However, as those hubs are cratering along with the extinct music business models, Boston comes across as this sanctuary with enough crowds to play out regularly, which may now be as good as it gets. It is also very expensive, forcing musicians like Berry to live in their cars and follow their dreams. These women also speak on the unique atrocities that only women making music are lucky enough to have inflicted on them. The first wall apparently is not being fooled into believing you won’t get anywhere if you are not down to f**k. Another constant is the assumption you don’t know what you are doing. To face all these towering obstacles and still manage to make their art are burning needs that are awesome to see.
Beautiful Was The Fight opens with a quote from Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls, a female Boston musician that I would love to learn more about, which excited me. However, this is not a history of women musicians in the Boston area, so we don’t hear about Dresden Dolls, Throwing Muses, or The Pixies. I know this would be a subject large enough for its own movie, but a few quick pictures with some mentions of the women rockers who preceded the subjects here would have gone a long way to increase the Boston feel. It would have also joined the bands that appear with the greater tapestry of the city’s musical legacy instead of featuring them in a cigarette smoke-filled vacuum.
“…admirable in many different ways.”
The real missed opportunity here results in Habeeb’s choices over the music being showcased. When you have a chance to bring international exposure to local bands, you have to make sure you are going the greatest hits route. Every song should be that band’s best song, the one that drives the crowds wild each time. From those songs, the best hook, chorus, or drop should be featured in deafening detail, high up on the soundtrack. We need the earworms, the toe tappers, and the smash-the-repeat button tunes only. This may be the only impression these artists make to the world across the Charles River, so we need to make it count. That is why it is so frustrating that the music selected is stunningly unremarkable. I know these women must have catchier material to have made it this far, as Boston audiences aren’t known for being charitable.
However, listen to the singers, not the songs. Beautiful Was The Fight is admirable in many different ways. It is as good of an honest portrait of the state of music as you can find right now.
"…an honest portrait of the state of music..."
