itself is put together well, even if it’s not that difficult of an undertaking to create an assemblage of archival clips. The direction is more than acceptable, but nothing special.
Music lovers and children of the 80s are going to love “The Greatest Night in Pop,” but its appeal may end there. But for its target audience, this is a solid documentary that provides a fitting time capsule for the era.
