On paper, the concept of the directorial debut of the Foo Fighter’s Dave Grohl is an odd one - a documentary charting the history of one recording studio in California - the titular Sound City.  Or, perhaps more importantly, the history of its rare Nave Soundboard.  But once you’re in the thick of the documentary you realize what the film is really about - the battle of analog versus digital.

This argument has been going on forever and continues to this day with discussions of albums mixed for iTunes use, the renewed interest in vinyl and the growth of auto-tune and laptop based music, but the discussion is even larger - the changing of the guard of the musical industry.  If we are truly at the end of an era of music, Grohl has created a hell of an epitaph.

The first half of the film is about the Nave era of Sound City, started in the late 1970s. We’re taken through the creation of dozens of landmark records, many of the stories told by the performers themselves - Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty and Rick Springfield, amongst many other talking heads.  Sound City wasn’t a luxury recording studio, it was a beat to shit hole in the wall that you just wanted to record in and get the hell out of. But the sound it created was truly unlike any other. The formative music of the 1970s and 1980s was truly built at Sound City, and in the 90s found a late era resurgence with bands such as Nirvana, Slipknot, Rage Against the Machine, and interestingly enough - the digital heavy Nine Inch Nails.

Every artist interviewed for the documentary exudes enthusiasm for the now shuttered studio, closed in 2011, but more importantly, they express an excitement for the now-lost human element in musical creation. In the era of tape, if you messed up you had to re-record and try again. Now with just a few mouse clicks, Ke$ha sounds like an actual performer.

Grohl was smart enough to realize how this human element of musical creation had to be demonstrated, and wisely uses the second half of the documentary to showcase the creation of Sound City - Real to Reel, a soundtrack album to the film which hits on Tuesday (alongside the DVD and Blu-Ray releases of the film).  This is where the real spark of the film lies. While most likely only the hardcore music nerds will be into the history of Sound City, the former Nave soundboard found its way into the Foo Fighters own Studio 606, and the Foos gladly play host to countless musical icons in this celebration of what was.

You see such rare sites as Stevie Nicks enjoying take after take, the Foo Fighters pairing with Fear vocalist Lee Ving, and what I found the most interesting, a fly on the wall look at the collaboration between Grohl, Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor which just seems to underline Reznor’s point of digital as tool - not as all-encompassing savior.

The doc appropriately ends with the much discussed combination of ex-Nirvana players Dave Grohl, Pat Smear and Kris Novoselic with the one and only Paul McCartney, and it’s hard not to feel the same level of musical excitement all four parties share during the process. Who would have ever thought that Nirvana and the Beatles would have paired so well.

Never outlasting its welcome, Sound City is an energetic documentary about an element of music you never thought you’d be fascinated by, and stands as a document of the pure power of human collaboration.  An absolutely recommended watch, and you’ll want to have the money ready for the soundtrack as well - the tracks previewed sound just that damn good.