NEW Live Forever (DVD)

If you were ever into the whole 90's britpop scene(Blur,Oasis,Pulp,Sleeper,Suede,Elastica)..you will enjoy this film!! Amazing footage and candid interviews by the main players!!!This Dvd makes me feel old....reminds me of drugs, alcohol, night clubs, ....not remembering half the night before...I NEED MY DEMON BACK!!!!!

I recommend "Live Forever" to the fans and the curious as the story of Britpop is documented from beginning to....not exactly THE end as the Blur/Oasis contest continues in the form of Who Is The Most Dull And Pretentious: Is it Insane Liam from Oasis lounging in the midst of what appears to be a secondhand furniture sale (or his living room) or Barely Awake Damon from Blur who plays the "I am SO over it" role to such extent he feels the need to strum a ukulele during the last half of his narcoleptic Q&A. woo hoo.
These interviews are from the NOW however THEN in America we were being smothered with bad indie and drama dummies such as Smashing Pumpkins and NIN so by the time US MTV got hold of Britpop it was with much hesitation and unattractively attached to the "Firestarter" video by Prodigy.
Yes, "Live Forever" is reliable without the fast sound bites or the know-nothing-all-knowing TV presenter.
The film details the hype, the clubs, drugs, BLAIR/Oasis, snapshots and NME covers in amazing, almost glorious montages then follows each segment with a less than intentional "come-down" as if reliving tragedy. Smile! It was fun! Right?
Many interviews conducted in dim settings and while Noel Gallagher is hilarious from a distance Jarvis Cocker of Pulp is poorly misrepresented as a near casualty when in fact Cocker is the most intelligent. How can Jarvis seem less witty than Noel Gallagher- leading me to ask "Who edited the last 20 minutes?" which is where the presentation falls apart. The problems are the uncertain end and not enough substance however many bland dialogues from Ozwald Boatneg (designer AND tailor) and Damien Hirst (he ruined Blur in just three and a half minutes). I can live (forever?) with the baggage though the biggest flaw is no mention of the disappearance of Richey from Manic Street Preachers which gained so much media attention and general hysteria it grew to overshadow Britpop and helped put the Manics at #1.
Whatever the reason, no excuse for ignoring it.

Worth seeing, glad i own it and most American bands STILL
suck so maybe Blur and Oasis both won.

I was at university in Wales at about the time when this all took off and this DVD filled me with a warm nostalgic glow, with occasional goose bumps, remembering how vital the whole scene was. The Oasis and Blur duel really was an important national news story. People actually bothered to watch Top of the Pops every Thursday. British music and film seemed to matter internationally and was finally taking over from Nirvana-alikes like Stone Temple Pilots and Soundgarden. Whilst detailing the main players in the music scene, you also see how the whole Britpop phenomenon was tied up with the political paradigm shift in the mid-90s from Conservative to New Labour and Alistair Campbell's Machiavellian meddling.

One caveat, for "Britpop", read Blur, Oasis and Pulp, as no one else really gets a look in. Given that the whole documentary weighs in at a mere 86 minutes, maybe that's as wide ranging as you could make it. That said, I'd like to have heard other Blur members' takes on events, or even just more from Jarvis Cocker or (the lovely) Louise Wener . It would certainly have benefited from heavier editing of the ramblings of fashionista, Oswald Boeteng and that bloke from Loaded magazine. The Gallagher brothers both make riveting viewing, as ever, even if they can't stand to be in the same room these days- Noel waxes lyrical about his working-class roots from what looks like one of the more elegant rooms of Balmoral Castle.

For an acid take on how Britpop was already in decline by the time of the Vanity Fair cover I'd recommend Hugo Young's book, "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People". He was one of the people responsible for getting the unlikely cover stars to the photo shoot and is not shy in describing the monstrous, coke-fuelled egos involved.

I heartily recommend this to anyone with even a fleeting interest in Blur, Oasis or Pulp. It offers a fair amount of insight into the 90s British music scene and while it could be more thorough and take in more bands, it does cover a lot of ground in a short time. If you've never watched a UK documentary and have grown up with VH1's Behind the Music or even Michael Moore, then you should watch this just to see that you don't have to cram in 30 different camera angles per minute to keep viewers interested. A very tastefully-presented film peopled with interesting characters and with a top-notch soundtrack.