Trivia for
Music and Lyrics (2007) More at IMDbPro »

• During production, the working title of the movie was "Music and Lyrics By..."
  
  
• The interior Madison Square Garden scenes were actually shot at Nassau Veterans Memorial Colliseum. This is a smaller venue in Uniondale, New York, on Long Island.
  
  
• The trailer features some scenes not in the movie: A door is opened for Alex by a porter, during the "Battle of the 80s Has Beens" interview, Alex says that PoP broke up in 1992 and so basically he is a "90s Has Been".
  
  
• In the original version Sophie (Barrymore) enters Alex's (Grant) apartment asking him if he has a watering pot and telling about the eighty year old German screaming at her. In the German dubbing this old man is French.
  
  
• When Alex and Sophie are in the record store discussing his solo album, the song on in the store is "Radiation Vibe" by Fountains of Wayne. Their bassist, Adam Schlesinger, wrote the score and most of the original music in the movie.
  
  
• Hugh Grant had to be convinced to sing himself and initially wanted nothing to do with his singing parts. After practicing and performing in the studio, he then felt so comfortable with it and announced he would perform the big concert scene live. When it was played back he was highly amused and humbled by how terrible it sounded and was then happy to use the pre-recorded sound.
  
  
• As a child, Hugh Grant took piano lessons from Andrew Lloyd Webber's mother. At some point, he stopped piano lessons and subsequently forgot what he had learned. Prior to the filming of the movie, he was taught to play the portions where his hands would be visible on the keys.
  
  
• Martin Fry, lead singer of 1980's pop band ABC, coached Hugh Grant with his singing and dancing.
  
  
• Adam Schlesinger, who composed the title track for That Thing You Do! (1996), composed many of the songs in the film.
  
  
• The film's director/producer/writer Marc Lawrence offered "Dance With Me Tonight" to Hugh Grant while he was trying to find the right song to sing during one scene. What he didn't tell him was that Marc's 13-year-old son, Clyde Lawrence, wrote it. On the soundtrack, Clyde actually plays the piano.
  
  
• During the premiere in Amsterdam, a woman pretended to interview Hugh Grant but ended up handcuffing herself to him, and walking the red carpet with him.
  
  
• A UK band called Pop! used the same name as Hugh Grant's fictional entourage, complete with the punctuating exclamation mark. They released three top 40 hits before disbanding.
  
  
• Hugh Grant learned to play piano for the film, and both he and Drew Barrymore learned to sing. However, while you can watch Hugh play on screen, the audio you hear of the piano performance is actually vocal coach Michael Rafter.
  
  
• At the top of the closing credits during the PoP pop-up video, one of the trivia history bubbles mentions that "Colin created a huge controversy when he declared PoP to be 'bigger than The Beatles'". This is a reference to the furor caused when Noel Gallagher of Oasis referred to the band as being "bigger than The Beatles." It can also be seen as hearkening back to the the international controversy caused by John Lennon when he declared that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ.
  
  
• Sophie mentions that her sister, Rhonda, is seven years older. Kristen Johnston is, in fact, 7 years older than Drew Barrymore. (Hugh Grant is 14 years older than Drew.)
  
  
• When Alex goes to visit Sophie at "Weight-Not" (at 27:00), the music playing in the background is "Edge of the Ocean" from a band called "Ivy". The band consists of 'Adam Schlesinger' who wrote many of the songs in the soundtrack for this movie.
  
  
• In the record store scene, Alex Fletcher's solo album is beside the "Flying Lesbians" section.
  
  

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