The Untouchables 02.22.06: Oasis (Part 2)
Posted by Stephen Mogan on 02.22.2006
Steve rounds up his look at Oasis, starting with their stunning mid-90's album, "(What's The Story) Morning Glory?"
There are many artists that are universally recognised as being great, some achieve superstar status, but very few reach the point where the acclaim for them is so intense, that it becomes inconceivable to question their genius. They are The Untouchables….
Hello there and welcome to another edition of The Untouchables with me, Steve Mogan. Apologies that this is a week late, it's been pretty busy round here, but now I'm back with part 2 of my look at Oasis. Last time out we looked at the band's first album, "Definitely Maybe", which is undoubtedly one of the better debuts of the past twenty years. But what happened after that? Read on to find out, but first; some plugs…
Frank Estrada takes us through the Grammys, which was incredibly helpful to me seeing as I switched off as soon as Madonna appeared in her tiny pants, in the hopes of avoiding permanent damage to my eyes, neck or groin area.
"Have fun critiquing my spelling, I know it needs it."
What the fuck does that mean?
I probably should have provided some context there, or chosen a passage that lends itself more readily to this sort of thing. Aw hell, read it anyway; I just wanted to make sure there was at least one funny line in my column this week.
Michael reviews this week's new singles and discusses the Winter Olympics. For those of you not from the UK, we have a car show called Top Gear over here and last week they did a Winter Olympics special where they raced cars across frozen lakes and sent them down ski slopes with rockets strapped to them and stuff. I don't even like cars, but you put one down a ski slope and I'm there. It's available for download on Bit Torrent sites (*cough* er… so I've heard. Some guy told me about it) and I would say is about 3.2 times more interesting than the Winter Olympics itself. Sorry, that section had nothing to do with Michael's column, just me blabbing the first thing that came into my head. Erm, musical thought; That Audioslave single sounds like everything else I've ever heard from that band. I'm just not feeling any "magic" there. Tom Morello's guitar solos now sound like the loading screens on the old ZX Spectrum. If you dunno what that is, it's like a Colecovision. How the hell did I get off the topic again?
And finally, we have the first of a NEW feature, Now That's What 411 Calls Music! It's a sort of mixtape deal, you'll get the hang of it. This edition was written by Michael, who went for a love song themed tape. Look out for my attempt sometime in the near future, which will probably have no theme or structure (it might not even have songs, just spoken word passages of people listing names of fruit – just to mess up the ‘Friends'-style "The One With…" naming system. Although it'll probably end up being called "The One With The Weird Guy And The Fruit", which of course was Wham's original band name. Zing! Christ, I think I'm lost in my own imagination here, was I writing a column?). Just kidding, there will be songs.
Ok, I've had a few suggestions for artists to do a column on, so I thought I'd list the ones that have been suggested to gauge how popular they are. If you see an artist on the list that you want covered, send me an email so I can see who you guys want me to write about:
Violent Femmes
Primus
Dream Theater
Stevie Ray Vaughan
The Stooges
Pavement
Black Sabbath
Led Zeppelin
Simon & Garfunkel
KRS-One
The Clash
On with the show!
The Albums:
(What's The Story) Morning Glory? (1995)
The group's sophomore effort opens up with the mid-paced rocker, "Hello", which takes it's lyrics from an old Gary Glitter song (and man, have things gone downhill for that guy since the release of this album). The song has a steady rhythm and some nice squealing guitars, but ultimately doesn't excite until the last minute or so when the "Hello, hello/it's good to be back, it's good to be back" lyric is re-used in full. There's a nice build up to this, however, and when it kicks in you sort of go "ahhh, now I get why this is the first track on the album". A good start. "Roll With It" follows, and is a decent enough first ‘proper' song. This was also a single, and it's easy to see why. Most people think that this album is poppier than Oasis' debut, and this is one of the songs often used as evidence. The wall-of-sound feel of "Definitely Maybe" has been toned down in favour of acoustic guitars and steady-almost-to-the-point-of-dull drumming. The lyrics on this one sort of make up for that though. It's still a good song, but there's definitely a noticeable shift from heavy rock that doesn't give a shit, to music intended for the listening of others. "Wonderwall" is the greatest indicator of this. It's a slow ballad and the first time Oasis had used a string section. Again, it's a good track, a classic in fact; I'm sure everybody knows this song. Whether you like it or not depends on which of Oasis' styles you preferred. "Don't Look Back In Anger" continues the plundering of other musician's recordings by stealing the piano refrain from John Lennon's "Imagine" for the intro before developing into another string-backed ballad. Noel sings this one, and does a perfect job, especially on the huge chorus. Again, this is classic stuff.
