British Music Experience Cunard Baggage Hall

The British Music Experience is a permanent exhibition in the

Cunard Building The Cunard Building is a Grade II* listed building in Liverpool, England. It is located at the Pier Head and along with the neighbouring Royal Liver Building and Port of Liverpool Building is one of Liverpool's ''Three Graces'', which line the ...

on Liverpool's waterfront. It began as an exhibition, taking up more than 20,000 square feet, installed into The O₂ Bubble, part of The O₂ in

Greenwich Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross. Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...

, London. Opened with a private concert by The View in March 2009, it featured a retrospective look at the British music industry since 1944. The museum closed on 30 April 2014 and announced it was looking for a new home. On 10 September 2015 it was confirmed that the new home for the British Music Experience would be the Cunard Building on Liverpool's waterfront. Spearheaded by music mogul

Harvey Goldsmith Harvey Goldsmith (born 4 March 1946 in Edgware, Middlesex) is an English performing arts promoter. He is best known as a promoter of rock concerts, charity concerts, television broadcasts for the Prince's Trust and more recently the Teenag ...

, designed by Land Design Studio and funded by The O₂ owners AEG, BME was created to fill a gap in the UK Heritage sector for Rock and Pop Music. Previously, the

National Centre for Popular Music The National Centre for Popular Music was a museum in Sheffield, England, for pop and rock music and contemporary culture generally, a £15 million project largely funded with contributions from the National Lottery, which opened on 1 Mar ...

in Sheffield had attempted to achieve this but failed to attract visitors and was eventually closed. The British Music Experience has been set up as a charitable trust and has been funded by £9.5m worth of investment from AEG who hoped to recoup their costs within five years.BME's hall of fame to honour British legends of music, Times Online, 4 March 2009
/ref> Sponsorship agreements with The

Performing Rights Society PRS for Music Limited (formerly The MCPS-PRS Alliance Limited) is a British music copyright collective, made up of two collection societies: the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) and the Performing Right Society (PRS). It undertakes ...

Gibson Guitars Gibson may refer to: People * Gibson (surname) Businesses * Gibson Brands, Inc., an American manufacturer of guitars, other musical instruments, and audio equipment * Gibson Technology, and English automotive and motorsport company based * G ...

and

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amongst others have helped establish the exhibition. In 2010 the UK's fifth biggest food retailer,

The Co-operative Group Co-operative Group Limited, trading as Co-op, is a British consumer co-operative with a group of retail businesses including food retail, wholesale, e-pharmacy, insurance and legal services, and funeral care. The Co-operative Group has over ...

, signed on as the exhibition's main sponsor, pledging to give away 15,000 tickets over the next three years.

Galleries

The history of popular music in the UK is told through a narrative divided up into galleries with common components. The zones effectively work together to provide a timeline of the British popular music story from 1945 until the present day. They are not broken down into convenient decades but represent actual moments of change that occurred so frequently over the 70-year duration of our narrative. Within those moments of change genres evolve. There is an interactive timeline in each of the galleries. Each of these has a projected matrix of events with a foreground interface that provides access to in depth digital material. The user is able to scan and select across the whole timeline to select an event which reveals magazine style headlines, images and movies. Major interactive exhibits which can be found in the museum's galleries include: British Music Experience

* Showcases and Timelines * Hey DJ! * Where It's At * Anatomy of a Pop Star * Gibson Interactive Studio * The Great Divide * Dance The Decades * Table Talk * Atlantic Crossing * Transmission * Playback Many of these interactive exhibits have been developed by specialist software suppliers

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and Studio Simple with consultation from a curatorial team including Robert Santelli, who worked on other major music exhibits such as The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio and The

Grammy Museum The Grammy Museum is any of a group of museums containing exhibits relating to winners of the Grammy Award for achievement in recording. The museums in this group include: *The Grammy Museum at L.A. Live, which opened in 2008 in Los Angeles, Califo ...

in Los Angeles. The initial BME curator

Paul Lilley Paul may refer to: * Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) *Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...

