My Review of "The Greatest Night in Pop"

The Greatest Night in Pop is a Netflix exclusive documentary that came out in 2024. It's all about one night but yet it affected so many people. They add some pretty minute details to this story. Some of them I don't feel totally belonged but I understand why they did it.

This documentary starts off with a concept. They start talking about a hot topic of the 80s. Those of you that were around in the 80s certainly remember all of the famine relief charities for Africa. Band aid was a big charitable cause by Bob Geldof. He was responsible for huge concerts to help out famine relief. "Let them know it's Christmas" was another big hit that was orchestrated by him.

The Americans wanted to do something to help out as well. This is when Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie banded together to make the song "We are the World" to help out with Africa's famine situation. To do this they needed to figure out how to get all of the most popular American singers together in one room to sing this song.

This movie revolves around the conception, the creation, the logistics, getting it done and finally the impact of the song. The amount of American talent they were able to gather into one small recording studio is quite audacious and it would only be done one time in our lifetimes. They all have such busy lives and it was quite difficult to get them together.

I wish they would go more into detail into the drama that could have been caused because of the amount of egos in the room at the same time. They show a little bit of it but I'm sure that due to legal issues they were restrained to show us everything. I felt that this movie was a little bit too on the safe side though. You can feel that there were probably more issues here than we got to see. It's quite obvious when you see the amount of people in the studio in the beginning and then see it just dramatically dwindle. Granted not everyone had a solo role in the song. I'm sure not all of it was pleasantries like they showed.

Still this is quite an entertaining movie. I liked how they were able to show us the grandeur of the situation. They were able to make me feel some of the tension in the timeline that Quincy had to deal with in order to get the song done. I was also quite fascinated at seeing some of these older stars in their youthful exuberance.

Some of the individuals did show some of their vulnerabilities. Not all pop stars are equally as talented. We can see some of them knowing what their strengths are and why we idolize them in the first place. At times it did feel like we're in the studio with them trying to figure out how we're going to get this song going.

Though it is quite a short documentary. It did after all, only last for a few hours in the studio. I felt like they added fillers to extend the runtime of the film. They make it seem like added these details for levity but at times I felt like they weren't really needed.

Overall, this is a really fun watch. I wished that they would go deeper into the drama that happened in the room but I understand why they couldn't go there. Unfortunately, a lot of these stars are starting to be forgotten so I'm not sure that a lot of people today will recognize any of these people. This is part of the appeal of the documentary in the first place. I still remember them so that's why I had a great time. I'm going to give this movie a 7 out of 10. Only for those that recognize the stars.