Live Forever

Live Forever

With the entire soundtrack comprised of key singles by Oasis, Blue, Massive Attack, Portishead, Pulp, and many more, Live Forever was always going to be easy to watch. While the film charts the rise of these bands in the post-Thatcher Britain and goes to lengths to discuss the political relevance of the working class flavoured Brit-pop revolution, the film inevitably keeps coming back to the Blur vs Oasis battle, or rather, Damon Albarn vs Noel Gallagher. To the filmmakers most probable delight, the wounds are still fresh enough to provoke some spiky comments.

The documentary is much more politically based than I would have thought, making a general link between the music of the Britpop revolution and the changing face of Britain's politics. There's some interesting footage in there of Tony Blair "hanging out" with the musicians – it seems the musicians were initially optimistic he would change things for the better and latched onto his cause, and he used them right back to give himself a bit of rock 'n' roll cool. Y'know, for the kids. There's also discussion about how the scene was about a quest to find Britain's own sound in the face of America's grunge that I think is totally unfounded (the global appeal and domination of American pop culture wasn't exactly a new thing in the 90s) and the documentary seems a little too apologetic for the demise of the scene as a central force in today's music. Instead of acknowledging that strong musical movements like the psychedelic of the 60s and the rise of punk in the 70s just have their day, lose their relevance and fade away, they instead blame Robbie Williams. As you do.

This film could have just been the two Gallagher brother rattling on for two hours and it still would have made for great entertainment. Liam, who claims he is the reincarnation of John Lennon, and Noel who has a more light-hearted edge to his bragging, have no problem talking about their favourite subject, Oasis, and no qualms about airing any dirty laundry they have with any other Britpop bands, *cough* Blur *cough*. Those two twats need their own sitcom.

There's nothing too new here, but Live Forever is an enjoyable stroll through the recent musical past nevertheless, and all you need is a few bars of Wonderwall as a reminder about how fucking great some of that music was.