Spinal Tap mockumentary led the way by going one louder...

Stephen Ryan names his top five fictional bands

- Stephen Ryan

The Netflix animated film KPop Demon Hunters has become the most watched film in Netflix history, writes Stephen Ryan, songwriting course director at the University of Limerick.

The all-pervasive musical phenomenon centres on two fictional K-pop bands, Huntr/X and Saja Boys. If you somehow haven't yet seen it, think of an anime-inspired version of Star Wars via West Side Story. It's not the first film to find major success with fictional bands.

Here are five movie bands that transcended and overshadowed their celluloid source material to soar into a life of their own.

1. Spinal Tap

Released in 1984, the This is Spinal Tap mockumentary charted the struggling career of the eponymous heavy metal band. In this, his debut feature, director Rob Reiner both paid homage and satirised the self-importance of preceding rock documentaries and their source material - the bands.

This is Spinal Tap laid the blueprint for appreciation of these type of bands and films for years to come, leaving us with now culturally ingrained scenes such as “these go to eleven” and “he died in a bizarre gardening accident”.

Reiner and his Spinal Tap costars and writers went on to make more films in this style, such as the underappreciated A Mighty Wind (2003). A more gentle type of mockumentary, it pokes fun at the insular folk music scene featuring fictional folky bands such as Mitch and Mickey, and The Folksmen.