Befitting one of the first official documentaries on Brit-pop, Live Forever: The Best of Britpop is a strong collection of songs from the mid-'90s Cool Britannia era that covers not only that time's biggest bands, but also the artists who set the stage for them and the artists who followed. Live Forever: The Best of Britpop favors breadth over depth, with mixed results. Over the course of its two discs, the only artists represented by more than one track are Oasis, who bookend the collection with "Live Forever" -- still one ...
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Befitting one of the first official documentaries on Brit-pop, Live Forever: The Best of Britpop is a strong collection of songs from the mid-'90s Cool Britannia era that covers not only that time's biggest bands, but also the artists who set the stage for them and the artists who followed. Live Forever: The Best of Britpop favors breadth over depth, with mixed results. Over the course of its two discs, the only artists represented by more than one track are Oasis, who bookend the collection with "Live Forever" -- still one of Brit-pop's best and most definitive singles -- and "Champagne Supernova," which sounds increasingly bloated as the years pass, and strangely enough, Sleeper, represented by their anemic cover of Blondie's "Atomic" and definitive single "Inbetweener." The rest of the collection's selections are similarly hot and cold: if Underworld, the Happy Mondays, and the Charlatans could only have one song apiece, then the Trainspotting anthem "Born Slippy," "Step On," and "The Only One I Know" are spot-on choices. However, Cast's "Fine Time" and Elastica's "Waking Up" seem like weaker options compared to "Alright" and "Connection," "Line Up," or even "Car Song," respectively. More disappointingly, Blur, Suede, and Pulp are all under-represented; "Common People" is as good a single track to represent Pulp's Different Class heyday as any, although some of their His 'n' Hers material would have been a nice addition. And while Blur's "Parklife" definitely captures the knees-up giddiness of the times, another track with a little more musical depth from Modern Life Is Rubbish or The Great Escape would've better reflected Blur's position as an oddly populist art band with great timing. Of the major Brit-pop bands, Suede is the most poorly represented, not showing up until the second disc and then only with "The Beautiful Ones," one of their slighter singles, as opposed to "The Drowners," "Animal Nitrate," or "The Wild Ones." Perhaps at the expense of more songs by Brit-pop's leading lights, Live Forever: The Best of Britpop does include a fairly impressive roster of their contemporaries, second-string Britpop bands and groups that followed the peak of that era. Catatonia, Cast, Ocean Colour Scene, Dubstar, Echobelly, Shed 7, Mansun, and Ash all get their due, and the Manic Street Preachers' "Everything Must Go," Garbage's "Stupid Girl," and Radiohead's "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" remain three of the best singles from that era that aren't purely Brit-pop. However, more than a few genre diehards will be disappointed by a Brit-pop collection completely devoid of the era's most entertaining wannabes, Menswear (surely "Daydreamer" would be a more entertaining throwaway track than Kula Shaker's turgid "Tattva"). Likewise, the collection falters by not including a track from the La's among its Brit-pop precursors, among which are the Lightning Seeds' pleasant but not as good "Life of Riley" and Primal Scream's "Loaded." The collection's forays into electronica are among its best moments, reflecting the dance culture that began booming in the U.K. a few years before Brit-pop and continued to flourish throughout the '90s. Massive Attack's "Protection," the Chemical Brothers' "Setting Sun," and the aforementioned "Born Slippy" are all British dance classics and also reflect the vitality that made the Cool Britannia era so much fun. While Live Forever: The Best of Britpop isn't the definitive word on the music of this time, it does manage to capture most of that fun. ~ Heather Phares, Rovi
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