Ok, guys, I just looked through the entire forum and was in disbelief that no one has mentioned this classic 1980 science-fiction musical.
The time is the not-so-distant future of 1994. America has devolved into a pseudo-dictatorship, and the pop music industry has taken over all aspects of government and politics. A male/female singing group (Alphie and Bibi) come from Moosejaw, Saskatchewa in Canada to perform at the Worldvision Song Festival. The audience at first despises the musicians, largely because the music has guitar and vocal harmonies and isn't like the 1994-version of disco everyone listens to. After heckling the musicians, they immediately realize that they love the music, and the producers of the contest are able to track this love using an instant rating device that keeps track of the emotional readout of everyone in the world. Realizing that this unpredictable group might win, they cut the power, and the BIM (Boomalow International Music group) beats them, since Mr. Boomalow is in charge of everything. A riot insues, as everyone blames Alphie and Bibi for no longer being able to hear the music without electricity.
Meanwhile, the entirety of the US is turning into a dictatorship. Everyone must wear the same clothes, wearing symbols on their clothing reflecting their nation and their alliance to Mr. Boomalow, wherein mass conformity is the norm. They also must at a certain point each day, do a collaborative dance number wherein everyone in the country, including doctors in the middle of surgery, must stop what they are doing and do some synchronized dancing.
The BIM come to Alphie and Bibi, hoping to sign them to their record label, wherein they lose all rights and must perform the songs that are written for them in the exact way the studio wants them to. Alphie gets angry and storms off, but due to a drug-fueled musical hallucination, Bibi decides to sign the contract and become an instant star, but in turn loves everything. Alphie suffers a tragic breakdown, realizing he will never find success and that the music industry has taken his true love away as well.
This is one of those movies that manages to outdo its own insanity in every subsequent scene. The musical numbers are memorable only for their awfulness, the lyrics are unintelligible, the sets and costumes are gawdy, and the plot is incoherent. To top it all off, the entire film is also a religious allegory. So there's that.
I want to hear this movie on How Did This Get Made just so I can figure out what was going on in this movie.