, with Sarah Clark and Laura Bailey, were responsible for the extensive number of artefacts and exhibits on view and the rest of the BME content team was made up of music consultants

Rob Dickins Rob Dickins (born July 1950, East Ham, London) is a British music industry executive, who currently holds a number of trustee and consultant positions in music and the arts in the United Kingdom. Dickins began his music industry career at Warner ...

, David Roberts and

Mark Ellen Mark Ellen (born 16 September 1953) is a British magazine editor, journalist and broadcaster who lives in West London. Early life Ellen was born in Fleet, Hampshire, England. Whilst at Oxford University in the 1970s, he briefly played bass alo ...

Artefacts and Memorabilia

The BME has an extensive collection of rock and pop artefacts used to curate the rich history of popular British music alongside a social and political backdrop. * 600+ stage outfits, instruments, hand-written lyrics, and other objects brought to life with interactivity. * 6000 images & video clips embedded in a digital timeline and archive * Musical movements mirroring social history, politics, geography and technology in the UK. The collection is the only comprehensive collection that charts the rise of British Popular Music from its roots in jazz to the present day. BME stage outfits and Artefacts

Highlights of some of the artefacts that can be found at the British Music Experience include: * Some of Elton John's glasses * Five Spice Girls outfits *

Humphrey Lyttelton Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton (23 May 1921 – 25 April 2008), also known as Humph, was an English jazz musician and broadcaster from the Lyttelton family. Having taught himself the trumpet at school, Lyttelton became a professional ...

's VE-Day trumpet *

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...

's Ziggy Stardust costume *

Noel Gallagher Noel Thomas David Gallagher (born 29 May 1967) is an English singer, songwriter, and musician. He was the chief songwriter, lead guitarist, and co-lead vocalist of the rock band Oasis until their split in 2009. After leaving Oasis, he formed ...

's Union Jack guitar *

Iron Maiden Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band formed in Leyton, East London, in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. While fluid in the early years of the band, the lineup for most of the band's history has consisted of Harri ...

's Eddie the Head Icon *

Roger Daltrey Roger Harry Daltrey (born 1 March 1944) is an English singer, musician and actor. He is a co-founder and the lead singer of the rock band The Who. Daltrey's hit songs with The Who include " My Generation", " Pinball Wizard", " Won't Get Fooled ...

's outfit from a gig at

Woodstock Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock. Billed as "an Aq ...

Amy Winehouse Amy Jade Winehouse (14 September 1983 – 23 July 2011) was an English singer and songwriter. She was known for her deep, expressive contralto vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres, including soul, rhythm and blues and jazz. A membe ...

's dress from her 'Tears Dry on Their Own' video * Guitars from Keith Richards, Bill Wyman, Pete Townshend, Brian May, Jamie Cook and Paul Weller

Interactive Instrument Studio

The instrument studio allows visitors to play a wide range of musical instruments including electric guitars and drums, and even mix a music track. Here you can engage with an onscreen lesson from say KT Tunstall on how to finger the chords of her favourite hit song. Following this you can play along with her video of the track. Users of this space do not need any previous skills.

Learning and public programmes

The BME regularly hosts learning and public programmes and temporary exhibitions to delve deeper into a band's artistry or music trends and movements. Past events and exhibitions have included: *Bon Jovi: Master class/gig *The Faces: Master class/gig *Emile Sande: Master class *Frank Turner: Master class *Imogen Heap: Master class *Rudimental: Master class *Daniel Kramer: Photographs Of Bob Dylan *Rip This Joint: The Rolling Stones 1972. Photographs by Jim Marshall *Messenger: Bob Marley Exhibition *Rated R: Rihanna Exhibition BME offers interactive workshops and seminars for schools tied to key stage objectives in the UK National Curriculum, National Curriculum, including subjects such as geography, ICT, citizenship, careers, design and pop culture.

References

External links