This documentary about Brit Pop of the 1990s could have been great. As I was a teenager in the 1990s it felt like the next big thing had happened. It felt like our Sex Pistols. But this is no Filth and the Fury.All the way threw it is made out like the whole thing only started because of the Stone Roses forgetting other important bands like the Happy Mondays.It also misses out great moments from the time such as Noel Gallagher saying that he hoped Damon Albarn died of AIDS and other such classics.There are some great moments along the way and some funny. Mostly all with the Gallaghers. The sad moment when Robbie Williams started making music that sounded like Oasis and Noels love of S Club Juniors.But you don't feel like you are transported back to the 90s like you were the 70s in the Filth and the Fury.Flawed but funny and occasionally interesting.PS Listen for Damon Albarn's accent as it goes from Cockney to middle class and back again.

First off let me say that Theo Robertson makes a crucially key point in his post below. While Britpop was a great period for music in the UK, they sure as hell weren't exporting much of it to the US. Bush, The Spice Girls, Elton John, and Radiohead. That's pretty much it. One of the Elastica songs got some minor air time in '95, and Oasis had some so-so hits with Wonderwall and a couple others...but that's it. As for Blur? Ha. The only Blur song known by the average American is "Song. 2" and that hardly fits into the Britpop mold. Pulp, Suede, Gene, the Manics, Supergrass...forget it. Anglophiles and transplants were the only people in the US celebrating the Britpop phenomenon at the time. I even remember listening to a couple of "face-offs" on 91X (influential modern rock station in San Diego) in the summer of '95. This is where the DJ plays two new songs, and callers vote on which is their favorite. The winning song then goes temporarily into rotation.Anyhow, the two songs I remember being featured were "Common People" by Pulp and "Country House" by Blur. Both songs got obliterated (one by, I believe, a White Zombie song and I can't remember the other). Both actually had listeners calling in and saying how much they hated them and how cheesy and British they sounded.Just for the record, I called in a voted for both. For "Common People" I think the DJ said something like, "Oh, you're the first for that one."The 80's on the other hand, were HUGE for British music. Whether it was Duran Duran or The Cure, the early and mid-80's were easily on par with the British invasion of the 60's as far as records sales and popularity goes. With that said, I was lucky enough to live in London from January '95 through May '95 and if you were IN Britain, well, it was pretty cool. The movie nicely encapsulates the sense of excitement happening in the UK at the time. Every week it seemed like the NME had either Brett Anderson, Damon Albarn or the Gallaghers on the cover (although Richie James of the Manic Street Preachers, who had just gone missing, was probably the second biggest story next to the "Britpop thing"). I personally loved the music...just about all of it...but that's also because I really dig British culture. And that's really what I think Britpop was all about - Brits celebrating being British in their music for the first time (in a mass way, anyway). The guy from Massive Attack makes a good comment early on in the film which was not only insightful, but also tied his band in with the rest. Essentially he said that prior to the Britpop era, most big name British bands adopted a certain Americanized sound...in most cases with their voices and in their lyrics. He hated doing that and, like Jarvis and Damon and Justine and all the others, instead celebrated being British in his music. And that, really, is what makes Britpop "Britpop" - it's British Pop music. It's by, about, and for Brits. Americans didn't get it. Then again, it wasn't for them.

