Idris Elba's How Clubbing Changed The World

March 4, 2022 8:13 PM

How Clubbing Changed The World [1h37m] is a BBC documentary hosted by renowned DJ Idris Elba that counts down the Top 40 "most defining moments" about how clubbing has changed the world, based on a survey of some sort. It's not in chronological order. It's in some kind of abstract order of importance. It's interesting. It's not deep, but it's nicely done and has some insights.
posted by hippybear (9 comments total)

Last Night a DJ Saved My Life would be a good companion to this, there is a ton of overlap (I'm only 15 minutes in, but so far: Northern Soul, The Warehouse, Paradise Garage, The Loft, Studio 54, etc). Last Night goes through the history and how those places came to be (and taught me that much of the music I love was the product of black queer culture), and Idris then talks about the resulting effect on the world. The former is a lot more exhaustive, but it's cool to see it from both sides.
posted by yeahwhatever at 9:04 PM on March 4, 2022 [4 favorites]

Ah, and here's a 1h DJ set from Elba, Live From Amswerdam (Heineken powered by Defected) which is corporate but also really a nice lively set that shows off what he does at the decks.

I would love to find a club night with a couple of good tabs (or a single legit hit) and him at the turntables for 6 hours... damn!
posted by hippybear at 9:55 PM on March 4, 2022 [5 favorites]

I am not fond of clubbing nor club music - well, in and with small doses - but I do enjoy getting a broader knowledge of Famous and Renowned DJ Idris Elba. Cheers
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 10:53 PM on March 4, 2022

I watched and enjoyed this immensely a few years ago but I feel watching anything clubbing related in this post-pandemic era would make me indescribably sad.
posted by vanitas at 12:20 AM on March 5, 2022 [5 favorites]

The BBC makes a lot of music documentaries with incredibly unthreatening viewpoints, which used to end up on their BBC4 channel on Friday/Saturday night - the prime post-pub slot. It's not that these documentaries are bad, but they're always... extremely normative.
posted by The River Ivel at 7:33 AM on March 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

It's not that these documentaries are bad, but they're always... extremely normative.

Well, the number one on the list is MDMA... so at least this particular documentary is more about what the people involved think was formative and influential and not trying to normalize anything about the movement.
posted by hippybear at 12:01 PM on March 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

And someone put in the paper they thought they saw the commander dancing. But the music was wonderful! - former police commander

posted by clawsoon at 3:22 PM on March 5, 2022

This isn't a BBC documentary - it was commissioned in 2012 by Channel 4, the UK's other major public service broadcaster. C4 used to be very well respected for arts programming in the 80s, and while they're better known for imported drama and news these days, they still air the odd interesting documentary like this.
posted by offog at 5:35 PM on March 5, 2022 [5 favorites]

Better quality version of the video
posted by ymgve at 10:56 AM on March 6, 2022