PIRATE RADIO aka The BOAT THAT ROCKED [2009]

The term pirate radio applies to unlicensed radio broadcasts in general.  As the trailer below states, there were almost 600 radio stations broadcasting rock music 24/7 throughout the United States in 1966.  However, across the pond in the United Kingdom - birthplace of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Who, to name but a few - the government-run radio stations offered no rock music so several stations set up offshore - among them Radio Luxembourg (which actually began broadcasting in 1933), Radio Caroline and Radio Atlanta - broadcasting the pop/rock/soul music of the day to a music starved public.

This movie is a fictionalized account of those stations (consolidated into one station for the film's purposes as "Radio Rock"), written and directed by Richard Curtis who also gave us Love, Actually.  Originally released in the UK as The Boat That Rocked, the film was both a critical and commercial failure.  Heavily edited and re-titled Pirate Radio, it was released seven months later to us Yanks where it also bombed.  [For the record, HERC caught it at a local second-run theater unaware it had even been released until he saw it advertised online!]  

For HERC's money, it isn't a great film by any means but it is immensely enjoyable with several of his favorite actors and actresses in likable roles.  It is an R rated film for "language and some sexual content including brief nudity" and runs just under 2 hours in it's American edit - the original version runs 15 minutes over the 2 hour mark.  SPOILER: It has also given HERC every reason to never ever watch Titanic.

As for the sixty [!] songs heard within the film, some of them were officially released in Britain on a 36 track double disc and later in America on a 32 track double disc (above).   Nick Angel was the film's music supervisor and he's done a few other interesting soundtracks for films, including About A Boy and Notting Hill.  HERC went the extra nautical mile in compiling the playlist (below) of music featured in the film for us.  And then he went back and made a BONUS playlist based purely on the 120 or so album covers shown in the ending credits.

Music from the film's soundtrack:

BONUS PLAYLIST

Music from the albums shown during the ending credits: