Oasis, part 1

Introduction

I almost can’t believe that I’ve never written about Oasis before, except a piece where I contrasted them with Blur, who I’ve always preferred, from the day in 1994 when I bought Parklife and Definitely Maybe.

Parklife was constantly on the stereo and I bought all the following Blur albums, and even the preceding two. I didn’t play Definitely Maybe much because I couldn’t stand Liam Gallagher’s whiny voice and never bothered to buy any other Oasis album until I finally bought (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (1995) probably 15 years after its release and only because it was going cheap at Cash Crusaders,

I did see Oasis play live at the Coke Fest in Somerset West in 2009, possibly one of the last gigs the band ever did. They played a festival set of greatest hits and ended the gig with “I am the Walrus.” It wasn’t the best set of the festival but at least I can say I saw them live at least that once. I was only a few metres from the stage, to the side in the so-called golden circle, and had a good few of these modern rock gods, well, I think that’s how people thought of Liam Gallagher, a compelling stage presence despite his mostly stationary position at the microphone. Noel just stood there, playing his guitar, and I wondered what he, and his brother, for that matter, thought of playing for a smallish crowd compared to what they must’ve been used to, even then, on the edge of a small town on the farthest edge of the Cape Town metropolitan area.

I suppose a paying gig was a paying gig, it was just another festival and they could look forward to a nice holiday in South Africa.

I’d read about Oasis in the UK rock press before I bought Definitely Maybe and I was intrigued by the stories of drug taking, hell raising and big guitar music, and really wanted to like the debut album because it sounded like the type of music I’d like, in the footsteps of the Beatles and the proto-grunge of Neil Young and Crazy Horse on albums like Ragged Glory. The music on Definitely Maybe was okay, perhaps over arranged, with too many guitars and on occasion a tad overlong (a criticism I have of Ragged Glory too) but I wasn’t prepared for Liam Gallagher’s irritating Mancunian whine and I was surprised at how much I disliked his singing. I could recognise the album as a good, almost old fashioned, big rock record but it didn’t blow me away and I couldn’t fathom why it could be as popular as it apparently was in the UK. Must’ve have been all the touring and the positive press, and that the zeitgeist was right for taking a break from rave music and embracing raucous guitars again.

The reviewer of Q Magazine didn’t think much of (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? and I didn’t bother buying it, because I’d had my fill of Oasis from the debut album. Then the album became impossibly massive, selling something like 22 million copies eventually, and multiple singles from it were chart toppers in the UK. “Wonderwall” was a cultural phenomenon all its own, as probably Noel Gallagher’s most covered song.

For the release of Be Here Now (1997) Q Magazine went all out and devoted two pages to a minute analysis of the album and gave it all the praise the review of (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? had lacked. This album was recorded during the period of Oasis mania, with some tracks laid down on Caribbean Island holidays, and with at least one of them featuring celebrity pal, Johnny Depp on slide guitar. Admittedly, the album was also recorded in a mood of cocaine enhanced hubris. Be Here Now sold well enough, but nothing like its predecessor and it’s critical reputation has suffered. I guess it should’ve had the curt, dismissive review (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? had been given.

Oasis had already shed its original drummer and a couple of years after Be Here Now, two more founding members left, new guys were recruited, Creation Records, Oasis’ label, went belly up, the band changed its logo and the look of its album covers (the first three are recognisably a set) and forged on, perhaps not the indestructible rock gods they once were but still selling lots of records and attracting large crowds, until it all fizzled out because of the simmering sibling rivalry that had always been a source of great tension within the band.

Today the Gallagher brothers lead their own bands, and are probably as successful as they could be in their second acts, and frankly, I’ve no idea what any of the other ex-members are doing. For all I know, neither Paul Arthurs or Paul McGuigan need ever work again, just from their earnings from the first three Oasis albums; Tony McCaroll, original drummer, squeezed a £600 000 settlement from Oasis, and if he invested this windfall wisely, might be in the same position.

Andy Bell had a career with shoegazers (the UK rock movement that preceded the Oasis juggernaut) Ride, Oasis-influenced Hurricane #1, Beady Eye (Liam Gallagher’s immediately post-Oasis group) and seems to have many projects on the go.

Gem Archer was with Oasis acolytes Heavy Stereo, one of many copycat guitar bands who couldn’t quite match the success of their influence, also played in Beady Eye and is currently the lead guitarist in Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

Definitely Maybe

So, it’s 25 years since Definitely Maybe was released. I’ve listened to (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? a couple of times, heard one or two tracks from Be Here Now and have never listened, or been interested, in any of the other Oasis records.

It seems, having had a quick look at the general critical appraisal of Definitely Maybe, it seems that my lack of enthusiasm for the record is very much a minority (perhaps even unique) view and perhaps listening to the album again  after I haven’t heard it for so long, might give me new insight. Apart from Liam Gallagher’s irritating vocals, I recall that the music, although guitar heavy, didn’t seem to have much dynamic range, mostly being this mid-paced roar, and the more rhythmic approach of “Cigarettes & Alcohol” and the quirky, tuneful and acoustic “Married With Children” stood out from the rest, where it was pretty much only the choruses that distinguished one tunes from another. Oasis were never ones for the fast paced rocker; perhaps Liam’s voice just wasn’t suited for that style.

