The British Music Experience

No one was interested in going with me so I ventured out as I used to do with just my iPod, on my way to Kew Gardens ready to see a brilliant display of daffodils. Half-way into my journey I ran into train troubles, and didn’t feel like taking the rail replacement bus service that takes forever, so I switched to Plan B. Plan B was to hit another destination the family wasn’t interested in, the British Music Experience at the O2 Arena. The one thing that was a bit disappointing about this is that it was an indoor experience on such a beautiful day.

The exhibit was interesting but kind of a bad combination of being very broad and not a very big display. What did I learn? Well, I knew before going into the exhibit that Cliff Richard was the English version of Elvis, and he was interviewed for the exhibit and talked about Elvis’ influence. I didn’t know that American soldiers from World War II and their love of big band had an early impact on British popular music. As I moved through the timeline onto The Beatles and then The Rolling Stones, I couldn’t help but think of my buddy J and art school snobs doing “rock”.

I also enjoyed watching clips of performances on British music programs like Top of the Pops. If they would have had a booth where you could go through the catalog of these programs, I could have been there all day. I’ll just have to rely on YouTube.

The trip did have an impact on my iPod. I've been compiling my own British Music Experience playlist complete with Bowie, The Smiths, Oasis, and so on...