IT TAKES A particularly rabid follower of the Material Girl to appreciate – not to mention make – all the hilariously scathing jokes in Medusa: Dare to Be Truthful. Which is why Julie Brown's spot-on satire of Madonna: Truth or Dare comes off like a maniacally fun fan tribute despite its bevy of low blows. From Medusa fellating a watermelon (anything smaller, she tsk-tsks, is "kids' stuff") to the uproarious song spoofs ("Expose Yourself," "Vague"), this 1992 made-for-Showtime special lampoons its source material's most absurdly enjoyable moments with the sort of glee only Maddy's biggest admirers could muster. Best quote: after doing an onstage back flip, sans panties, Medusa gushes proudly, "My muffin got a standing ovation!" (Jimmy Draper)

My favorite music movie
Repo Man

Repo Man was a cultural stealth bomber that terminated my North Jersey suburban adolescent tranquility with extreme prejudice, dropping such block-rocking daisy cutters as "Pablo Picasso" (the Jonathan Richman classic as rendered by the Burning Sensations), "Institutionalized," by Suicidal Tendencies, and the Circle Jerks' "Coup d'Etat." This was in the middle of the Reagan '80s, mind you, way before online infoshops, blogs, and countercultural Web zines became the standard escape route from suburban brain-liquification. Every cultural reference took work to uncover, requiring a trip to the comic shop, the library, or the weird record store downtown. Repo Man set off a chain of musical associations that turned me on to '80s college radio, Bad Brains, the Minutemen, S.O.D., Sonic Youth, the benevolent mindwarp of Jonathan Richman, and of course, all things Iggy Pop, thanks to the movie's eponymous title track. (Josh Wilson)

My favorite music movie
Pump Up the Volume

It's possible that "Talk hard!" – Christian Slater's rallying cry in Pump Up the Volume – was never destined to be the slogan that united a nation of disaffected youth. When you say it out loud in your living room late at night as the VCR rewinds, it sounds ... dorky. But in Paradise Hills, the exurban sprawl of Arizona tract housing in Allan Moyle's 1990 movie, the kids took it to heart, and though I've watched this movie more times than I would be comfortable admitting to in print, I can still see their point.

Slater's character, Mark, is a frustrated new kid on the block who despises his parents for making him move from the East Coast to hell on earth. Stricken by shyness and unable to make friends at school, he naturally funnels his energy into setting up a pirate radio station and an alter ego, the extremely potty-mouthed Hard Harry. Sarcastic railings on the school district and the state of the union are punctuated by faux jack-off interludes and a starter course in punk, rap, and college rock. As the movie opens, the camera pans up a stack of tape cassettes by Primal Scream, the Pixies, and Camper Van Beethoven; Leonard Cohen's cynical, malicious "Everybody Knows" goes out to whoever's listening. Tapes of the show start floating around the school, enticing the youth – with such fine songs as Ice-T's "Girls L.G.B.N.A.F.," Bad Brains and Henry Rollins covering the MC5's "Kick Out the Jams," and my favorite, "Love Comes in Spurts," by Richard Hell and the Voidoids – to set off smoke bombs, blow up their jewelry, and tag the entire school with messages like "The truth is a virus."

A wonkishly evil FCC chair pulls the plug on Hard Harry, but he can never stop the music, and Mark has a fine message for all those kids living out there in the desert of suburban America: complaining about the shittiness of existence is covered under the First Amendment, but feel free to get off your ass and do something about it. (Lynn Rapoport)

My favorite music movie(s)
This Is Spinal Tap and Bird

The best music movie ever is This Is Spinal Tap, but everybody knows that already, and there's no way to do that movie justice by writing anything more about it. My second favorite music movie is the Charlie Parker bio pic Bird, specifically the scene where Parker and – I think – his wife are riding in a car and a version of his song "Parker's Mood" by vocalese singer Eddie Jefferson comes on the radio. Jefferson's specialty was setting words to famous jazz solos and singing them note-for-note, a weird subgenre that has also included Schoolhouse Rock singer Bob Dorough.