"Hey Now!" is a pretty good track to follow up those two epic songs with. This one has a decent riff with more sorrowful-yet-uplifting lyrics, a theme of this particular album. It's a good track, but not particularly exciting and possibly a minute or so too long. A short instrumental break follows, before we launch into "Some Might Say". This is another track, like "Cigarettes and Alcohol" last week, that appears to steal the riff from T.Rex's "Bang A Gong" (only very briefly this time, for the intro). I'm sure this is meant to be tongue in cheek, but can we get through one song that doesn't steal from other artists? Anyway, the song itself is great. As good as "Wonderwall" and "Don't Look Back In Anger" are, if there was one song from this album that deserved to be Oasis' anthem, it's this one. The wall of sound makes a re-appearance and Oasis actually sound like a proper rock band again, after their balladeering earlier on the album. A brilliant sing-a-long chorus and some reflective lyrics from Noel lift this track above the rest. "Cast No Shadow" is yet another ballad, but I don't mind so much as the high standard of lyrics on this album is definitely kept up by this track. A true "lighters in the air" moment, with fantastic lines like, "As took his soul/they stole his pride" and of course, the defining moment of the track, the line: "As he faced the sun he cast no shadow".
"She's Electric" follows and for the first time on this album, the lyrics are upbeat and playful. This is the kind of knockabout "song about being young and unemployed" stuff that the first album had in abundance. It's very welcome here after all the slow songs and again the lyrics, whilst not being all that good, are delivered perfectly by Liam, making the song another winner. Following this we have "Morning Glory" and I really have to make a point about the tracklisting on the album here. This is another rocky number with a great riff and fantastic intro. Why wasn't this track 2 after "Hello"? I don't understand the logic of filling the first half of your album with ballads, leaving you with great rock tracks like this floating around in the second half. Surely this sort of thing would grab your attention quicker than "Don't Look Back In Anger"? Anyway, a great song with lyrics about nothing much but a massive chorus that makes them sound revelatory. This song has probably my favourite riff on the album. "Champagne Supernova" closes us out and, for the time this song was released, this is about as epic as it got in British mainstream music. It's a brilliant song that I feel has been overshadowed by "Wonderwall" in the time that has passed since the album's release. A slow intro with wistful lyrics builds up into a joyous celebration, complete with a relatively chaotic guitar break and dramatic long fade-out. A great way to finish a good album, though, in my opinion, there wasn't enough "rock" here. The songs are good, there's no doubt about that, and the consistently brilliant songwriting from Noel is nothing short of stunning. However, there's part of me that wishes they'd thrown on a couple more songs that were all about big, dumb riffs rather than sensitive lyrics. Give me "Cigarettes and Alcohol" or "Columbia" over "Cast No Shadow" and "Don't Look Back In Anger" any day of the week, basically.
Be Here Now (1998)
We open up here with a track that goes 7:42. This immediately makes me nervous, since I have a firm belief that your opening couple of songs should be punchy in order to draw listeners in. The first sounds I hear are helicopters and somebody nicking the opening from "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)", which don't impress me much. The song is "D'you Know What I mean?", which appears to be an amalgamation of things Oasis have done before. We get the big drums of the first album, the acoustic strum apparently borrowed from "Don't Look Back In Anger", the strings from "Wonderwall" and some random electronic effects thrown in for good measure. It's a bit of a mess really. Three years had passed since their last effort and you can immediately tell. Liam's voice sounds older, harsher. He sounds a bit like Ian Brown here actually. This is ironic, as the song turns into a self indulgent crapfest somewhere after the 5 minute mark, and is reminiscent of the overblown stuff The Stone Roses filled their second album with. Ok, not a great start; let's see what we have next. "My Big Mouth" has a jarringly heavy intro, blowing away the pop elements of their last album. From there it all goes a bit wonky, though. Liam's voice sounds horrible at points, and the lyrics aren't really about anything. In the end it's passable, certainly better than the opener, but what on earth has happened to Noel's songwriting? "Magic Pie" is over 7 minutes long, and is another craptacular, overwrought "masterpiece". This is the most directionless album I've heard in quite some time.
