Thursday, August 28, 2003
Just watched 'Live Forever' which I'd videoed on Monday night off the telly and what a load of steaming toss that was. I think the only way they could have made it more incoherent was by randomly adding shots from early 80's kids TV shows throughout the program although that could have conceivably improved it.
'Live Forever' was supposedly a 'chronicle of Britpop' but right from the start seemed to be unsure and ambivalent about what it was going to concentrate on. The music? Britain (or to be honest London and Manchester) through the middle years of the nineties? 'Cool Britannia'? Was it a simple chronicle of the times or was it going to try and analyse what happened to this country during that time? In the end it decided to go for everything and missed it all.
It started off being about the music but after some no-mark Oasis tribute band called 'Wonderwall' and the obligatory mention of Spike Island, it went to Massive Attack. Why? Who knew, certainly 3-D (who was the only one there) seemed unsure as practically the first thing he had to say was how at no point in their career were Massive Attack in tune with either the Americanism that pre-empted Britpop, Britpop itself and the après-Britpop atmosphere. Later on we even had about a minute of shots of the beach at Portishead with one of their tunes playing in the background, again, not really a Britpop band. Britpop music itself was represented by Damon Albarn, The Brothers Gallagher (and again an argument for why Liam should have an intravenous drug/booze supply so he doesn't go out in public, open his mouth and embarrass himself and anyone who knows him), Louise 'Sleeper' Wener and Jarvis Cocker. Suede and Elastica were mentioned in passing but presumably no one from either band wanted to talk to the producer which is why they are pretty much ignored.
But then we keep cutting away, James Brown gets to reminisce about the glory days of Loaded (I swear, in ten years time he's just going to go the Tony Wilson route and write a book that gets turned into a film about the whole thing) AGAIN, Oswald Boateng gets dragged in presumably so it's not just a load of white kids talking and rambles on about fashion for no real reason, Jon Savage pops up once or twice though is so ruthlessly cut it seems pointless. It flirts with culture, so we have Damien Hurst, Toby Young talking about Cool Britannia in Vanity Fair, Peter Mandelson about New Labour aligning with Britpop. But, just when it threatens to spin off on to an interesting idea it gets dragged back to the centre and the moment is lost. The thread of class pops up once or twice, that Blur were seen to be faking it whereas Oasis came from building sites and working class culture (strangely, despite the fact that His'n'Hers and Different Class are obsessed by it, Jarvis doesn't get to add anything to the discussion beyond that Common People was based on a true experience), but although Noel seems to have an awareness that that doesn't really matter no-one points out that Britpop was a success only because it managed to sell working class culture to the middle classes.
So, we have the Stone Roses and Nirvana, but presumerably because there is no Suede we don't get any coherent idea of how Britpop started. Before you know what's happened Damon is talking about how they won four Brits for Parklife, so that's three of their albums which arguably shaped how Britpop was going to happen which was overlooked. At no point do we ever do anything as boring as asking any of the artists involved to talk about the creative process on their albums, though Noel is refreshingly honest in describing Be Here Now as a crap album ruined by cocaine. But again, though James Brown talks about Loaded being written on champagne and cocaine there's no danger of dwelling too much on the negative sides of fame. And it doesn't even bother to stay in chronological order, so we have This is Hardcore being inaccurately claimed as a Britpop album being looked at before Be Here Now which was released a year earlier. And, just as there's no real attempt to explain how Britpop started there is nothing about why Britpop ended, just that it did somewhere in the late 90s.
I'm hoping that, in making a program to fill a slot on TV, the BBC took a much longer and better film and carelessly butchered it to shrink it down. That there is a version of 'Live Forever' where there's a reason for why we have a long tracking shot through a house and upstairs before finally finding Jarvis Cocker in a back room, that there's a reason for why we need a long shot of the construction of the Dome without any comment on it or the Government, for why we need to cutaway during the last five minutes to S Club Juniors. However, if this is all the film is, then it's a deeply unsatisfactory and failed attempt to look at a recent era in history. Much better is The Last Party by John Harris.