On the whole, I was disappointed with 'Live Forever'. Angered by some of it. It seemed to be crafted with a similar lack of creativity as the much of the actual music from the phenomenon itself ... I expected more than a 90 minute interview montage. But anyway, Britpop itself was an invention of the tabloid press and yet we only get one interviewee from a publication of the time (the editor of 'Loaded') which to my knowledge had little say in that tabloid invention, merely jumping on it's bandwagon as I recall. Also, to make matters worse this guy didn't really know what he was talking about. Maybe nobody else was available ... however .... that's no excuse for some of the distorted facts and angles portrayed in the film. For a start, they present to us that nothing in the UK culture happened or emerged in the 80's. Nonsense. That's simply the angle portrayed because nobody in the film liked what was done in the 80's. I could quite easily come along in 2010 and make a film about whatever the next cultural phenomenon may be and dismiss the 90's as dull and boring, simply because I didn't like it. Truth is, Britain has always had a music scene develop through every generation or decade ; most recently, late 70's punk - the 80's new romantics, the early 90's madchester scene. Britpop was just the next one in line and yet it is presented as some kind of saving grace that nobody ever expected or imagined. Now, I hated the 80's music scene, hated the new romantic phase, hate looking back on it I should say (I was born in the 80's afterall) and I was very much the standard 'Britpop kid'. But I'm not gonna say that it awoke a dreary, sleepy Britain like the documentary did, because Britain was not like that. They wish it was but there was great British music happening in-between all phenomenons and continues to be today. A positive side of the film is that it does present to us the one thing Britpop did do which was say to a lot of people, mainly 'the kids' as Oasis would call them, that they could all pick up a guitar, write a tune, get on top of the pops as they were. the bands in britpop made you feel that way (the songs were easy, anthemic, had mass appeal and the look was so easy to achieve) the music in retrospect wasn't great but the message was. it defined the era. but unfortunately the only sniff of this we get in the film are tedious interviews with a bunch of losers who still play in an Oasis tribute band. Basically, the only other truthful statement made by this film is that between 1994-1996, two or three good records by mediocre British bands were made (and were for a change, given some press). The rest of it is garbage. At the end you're meant to think 'what a wonderful thing that Britpop was' but whereas if you overlook the spin and representation of the thing - the only thing you're left thinking is 'was that really ALL britpop was?!' example : the political issues the film deals with. This documentary would have you believe that Britpop was all about the bands that made the music. Nope. The people that really made the scene (aside from the press who just invented it) were the people like myself who went out and bought the records. did we think we were making some political statement? no, we thought these were cracking good tunes with a great image to them. you can't add weight to this thing by coinciding Britpop with the fact that Britain elected a new political party into power around about the same time (a good 3 years AFTER the phase had started). Are we to think that Labour would not have been elected if it were not for Britpop? nonsense .. the man in the street with no musical interest was always gonna do whatever they could to get that tory government out. the makers of this documentary would love you to think otherwise. Also, they include the topic of Diana's death. Excuse me, but with the greatest amount of respect to Princess Di (think what you might of her) I never saw her with a guitar and I don't own any one of her albums. we mourned for Diana and so Britpop died?! B**locks. Britpop didn't die suddenly, it merely faded away due to a number of things, not least with the press who were bored of it and wanted to present something fresh (which just happened to be attractive solo artists and/or more subtly marketed and manufactured music) Not a bad thing either as we were all quite frankly tired of hearing the same tune re-written by 40 different bands. Like all cultural phenomenons, they do as much harm as they do good in the long run ... but this documentary wouldn't dare reveal that to us. the only down side of Britpop presented here are the drugs that went along with it (as if they didn't happen with most Rock n Roll bands all over the world for many a generation) There also really aren't many interviewees here worth anything. Liam Gallagher is a big name and yet as much as I admire his voice, he doesn't really know what he's talking about. Of the rest, Noel Gallagher and Jarvis Cocker give the film some depth .. Damon Albarn seems lost and as if he doesn't give a s**t anymore (fair enough but it doesn't make interesting viewing), the girl from Sleeper is cute but has nothing interesting to say apart from some rubbish about Noel apparently killing Britpop by visiting Downing Street ..... sour grapes most likely .... And yet if all the serious stuff above fails, well surely it rescues itself with the much promised humour and comedy tag that comes with the teaser poster or cover .... well it would have had it just been Noel and Liam sitting in a room talking and/or arguing for the duration (they are genuinely funny people together but here there are hardly any great, amusing anecdotes or opinions that I've heard from them over the years). And I really don't know why they didn't do this ... at least 65-75% of it is about Oasis. Maybe on a second viewing I'll lighten up. But I feel a bit cheated having just seen it. For me, 'Britpop' wasn't about any of this. And even if it was, this wouldn't fill me with pride. 5/10

There`s a saying that " If you don`t read newspapers you`re uninformed. If you do read newspapers you`re misinformed " and that`s the problem I had with LIVE FOREVER , if you`re uninformed about Britpop you`ll be misinformed if you use this as your starting point , dangerously misinformed . The very first caption is from Alistair Campbell needs clarifying : yes in 1996-97 Britain was exporting music ( To the USA )again but this was only down to a select handful of artists namely The Spice Girls , Bush , Elton John , The Prodigy and Radiohead and in no way was this period a golden age for British record exports . Noel Gallagher follows this caption by saying " The eighties were f*** all " - NO THEY WEREN`T . In terms of record sales they were the golden age of British musical export . One week in July 1985 had eight of the top ten acts in the US billboard charts by Brits while 40% of the billboard 100 were by British artists . At the Band Aid concert held the same month each and every act at the London concert was from the British Isles while over 30% of the acts appearing at the JFK stadium were Brits . " The 80s were f*** all " ? I don`t think so Noel The other thing I disliked about this documentary is it`s political bais towards Tony Blair`s New Labour government where we`re force fed Peter Mandelson`s opinions of Mr Blair`s standard of guitar playing ! Completely superflous in my opinion , though there is a bit of irony in all this when Noel Gallagher ( Yes him again ) tells us Oasis songs sum up the 1990s . Yeah well I think Heartland by The The ( Written in 1986 ) sums up Tony Blair`s New Labour government and life in modern Britain perfectly , at least compared to the drinking songs Oasis released , and make no mistake that`s all they are - drinking songs Despite falling international sales British music in the mid to late 90s was far superiour to ten years earlier , but let me just repeat very very few British bands sold any records in the USA at this time which means LIVE FOREVER works only as a nostalgia piece with a good soundrack and not as a historical or cultural document since it leads us to believe Britain was the centre of the musical , cultural and political universe which sadly it isn`t and probably never will be again