"Stand By Me" brings us back to familiar territory. This is one of the few songs here that could have made it onto "Morning Glory". It has a very similar vibe; a downbeat lament with a bold chorus. This song gives me hope for the rest of the album. "I Hope, I Think, I Know" continues the good stuff. This one has the urgency and superior songwriting that has been missing so far. Liam's delivery is perfect, capturing the essence of running away and starting again. The only thing missing, ironically, is a big chorus to finish the whole thing off. This is possibly one of the reasons this song isn't held in as high a regard as some of their others. "The Girl In The Dirty Shirt" is sub-"Morning Glory" balladry that doesn't do much or really go anywhere. So much for the good stuff. "Fade In-Out" has an intro that again sounds like it came straight from The Stone Roses' "Second Coming". The song makes Liam sound as if he's from the Old West and the obligatory "bit where the guitars and drums all kick in at once" comes about 2 minutes too late to save this one. It's barely a song. "Don't Go Away" is a pretty decent ballad, not earth-shaking, obviously; but it's almost as good as the stuff they were doing on their last album.
Next up we have the title track. Electronics underpin the guitars on this one, which adds a bit of variety at least. I'm not sure how much place whistle-breaks have in today's musical world, but they're present and correct here. The musicianship on this is very good, but Liam sounds like he's making the words up off the top of his head. Again, it's very, very directionless. Does this even have a chorus? Oh, I think the whistling is the chorus. Great. Hey, here comes a nine minute song followed by a seven minute one; I wonder what's going to happen here. In fairness, "All Around The World" is actually a pretty good Beatles pastiche. I like this song; it combines all the best bits of their last album to produce an uplifting, gentle rocker. The only problem I have is that it goes nine minutes. Cut it to four or five and we're talking "Wonderwall"-level stuff. But the band try to turn it into an epic guitar track at the end, which is pretty good for a while but gets boring rather quickly. Still, I'm classing this as a good track. "It's Getting Better (Man!!!)" has crap punctuation and sounds like another "Second Coming" off-cut. I don't want to talk about this; it's not good. Finishing us off, we get another two minutes of "All Around The World". Goody. Well, I don't really know what to say about this album. For those who aren't getting the Stone Roses references, go back and read my article here, that should clear things up. Basically, The Stone Roses recorded a fantastic debut, took 5 years to follow it up, almost drowned under a sea of various drugs and produced a sophomore album that was so overblown it destroyed the band's reputation. Songs went on 5 minutes too long and boring guitar solos stretched on for lyric-less eternities. Why am I mentioning this? Well, because Oasis did exactly the same thing following up "Morning Glory". The fact that the bands were friends just makes the whole thing all the more stupid. A couple of decent songs can be found on "Be Here Now", but the album is mostly bloated and self-indulgent.
Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants (2000)
Apologies about the size of the picture: bloody Amazon! I love the opening to this album. "Fuckin' In The Bushes" is so different to anything the band had done before. It's an instrumental, with harsh drums and a fantastic riff. It's a really good way to start an album, but probably alienated a lot of fans because it was so different to what you'd usually expect from Oasis. I'm a fan, at the very least. We follow this up with "Go Let It Out", which starts with sampled drums in a Beta Band "Dry The Rain"-style. This is again completely different to anything the band had tried before. It has a fantastic bassline, and a bit of Mellotron action on the chorus. It's a very good song and criminally overlooked. Man, this album has started out way better than I could have expected. "Who Feels Love?" is next up, and is reminiscent of the Indian-tinged stuff that The Beatles did on "Revolver". The same "reversed guitar" effect is used, as are a plethora of Indian percussion instruments. Gallagher's delivery also owes a lot to the detached, sedate style used by The Beatles on the track "Love You To". Despite the obviousness of the song's influences, this is really good stuff. Very laid-back and different to either of the first two tracks once again. It sounds like they've really tried to expand their sound on this album.
"Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is" is a mix of electronics and guitars that doesn't sound forced like on "Be Here Now". It's a track that relies heavily on its musicianship rather than Noel's lyrics, and comes out sounding fresh and cocky as anything on their debut. "Little James" is the album's first ballad. It's the same old Oasis ballad formula, only this time with extra electronics. It actually works quite well; Liam's vocals are pretty touching, despite some crap lyrics. The sample-heavy "Gas Panic" follows. This is a bit of a soundclash to be honest. It starts out mellow but explodes into Rage-esque guitars (seriously) and flutes. A little on the bizarre side, but again, I like it. This track reminds me of Bowie's "Berlin" albums; atmospheric instrumentals with vocal snatches rather than a full-on verse/chorus/verse structure. "Where Did It All Go Wrong" is a Noel-fronted ballad that is pretty ordinary, apart from the older Gallagher's excellent vocal performance. He has a lot of passion and emotion in that voice (for once!) and saves this track from blandness.
