The British Music Experience | Exhibition review

by Madeleine Hamilton

If you’re looking for a way to impress your friends with your music knowledge, then look no further – the new museum at the 02, The British Music Experience, could be your answer.

It is an innovative slice of British contemporary music history with everything you could want to know about our music from the past 60 years and how we’ll be listening to music in the future.

If you can’t get enough of the likes of Guitar Hero or The Beatles: Rock Band then this could be the exhibition for you.

So if you’ve always wanted to learn how to play the instruments that made bands famous here’s your chance with interactive tutorials where you can play guitar etc.

If you think you’ve got talent, check out the Gibson interactive studio where you can sing and mix a track which you can record and listen to afterwards.

Join in a jam with friends then put it all together.

Each room within the bubble is dedicated to a particular musical decade and everything is interactive.

Using various touch-pads you can listen to clips of songs, watch documentaries from people who were there or view timelines of significant events in music history.

If you want to know more about your favourite bands and how songs were made, check out the interactive map.

Famous music memorabilia

There’s also an extensive range of sought-after music memorabilia.

You can find out about the clothing choices (or rather lack of clothing) that made the Spice Girls famous or the significance of the Diamond Dogs album cover after Bowie’s time as Ziggy Stardust.

There’s exhibits cater for everyone’s taste from The Beatles, to the Stones, to Oasis.

It’s music heaven to the eyes and ears.

Fancy a little boogie? In the dance studio you can star in you own dance video while learning how to perform popular dance moves, which you can then cringe over later. Embarrassment score: 8. Fun score: 10.

On the whole it makes a huge difference being able to physically interact with the experience instead of just looking at a still image.

The ticket allows you to take a lot of the experiences home with you but whether or not this offsets the £12 cost is debatable.

 

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Visit www.britishmusicexperience.com.