As well-liked as on-screen depictions of actual musicians’ actual lives may be, equally frequent are the films and TV exhibits that highlight fictional bands and performers. From real-life rappers loosely adapting their very own tales to full-fledged bands of actors who realized to carry out all of their songs themselves, it’s a wealthy subgenre.
And there’s a brand-new entry in 2025, as the brand new A24 film Opus introduces John Malkovich as a pop icon named Moretti, performing songs created by Nile Rodgers and The Dream. Whereas it’s a bit too early to say how Moretti will rank, the discharge of Opus felt like an applicable event to look again over many years of movie and TV tasks which have featured fictional (not “pretend”) artists.
The standards arrange for this listing was fairly easy: The artist or the core members of the band didn’t need to play their very own devices, however they did need to play fictional characters, versus performing underneath their actual names. (Apologies to any followers of The Monkees, who didn’t make the minimize for that reason.) Moreover, a key metric was the precise high quality of the music. (Apologies to any followers of the UPN sequence Shasta McNasty, must you truly exist.)
Proper all the way down to the wire, the sondramedia employees debated what acts to incorporate and the place to rank them, and there have been so many notable choices that bought minimize alongside the way in which, from Phoebe Buffay to the California Raisins. As a result of finally, nice music is nice music — whether or not the artist behind it’s actual or fictional.
— Liz Shannon Miller
Senior Leisure Editor