"Sunday Morning Call" is a gentle lament that really works for me. This track is up there with "Wonderwall" in my opinion. The samples add a lot of atmosphere, and Noel's delivery is again very good. Also, for the first time on the album, his songwriting lives up to his past work. "I Can See A Liar" is a fairly straightforward rocker. I'm not sure about Liam's vocals on this one, but the guitar riff and the drumming are both good and they save the song from being just another Oasis song. Finally, we finish with the mildly disappointing "Roll It Over". Like most Oasis album closers, it shoots for epic, but actually hits "a bit drawn out". It's not horrible by any means, but it's no "Champagne Supernova" either. All in all then, this is a criminally ignored album. Most of the songs on here are really good, though I can see why it wasn't greatly popular. It's such a vast departure from the bands sound, but I think it's a successful one. I enjoyed listening to this album today much more than I did "Be Here Now", or even "Morning Glory". Sure, they may overdo it with the electronics from time to time (especially the female "ooooh"s) but this is the sound of a band working hard, experimenting and attempting to broaden their horizons. For that I think Oasis, and this album, should be applauded.
Heathen Chemistry (2002)
We open up with "The Hindu Times", which makes it apparent that the band took the commercial bombing of their last album very seriously indeed. This is back to the formulaic Oasis that everybody loves and buys albums by. It's not a terrible song, but if it wasn't for Noel's riff this would be very ordinary indeed. "Force Of Nature" is a swaggering track that combines a sampled backbeat with a jaunty piano sound. I like this song; Noel's voice especially is very good here. It's also another great Oasis chorus that I thought they'd lost the knack for. "Hung In A Bad Place" has one of those "run up and smack you in the face"-type riffs that "Definitely Maybe" had in abundance. It's fairly simple stuff, but decent none the less. "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" is another ballad that by now had become an Oasis staple. It's above average, with an excellent chorus. It's not in the same class as "Wonderwall", however. "Songbird" is a gentle acoustic strum that is possibly the best thing on the entire album. Liam wrote it too; who knew he was even capable of writing, let alone songwriting? A definite high-point of the record.
"Little By Little" follows, and we're still in ballad territory. Actually, I think this is more power-ballad territory. Anyway, Noel sings again and it's not as good as "Stop Crying Your Heart Out", but it is more upbeat. The lyrics are a bit suspect, but you can't fault the intention, as they build up to a dramatic rock crescendo worthy of GNR. "A Quick Peep" is just that; an instrumental that barely goes over a minute. It's pretty good, just a bit throwaway. "(Probably) All In The Mind" sees Liam back on vocals again, and is bland, plodding rock at its worst. There's nothing to like here. "She Is Love" is an excellent song, however. Another acoustic-led track, with the added bonus of organ effects. This is seriously impressive stuff, as good as anything the band have done, despite the fact that it almost slips into cod-gospel. Any momentum the band had is ruined, however, by "Born On A Different Cloud". This is so by-the-numbers that it's painful. Six minutes of "zzzzzzzzzzzz", if I'm honest. Things pick up again with the final song "Better Man", though. At least there's a discernible guitar riff present here. It sounds like another Stone Roses rip-off though, and doesn't actually go anywhere. The lyrics are poor, too. Not the best way to finish, guys. In all, this album has some fine moments and some really, really bad ones; a real mixed bag. It's a shame that most of the experimentation from the last album was ditched in favour of sticking to the same old formula, but hey; if it sells records, it sells records. This is by no means a great album, but it's an album with some great moments.
Don't Believe The Truth (2005)
We start off with "Turn Up The Sun", which starts with a jangly, haunting guitar riff before kicking in with big drums and guitars (as these things tend to do). It's not a bad opener, but it's not particularly good either. "Mucky Fingers" is next, and immediately it's clear that Noel's been listening to The Velvet Underground. To be fair to him though, he carries the Lou Reed role off very well and the song sounds pretty good, when it could have been very embarrassing. The "Walk on!" vocal I particularly like. The riff doesn't exactly go anywhere, however. Next up is the album's first single "Lyla", which builds up slowly with some forceful drumming from Zak Starkey, before exploding into a big chorus that Oasis are so good at. This is a good choice of single, as it's a song that doesn't really say much but sounds like it's saying everything; it appears to be much grander than it is. Not a lot of substance here though.