After listening to the album again, my initial comments are confirmed, though I must admit that Liam Gallagher’s vocals aren’t as irritating as they were in 1994 and the wall-of-guitars arrangements are impressive though, over the length of an album it does tend to become samey and a bit of a drag, and that’s why “Cigarettes & Alcohol,” “Diggsy’s Dinner and “Married with Children” stand out as relief from the relentless, unvarying pace of the other songs.

Even with hindsight I can’t quite see why this record would’ve put Oasis on the map and why it would outsell all other Britpop albums, or indeed, put Britpop on the map. The tunes are rousing and anthemic, and that must be the USP, but they aren’t very memorable and, for me, once I’ve listened to the record, the songs, except for the couple of exceptions, simply fade away quickly. Their half-lives are incredibly short.

(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?

The tracks from, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?  sound different to the debut, less bombastic, more pop-like, and the lyrics are better discernible which is a downer. The UK music press, though it was not very critical of this record or Oasis in general, did point out that Noel Gallagher, for all his musical inventiveness, or must plain theft from other artists and for being able to craft memorable, sing-a-long choruses, was a crappy lyricist who seemed to sling together lines and find facile rhymes just for the hell of it, because he had to provide words for Liam to sing. In some instances, he seems to follow the John Lennon approach in the late Beatles period, of nonsense lyrics that seem profound on the surface and, specifically in Lennon’s case, were taken very seriously because the lyricist was thought of a genius, so that even overt, undisguised twaddle can be imbued with deep symbolic meaning. Noel Gallagher is nobody’s genius and his “Sixth Form poetic symbolism” grates.

That didn’t stop, for example, “Wonderwall” being a hit and much-covered song. The best thing about “Champagne Supernova,” as is the case with the songs generally, is the chorus hook and the music. The words basically suck.

Be Here Now

Be Here Now was recorded in the shadow of its massively successful predecessor and now the band had, as usual after such triumph, all of the money and leeway they needed to record the follow up.

As mentioned, where (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? received the most cursory of dismissive reviews in Q Magazine, Be Here Now  was treated like royalty and given the full attention of the reviewer who went to great lengths to analyse and discuss the tracks, with the most effusive praise. At the time, when I hadn’t even heard all of the earlier record, except for some of the hits from it, this review felt like overkill to me. One of the songs, “Fade In-Out,” turned up on a compilation and though it was a nice, slow burning rocker, featuring Johnny Depp on slide guitar, it sounded like your typical album filler. It wasn’t any better than just pleasant and if there were an indication of the quality of the rest of the album, Be Here Now was a journeyman’s record, not a work of unadulterated brilliance. In the context, the earlier assessment of (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? may well have been accurate as purely critical judgment. A pop song isn’t necessarily good because it sells millions; many crap, cheesy songs become extraordinarily and inexplicably popular. It seems to, at some point, it must've become mandatory to own (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? as a commodity and not so much as a work of art. Where Be Here Now was quick out of the starting gates because it was the follow up to e mega success, it also quickly faded when the public realised it wasn’t as much fun as the first two albums, didn’t have the zeitgeist rogering qualities of the second record and that its flaws were brutally exposed and remained unforgiven where the euphoria over the debut and the brainwashed, mass market adoption of the second album papered over the cracks.

By 2000 the world had no only entered the new millennium, but Oasis had lost its first record company and two more founder members and at least Noel Gallagher was probably chastened by the whole Be Here Now experience of a band, though still undeniably, massively popular as concert draw, that had lost its way. Apparently he hadn’t written any songs for a couple of years, with the original cache that fuelled the first albums long gone, and had to re-enter the fray to produce the tracks for a new record for a new label, and by this time the standard cycle of musical evolution had passed Oasis by over the 6 years since the release of Definitely Maybe. In the original pop parameter, artists released at least one album every year and in the early Sixties it was often one album every six months. The musical evolution of musicians such as the Beatles or Beach Boys, to use the most prominent examples, could therefore take place incrementally but quite quickly so that the time lapse between Help!, Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is roughly two years but the gradual changes in the music from record to record mitigate the leap in ambition and concept from Help!  to Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Oasis’ work rate was much less, as per the parameter of their time, since the early Eighties, when record companies were content to allow big selling albums, and their spin off singles, enough time to sell and sell, and become phenomena, and allow plenty of time between records, for the mega artists to ensure that each follow up is as commercial as the forerunners. So, in six years Oasis released three albums, though those albums followed each other relatively quickly. However, we’re still not talking an album a year for each of the six years, and this gave Noel Gallagher breathing room but also the luxury of not having to worry about writing new material quickly, sometimes a better, more effective modus operandi than a more relaxed, casual approach. Pressure can concentrate the mind wonderfully.

The first impression of the album is that Noel Gallagher no longer had great tunes and relied on a guitar wall of sound production, and a ponderous, mid-tempo pace, to give the songs heft they would otherwise lack. They would probably work well in a packed stadium with an enthusiastic mass of drunk and/or drugged fans who aren’t there to listen critically and just want to experience the experience. Each song feels anthemic but once you’ve worked your way through 71 minutes of this bombast, you’re left with nothing much to retain as memorable, except that the band seems to be plodding along furiously. There’s a sure visceral excitement that comes up with loud, roaring, soaring guitars and it works on a case by case basis but cumulatively there’s just too much of it.