Oasis - Stop the Clocks Review
Posted by James Munson on 11.21.2006
Manchester band finally releases best-of compilation that will break contract with Sony. There are no new songs, but the essentials are here.
I never used to be a huge fan of Oasis. I always found it hard to ignore the Gallagher brothers’ flagrant arrogance and how they shamelessly ripped off other artists. All that aside, there was one leading motive behind my disdain for the band and, all things considered, it was pretty stupid. When I was a sophomore in high school, I bought a copy of (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? for my then-girlfriend. With the exception of their early MTV buzz clip for “Live Forever”, I felt indifferent about Oasis in general. Nearly a week after giving her the album, she broke up with me and never gave it back. After that, my interest for the band never reached anything more than mild curiosity whenever I read about Noel or Liam getting into a bar brawl. This changed dramatically after I went to college.
During my final year in school, I became best friends with a musician who happened to be an Oasis fanatic. One of our typical conversations about music would usually revert back to Oasis. He owned every one of their albums and his hard drive was full of b-sides, unreleased, and hard-to-find material that he collected over the years. After acquainting myself with their back catalogue, I was amazed to discover what a fantastic songwriter Noel Gallagher is. Unfortunately, if you were to ask any casual mainstream music fan their opinion on Oasis, most would be surprised to hear they still made music.
The next few records they released following Morning Glory are mixed bags, but despite a handful of throwaways, both Standing on the Shoulder of Giants and Heathen Chemistry contain several noteworthy Oasis tracks. Their most recent album, 2005’s Don’t Believe the Truth, is feasibly one of their greatest, and most cohesive, albums in years. After an extensive tour (which included a record-time sold-out date at New York’s Madison Square Garden), there were rumors abound that the band planned to leave Sony / Epic because their contract was almost fulfilled. Stop the Clocks is the catalyst for Oasis to break their ties with Sony. Guitarist Noel Gallagher stated in recent interviews that he did not want the album to include just singles, but to collect of their best singles, album tracks, and b-sides.
Is this criteria met for Stop the Clocks? Well, yes and no. At first glance, it’s hard not to see this cd as a quick way to cash-in. On the other hand, it is also a fine testament to a band that has weathered several almost-breakups, provoked numerous scuffles with law enforcement, traded barbs with other musicians, and had abundant drug problems. The songs on Clocks are sequenced out-of-order from the dates they were released, which gives the collection a decent flow. Stand-out b-sides like “Talk Tonight” and “The Masterplan” sound better than ever on this collection when placed between early rave-ups like “Cigarettes and Alcohol” and “Some Might Say”. While I’ve never fully appreciated the Oasis essentials “Rock ‘N’ Roll Star” or “Wonderwall”, they are entirely necessary for this best of.
If you were to parallel Stop the Clocks to other greatest hits albums by alternative groups who achieved mainstream popularity in the past decade, a fitting comparison would be Stone Temple Pilots’ Thank You. The only difference is that Stop the Clocks has no new or unreleased songs, even though there is a tune that Noel supposedly wrote and later shelved called “Stop the Clocks”. Nevertheless, I find it an admirable move that a band would not offer anything new on a greatest hits release than to tack a sub-par song on the end just to get devotees to shell out money for the album.
With more than half the songs being pulled from their first two albums, one might wonder what else Oasis could have (or should have) added from later releases that would have enhanced Stop the Clocks.1997’s bloated Be Here Now isn’t represented here at all (although “All Around the World” is still being used in AT&T commercials) and one song each is taken from Standing on the Shoulder of Giants and Heathen Chemistry. “Let There Be Love”, the final single from Don’t Believe the Truth, also absent as is “Little By Little”, one of Noel’s finest anthems and a live favorite. Almost inexcusable is the omission of Whatever, a one-off single that defines the core of Oasis. The driving rhythm section and string accompaniment energize Liam’s raspy sneer and substantially reinforce the lyrics, “I’m free to do whatever I / Whatever I choose and I’ll sing the blues if I want.”
It would have been interesting to divide Stop the Clocks in half with one disc containing some of the best songs featuring Liam and the other disc featuring Noel’s vocals (not unlike Outkast’s adventurous Speakerboxxx / The Love Below). As with most best-of collections, not everyone is going to be pleased with the final tracklist. Regardless, Stop the Clocks is a definitive statement of a band who started out with nothing and became one of the most superlative bands to come out of England. Perseverance like that has seldom made cocky assholes like the Gallaghers seem so charming.
The 411: There's a number of different ways Oasis could have approached this collection. While die-hards will argue that most fans already own these songs, any casual fan will be more than pleased with what this album has to offer.
