
"Live Forever" is definitely an Anglophile's dream: 90 minutes of talking head documentary dedicated to the thesis that the greatest musical movement of the last 30 years was Britpop. Remember Britpop?I admit that I'm not the target audience; of all the records mentioned, the only ones I own are Blur's "Parklife" and "Blue Lines" by Massive Attack (technically not Britpop, but whatever). The movie was still really interesting, if only because I never realized how angry the British are at American music. Things I learned watching "Live Forever":1) Noel Gallagher is very witty and bluntly lucid, even if he is on Tony Blair's dick. His brother Liam is an incoherent prick who reminds me of Nigel Tufnel and obviously was in it only for the drugs and 'birds'.2) Apparently, The Stone Roses were poised to take over the world in 1990. I missed that memo.3) Damon Albarn would obviously rather be talking about Gorillaz than anything that happened in the 1990's.4) There apparently was a conflict of epic proportions when Blur moved their single release date to the same as Oasis's, creating such a stir that it actually ended up on the evening news.5) British music journalists can compare Oasis and Blur with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones without a trace of irony.6) Evidently, Radiohead did not exist until some time after 1997 (or at least was not worth mentioning). Neither did drum and bass. Trip-hop (a.k.a. Massive Attack and Portishead) was definitely Britpop.7) Jarvis Cocker is very funny and very self-effacing and apparently lives in a tenement.8) British musicians blame everything that went wrong with the U.K. on either Thatcher or America.9) You can still make a good living (as of 2003) in England as an Oasis cover band.10) Seemingly, no one in Britain is as weirded out by Liam Gallagher's unibrow as I am.Overall, it was an interesting (if oddly biased) 90 minutes. Definitely worth your time, if for no other reason than to see the UK music press hype machine at its finest (e.g. - "Oasis live at Knebworth was the first time in history where the biggest band in the world was also the best band in the world").Now Playing: Al Green - Belle
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