This recording is the last show Pulp played before going on a hiatus they have yet to emerge from. Sorry the tracklisting seems to be out of order, but the sound quality is pretty great as far as boots go.
Interlude 1 Lipgloss Something Changed Sorted for E's and Wizz Razzmatazz This Is Hardcore I Love Life Sunrise Interlude 2 Happy Endings Babies Common People
'Beetlebum' has been sticking with me for the better part of two weeks now. In my head, on my YouTubes, through the computer speakers. I'm not quite sure exactly what it is but there are a few healthy candidates. It could be because I recently rewatched Live Forever. Maybe it's because I have been reading bit of a blur by Alex James on and off the past half month. But it's probably as simple a fact as it's a brilliant song.
'Beetlebum' is the lead track, first single off of 1997's Blur. It was their second number 1 in the U.K ('Country House' being the first). There was heavy speculation for years that the song was about drug use, specifically heroin. According to Wikipedia, where I get all my facts, Damon Albarn admitted as much in the recent documentary No Distance Left To Run. Further speculation persists that it's about Justine Frischmann from Elastica, who dated Albarn in the 90's, and who has been public about her battles with substance abuse.
The timing checks out. Justine places her junkie years from 1996 to 1998. 1998 was the year her and Albarn split. 'Beetlebum' was recorded in 1996 and released in 1997. Whether Albarn was writing the song from a different perspective is still uncertain, but the lyrics appear to be from someone who had experienced heroin first hand.
The video for 'Beetlebum' is just as great as the song itself. The opening notes on record sound real bouncy and the video accomodates for this as it shakes up and down with Graham Coxon's guitar. Other things I like: the still frames of the band as the song builds into the chorus. The relaxed nature of Alex James as he sits and confidently lays down the rythym. Albarn rolling around on the floor right before singing the closing lines 'He's on, He's on, He's on it'. And then the final tracked shot that pulls away from the building the band is playing in and turns and floats above Camden. A beautiful scene that is so simple, but always strikes me as having had to be hard work to film.
Blur is probably remembered by the uninitiated here in the States as the start and end of the bands catalouge and not for 'Beetlebum' but for 'Song 2'. And of course Damon has found much greater success here with his Gorillaz project than he ever could have dreamed of with Blur. It's unfortunate that Blur didn't catch on more in America like Oasis, but they did leave quite the Britpop time capsule for future generations to discover. 'Beetlebum' is only scratching the surface.
Picked this up a few years back on a recommendation and recently re-watched it. Here are my notes.
John Dower's film starts off in 1990 with The Stone Roses playing Spike Island to around 27,000 people. Noel Gallagher talks about how being in attendance helped him lay the blueprint for what he wanted Oasis to be. The Stone Roses were supposed to be the U.K.'s saving grace, but as music journalist Jon Savage so bluntly puts it here, they 'lost their nerve'. The ping pong ball of popular culture bounced back over the pond to the U.S. where the grunge flag was being furiously waved, with the extremely reluctant Nirvana front and center.
Blur had been helping to build the foundation of Britpop since the release of Leisure in 1991, but the turn of the tide came back to the UK in 1994 when Kurt Cobain committed suicide. The music world was left with a huge hole to fill and Oasis just happened to be there with an album called Definitely Maybe. The inveitable topic of the Oasis / Blur single war is brought up (working class vs middle class), with Damon Albarn not wanting to discuss it very much and Noel being all too eager to talk about how he understands it all went down (a marketing gimmick cooked up between Damon and the NME). Interesting moments and quotes from both are found throughout. Plenty of Liam too, being very Liam.
Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Britpop focuses mainly on these two bands. Not surprisingly, since anyone who remembers Britpop knows that they were the two biggest headline grabbers. There is a healthy dose of Pulp included (particularly focused around their most well known hit, 'Common People', but also a brief piece that goes into the darkness that helped create This is Hardcore) and a minute or two on Massive Attack, Sleeper, Suede and a very brief mention that Portishead released Dummy in 1994. This is all well and good. While there is a chance for someone else out there to create a doc on Britpop that focuses more on the music (LF doesn't even hardly touch on The Verve or go into detail on how, after 15 years of toiling away and releasing albums, Pulp hit critical mass at Glastonbury in 1995 when The Stone Roses dropped out as headliners), the movie's strong suit is the way it focuses on Britpop as a real sea change in music and life in the U.K. A nation of people railing against a decade of Thatcherism and wanting some legitimate rock stars that came from round the way instead of what America told them to listen to. It also touches on British film, fashion and art which were also being revitalized throughout the 90's.
In the end, Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Britpop is well done at its intended job which is to chart the cultural phenomenon of this particular genre in musics history. Highly reccomended to fans of these bands as well as anyone who is even vaugley interested in important movements in music. It might sound lame, but watching this again made me briefly remember what the air in the 90's smelled like and how blue and endless the sky could look at times.
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Oasis - 'See The Sun (Porta Studios 1992)':
Blur - 'Girls & Boys (Demo)':
Pulp - 'Razzmatazz (Live at Glastonbury, 06.25.95):
This recording is the last show Pulp played before going on a hiatus they have yet to emerge from. Sorry the tracklisting seems to be out of order, but the sound quality is pretty great as far as boots go.
