Welcome to MovieJawn’s Split Decision! Each week, Ryan will pose a question to our staff of knowledgable and passionate film lovers and share the responses. Chime in on Twitter, Facebook, our Instagram, or in the comments below.

This week’s question:

In honor of both Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road and The Sparks Brothers, what is your favorite documentary about music?

My favorite music documentaries tend to be about my favorite artists–The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, etc.–so I am glad Folklore turned me into a full-on Swiftie last year so I caught up with Miss Americana. Taylor Swift is an artist that is as adroit in media relations as she is at songwriting. So while the film may not be an unblemished look at her life, it is fascinating for a glimpse into how she operates and what she wants to present to fans. Plus, her cats are in it. –Ryan Silberstein, The Red Herring

Stop Making Sense is the definitive concert film for me, but if that doesn’t count as a music documentary (though it is), I would offer Linda Rondstat: The Sound of My Voice, which traces the singer’s career, or Echo in the Canyon, which charted the history of the Laurel Canyon music scene.–Gary M. Kramer, Staff Writer

If Beyoncé’s Homecoming was only one of the finest recorded performances of all time, it would still be one of the most impressive concert docs. But not only does it preserve Beychella on film, but it showcases the physical and mental work behind the show while precisely cutting between two nights of precision choreography (when the first weekend’s yellow costumes switch to the second weekend’s pink ones and back in time….. I mean, come on!) There’s just nobody doing it like Beyoncé, and it’s thrilling to see her cultural dominance extend to documentary filmmaking.–Ryan Smillie, Staff Writer

I would argue that Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap is the ultimate music doc because by not being about an actual band, it manages to be about EVERY band. But. If we’re sticking to reality, or at least actual bands & musicians, I’d have to say that the incredibly succinctly named Anvil: The Story of Anvil might be my favorite. For one thing, I had never heard of Anvil before seeing the film (this might have been a get-out-of-the-sun-for-a-few-hours summer viewing or somebody might have recommended it to me, I can't remember) and spent a good portion of the movie guessing that Anvil were, in fact, not real. I think that, unless you are previously familiar with them, this could happen to anybody. The comedic timing in the everyday things, the details, the personalities, they're all almost too hilarious to be real. Their big hit is called "Metal on Metal"! The drummer's name is Robb Reiner for crying out loud! Clearly they're just paying homage to Spinal Tap! But no. They are a real band, and as you'll see in the doc, real people. And you'll fall in love with them. They're just a bunch of dorks who love playing metal and, minor frictions aside, they love playing it together.

I've been in bands since my teens and I can tell you that every band, regardless of genre, has probably had a "Spinal Tap moment" - ours was exactly like Tap being lost backstage wandering around cheering "Hello, Cleveland!" except we were in multiple cars driving around the greater northeast Philadelphia area in a freak storm shouting directions between cars via crummy cell phones - but few get to have the lifetime of moments the boys in Anvil do. We should all be so lucky. –“Doc” Hunter Bush, Staff Writer

Concert for George (2003), performed and recorded at the Albert Hall a year after the death of former Beatle George Harrison. All the best songs plus famous friends and guests, including Tom Hanks and Monty Python.–Melissa Strong, Contributor

I have sooooo many I want to talk about, but the most important one to me is Standing In The Shadows of Motown. If I had to choose only one music label to listen to for the rest of my life, it would be Motown, without even thinking twice. The expanse of recognizable voices is astounding. But what about the musicians? Imagine playing on thousands of Motown recordings? This doc spotlights the session musicians known as The Funk Brothers, who are some of my favourite musicians of all-time, who never received credits on the albums until Marvin Gaye’s masterpiece, “What’s Going On”. This film celebrates the incredible talent working in the Snakepit, Motown’s Studio A. My absolute favourite moment is when Pistol Allen demonstrates how to tell which drummer is playing on the track by the distinctive pick-ups. I have watched the clip above 4000 times. To me, what they created is absolute magic. Someday… someday I will visit Motown studios and will cry, cry, cry.–Ashley Jane Davis, Staff Writer

That would be Dig, a movie about two okay-enough bands who start as friends, take wildly different paths out of self-release obscurity and then go nuts. I don’t like The Dandy Warhols or The Brian Jonestown Massacre but I don’t need to when I watch Dig because it’s about who those bands are as people. Director Ondi Timoner clearly thinks they’re great, she clearly thinks the BJM are the more talented band and both bands talk about her manipulating facts in their respective audio commentaries on the movie, and so I know Dig is dishonest while still being super entertaining.

In their incipient states, the bands are friends, making similar versions of 60s and 70s throwback psychedelic rock. One “lives the life” a little harder than the other. The Dandy Warhols keep their shit together long enough to get signed to a major label and tour the world in huge buses while the Brian Jonestown Massacre’s heart, Anton Newcombe, gets more strung out on drugs, gets into physical fights with his band members on stage and succumbs to mental illness that the people around him have a callow way of ignoring because they think it leads to better art. It’s a fascinating ride and maybe two people in the whole documentary come off well. I have absolutely zero desire to listen to another of Newcombe’s answers to the unasked “What if the Spacemen 3 did Donovan covers while nodding off?” question, but I’ll watch him kick an audience member in the head and then complain about how misunderstood he is over and over again. Some of the music is good, all of the tension is sublime. –Alex Rudolph, Staff Writer

A recent rock doc I love is Judd Apatow’s May it Last: A Portrait of the Avett Brothers. The film is a hyper-intimate look at the recording process—chronicling the making of their 2016 album True Sadness—and even though I didn’t go in as an Avett Bros super fan, I felt like I left with not just a new appreciation for the group, but for how damn hard it is to make a record in general. Apatow’s feature films are always shaggy and overlong, but here he proves his mettle as a documentarian by always knowing the right questions to ask and exactly where to point the camera. If the scene where the band records the track “No Hard Feelings” doesn’t make you misty eyed you might be dead inside. –Iran Hrabe, Staff Writer

I second Dig! and Beyoncé’s Homecoming - those are both a couple of my fave music docs that I’ve watched more than once. But my all-time favorite has to go to Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Brit Pop, which I think I’ve watched approximately 23 times. It’s been pretty clear to me since my teens that I was born too late - I should’ve been raving at Manchester’s the Hacienda in the 80’s with Rob Gretton and Tony Wilson but sadly in its heyday I wasn’t even 10 yet. Thanks to my family’s influence, I grew up loving UK new wave music, especially Joy Division and New Order and The Cure and Depeche Mode and this transitioned to a full-blown love affair with Britpop in the 90’s. I wanted to run away to the UK and be Bez from Happy Mondays and hang out with Damon Albarn from Blur while making music videos for Radiohead. I still wish I had been old enough to attend the famous Stone Roses show at Spike Island in 1990. Live Forever traces the exciting moment British music and culture had within the UK and abroad in the 90’s, including the infamous Blur vs. Oasis debate (Blur, duh!) and the subsequent onslaught of pop stars like Britney Spears that crashed over the whole scene. Even if music isn’t your thing, the film is fascinating from a historical perspective alone. I am 105% always in the mood to watch this film. Heck, I’m watching it right now! You can find it on Vimeo if you’re interested. –Jaime Davis, The Fixer