'Live Forever' was supposedly a 'chronicle of Britpop' but right from the start seemed to be unsure and ambivalent about what it was going to concentrate on. The music? Britain (or to be honest London and Manchester) through the middle years of the nineties? 'Cool Britannia'? Was it a simple chronicle of the times or was it going to try and analyse what happened to this country during that time? In the end it decided to go for everything and missed it all.
It started off being about the music but after some no-mark Oasis tribute band called 'Wonderwall' and the obligatory mention of Spike Island, it went to Massive Attack. Why? Who knew, certainly 3-D (who was the only one there) seemed unsure as practically the first thing he had to say was how at no point in their career were Massive Attack in tune with either the Americanism that pre-empted Britpop, Britpop itself and the après-Britpop atmosphere. Later on we even had about a minute of shots of the beach at Portishead with one of their tunes playing in the background, again, not really a Britpop band. Britpop music itself was represented by Damon Albarn, The Brothers Gallagher (and again an argument for why Liam should have an intravenous drug/booze supply so he doesn't go out in public, open his mouth and embarrass himself and anyone who knows him), Louise 'Sleeper' Wener and Jarvis Cocker. Suede and Elastica were mentioned in passing but presumably no one from either band wanted to talk to the producer which is why they are pretty much ignored.
But then we keep cutting away, James Brown gets to reminisce about the glory days of Loaded (I swear, in ten years time he's just going to go the Tony Wilson route and write a book that gets turned into a film about the whole thing) AGAIN, Oswald Boateng gets dragged in presumably so it's not just a load of white kids talking and rambles on about fashion for no real reason, Jon Savage pops up once or twice though is so ruthlessly cut it seems pointless. It flirts with culture, so we have Damien Hurst, Toby Young talking about Cool Britannia in Vanity Fair, Peter Mandelson about New Labour aligning with Britpop. But, just when it threatens to spin off on to an interesting idea it gets dragged back to the centre and the moment is lost. The thread of class pops up once or twice, that Blur were seen to be faking it whereas Oasis came from building sites and working class culture (strangely, despite the fact that His'n'Hers and Different Class are obsessed by it, Jarvis doesn't get to add anything to the discussion beyond that Common People was based on a true experience), but although Noel seems to have an awareness that that doesn't really matter no-one points out that Britpop was a success only because it managed to sell working class culture to the middle classes.
So, we have the Stone Roses and Nirvana, but presumerably because there is no Suede we don't get any coherent idea of how Britpop started. Before you know what's happened Damon is talking about how they won four Brits for Parklife, so that's three of their albums which arguably shaped how Britpop was going to happen which was overlooked. At no point do we ever do anything as boring as asking any of the artists involved to talk about the creative process on their albums, though Noel is refreshingly honest in describing Be Here Now as a crap album ruined by cocaine. But again, though James Brown talks about Loaded being written on champagne and cocaine there's no danger of dwelling too much on the negative sides of fame. And it doesn't even bother to stay in chronological order, so we have This is Hardcore being inaccurately claimed as a Britpop album being looked at before Be Here Now which was released a year earlier. And, just as there's no real attempt to explain how Britpop started there is nothing about why Britpop ended, just that it did somewhere in the late 90s.
I'm hoping that, in making a program to fill a slot on TV, the BBC took a much longer and better film and carelessly butchered it to shrink it down. That there is a version of 'Live Forever' where there's a reason for why we have a long tracking shot through a house and upstairs before finally finding Jarvis Cocker in a back room, that there's a reason for why we need a long shot of the construction of the Dome without any comment on it or the Government, for why we need to cutaway during the last five minutes to S Club Juniors. However, if this is all the film is, then it's a deeply unsatisfactory and failed attempt to look at a recent era in history. Much better is The Last Party by John Harris.
