For starters, a little punk band by the name of The Police signed a very modest record deal with A&M Records. The deal was modest in that the band chose not to take an advance from the label that could otherwise be used to record an album and/or pay the rent. Instead, the band negotiated a higher royalty rate and, in the end, look like fucking geniuses in the process.
While other gold and platinum acts of the day were taking big advances, recording in state-of-the-art recording studios, staying in fancy hotels, and riding from gig to gig in plush tour buses (all paid for by the label), The Police were taking no advance, cutting their records in very modest recording studios (Surrey Sound), sleeping two-to-a-room on the Econo-lodge circuit, and touring in a van.
As if that weren't enough to make March 22, 1978 a pretty cool day in rock history, a quite unassuming documentary about The Rutles, called "All You Need Is Cash", aired on NBC. The duo of singer/songwriter Neil Innes and Monty Python alumnus Eric Idle - both with direct connections to the Beatles camp - skewers the Fab Four so accurately that you almost forget you're watching rock & roll's first, and arguably best, "mock-rockumentary"...or is that "rock-mockumentary"?
Either way, "All You Need Is Cash" is the film that inspired "This Is Spinal Tap" and all such films of its ilk.
Thanks to YouTube, you can stream "All You Need Is Cash" in its entirety. A clip of the first ten minutes of the film is above.