Review (Scott Mc Cutcheon 12/10/23)

Alan McGee is a Scottish businessman born in 1960. During his colourful career he has been a record label owner, musician and music blogger. His main claim to fame is as co-founder of record label Creation Records. Running from 1983 until its closure in 1999, Creation and McGee were responsible for discovering and marketing some of the biggest bands in music at the time. After the closure of Creation he subsequently founded the Poptones label which ran from 1999 to 2007. Between the two labels McGee managed and promoted acts such as The Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream, The Libertines and probably his most famous discovery, Oasis.   

Told mostly in flashback, McGee (Ewan Bremner) is being interviewed by a music journalist (Suki Waterhouse). Creation Stories follows McGee’s life from his youth in Scotland, where he played in a punk band, to him leaving home and traveling to London where he started Creation and Poptones Labels. The film finishes in the early 90’s when he was involved, as something of a marketing guru, with New Labour.

Creation Stories is a bit of a mixed bag, the first two thirds, pretty much like McGee’s own drug fueled lifestyle, is a bit manic. The tone suits Bremner’s style of acting as he tends to shout and swear in just about every scene. Bremner is at his best, as is the film, when his performance is more restrained. I don’t think that there’s any coincidence that his character is very similar to Spud in Trainspotting especially once you know that Danny Boyle is an executive-producer and it’s written by Irvine Welsh the author of Trainspotting.

Creation Stories feels very similar to Schemers (2019) the recent Scottish film about music promoter Dave McLean. If you enjoyed that slice of Scottish music history them Creation Stories is worth seeking out.

3/5



Creation Stories

1h 40m

Director: Nick Moran

UK Release: Blu-Ray and DVD 7th November 2023