"Love Like A Bomb" is another acoustic-led track that Liam handles very well. His voice sounds excellent here, and the rest of the band does a great job. The first really good track on the album. "The Importance Of Being Idle" follows, though it may as well have been called "Noel likes The Kinks", seeing as the song sees Oasis acting as some kind of rubbish tribute band for Ray Davies' boys. It's not bad, but it's difficult to rate when the whole feel of the song is just a re-hash of stuff that was done better in the 60's. It's an apt title for such a lazy song, incidentally. "The Meaning Of Soul" is an improvement; quick, brash and exciting. It's the fastest song on the album and also the shortest; as it gallops to its conclusion in under two minutes. This is definitely a good thing, as it got my blood flowing again for an album that I was quickly losing interest in. Following this, "Guess God Thinks I'm Abel" is a mellow track that, whilst it doesn't spark the interest of the listener in the same way as some of the better songs here, has that certain indefinable quality that lifts it above the "average" barrier. The repetitive guitar strum and backing "oooh"s and "aaaah"s work well together and Liam's voice sounds better than anywhere else on the record. "Part Of The Queue", unfortunately, sees us back in rip-off territory. This one is an "homage" to The Stranglers. Unfortunately, it's nowhere near as good, and sounds like a busker doing "Golden Brown". Not great.
Next up is "Keep The Dream Alive". This song is really terrible, cookie-cutter stuff. Bad vocals, bad lyrics; just plain wrong really. Things pick up with "A Bell Will Ring", but not much. It's a confident strut through some pretty standard indie, and is the first Oasis song I've reviewed where neither the music nor Liam's voice sound at all distinctive. This could really be any faceless band, and that's surely not a good thing. Finally, we have "Let There Be Love". Ok, I'll admit it; I like this track. It's a moving number which relies on its chorus too much at times, but has a certain charm about it. Not a bad ending, but let's be serious; nothing here is even fit to shine the shoes of anything on "Definitely Maybe". If it wasn't for the disaster that was "Be Here Now", I'd rate this as Oasis' worst album (it's certainly their dullest).
Their Influence
The fact that their music was so unoriginal in the first place makes it difficult to think of bands that have been influenced musically by Oasis. However, there's no doubt that their success in 1994 allowed bands like Pulp, Suede, Mansun et al all break through and achieve previously unimaginable success under the banner of Britpop. In terms of attitude, the "laddish"-ness that they introduced to music is still prevalent today, with bands like Kasabian adopting a similar gang mentality and the Artic Monkeys covering subjects as broad in range as pulling women, getting drunk and…er, pulling women.
The Verdict:
Q: How can a band go from making exciting rock music to dodgy MOR-soft rock and pointless ballads in a decade? A: Dunno, ask Oasis. The first two albums are fantastic; different in style but equal in brilliance. "Be Here Now" was ill-conceived, but "…Shoulders of Giants" really gave me hope that band were back to their hard-working best; free from expectation and able to create some truly innovative music. What happened after that is just sad. "Heathen Chemistry" and "Don't Believe The Truth" are both such dull albums. The former had some good stuff on it, but the redeeming qualities of the latter are much harder to find. The band has almost become a parody of itself. Fair enough, you expect a couple of stolen riffs and a few Beatles pretensions on an Oasis album, but "Part Of The Queue" is ridiculous. Stealing the entire melody and arrangement of a song almost 40 years old is just sad. As far as I'm concerned Oasis have been spent as a creative force for a number of years. When they had an opportunity to move forward and continue to create interesting music, they squandered it and went back to the safety of delivering what punters expect from them, which is a watered-down version of the stuff they were doing 10 years ago. For that reason, and the fact that only half of their albums are any good, they most certainly are not Untouchable.
What Now?
The band's current line-up (Noel, Liam, Zak, Andy and Gem) are still together and played a sold-out tour last year. As I mentioned last time, they actually played to their biggest ever American audience in 2005. Original bassist, Guigsy, is up to absolutely nothing as far as I can tell. Original drummer Tony McCaroll successfully sued the band for royalty payments in 1999 (well, he settled out of court or something anyway). Ex-guitarist Bonehead now plays for the biggest band in Thailand, apparently (eh?). Finally, former drummer Alan White has disappeared off the face of the earth. Way to end on a high there, Steve.
Well, that's it for this edition! Sorry about the delay for any of you that looked for the column last week; it took me much longer than expected. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated, especially suggestions of artists I should cover in a future column. Until next time, take it easy,
