Oasis as life-changers

It's the age thing again.

 

Imagine how even more arrogant Liam would be if he was able to write songs like Noel.

 

How can you not like the musical climax near the end of Roll It Over?

 

Not having that. He walked out of two US tours, the one in 1996 especially could have made him a ton of money - they'd just reached their peak popularity in the UK, and done a set for MTV Unplugged - that following US tour a couple of weeks later could have set them up for life in America (Morning Glory had already reached a peak of #5) - instead Liam missed the first US gig because he needed to find a house, then when he got there he performed a pretty loutish performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, then a few days later Noel walked off the tour and went home because of fights between him and Liam. A more professional, greedy band would have finished the tour and built bridges in America, instead of burning a lot of them as they ended up doing. Certainly in 1996 Oasis were performing with their hearts and not necessarily with their heads. Selfish = arguably yes. Greedy = no.

 

Well written overview..

Having seen a bunch live stuff on Palladia, including Glastonbury, I thought Noel's band was a 5th rate, if that, Beatles cover band. The crowd was utterly indifferent.

 

I'm talking about the album, not live recordings. I haven't seen/heard any live recordings of HFB stuff.

 

Noel is a very gentle guitar player.

 

Same applies....for me. Going through the motions.

 

I'm not sure how well it done in the US, but in the UK it was phenomenally successful, I think his best selling since Be Here Now which is quite an achievement in the modern age. Certainly if you listen to any of his interview from late on in that tour before he went off the radar, he sounds absolutely made up as to how well it did.

And following on from that, I'm not sure if it's been mentioned on this here forum, but there's heavy rumours on the Oasis forums, from a couple of reliable sources as well, that Noel's going to be unveiling a new single very soon, maybe within the next few weeks. The new album is done and dusted and is apparently scheduled for release sometime around March.

 

Fair enough. I personally thought it was the best thing he's done since pre-Be Here Now Oasis, but that's just me. I'm no Oasis fanboy either, although I do enjoy some of their music.

 

The first records for me were huge...I really struggled with Be Here Now and then lost total interest in their output after that. Doesn't change the fact the first two are great.

 

I'm in the U.S., so I really have no idea how things are in the UK. I also don't know what the exact US sales figures are. I do know that most stores I've been to in a few different states didn't bother carrying the album after the sold a couple copies when it was first released. However, a lot of these stores were carrying Oasis backcatalog titles on CD. My limited impression is that a lot of American music fans just didn't care about it. Outside of a really big cities, UK music still isn't that popular in the U.S. For example, I bought a bunch of the Blur 2xCD deluxe reissues as sealed clearance items in the largest still standing independent record store a metro-area of roughly 5 Million people.

 

feel free to consult with google.com

 

John Lennon said The Beatles were "more popular than Jesus".
If I had to judge musicians and their music by what they say in the press, I probably would not listen to anyone.

 

I think he'd like to do more in America, and he certainly wasn't shy in giving the last album an American appearance with the cover art and the videos all being done over there. But I think he's too lazy now to do the donkey work that he'd have to do to make it real big there, if indeed possible these days for someone of his age in his genre. I think he's pretty happy of how he does in the big cities and unless some huge single crops up out of leftfield then that'll be the way it stays.

 

Deadman, I get what you're saying. I'd like to hear his next album, hopefully it's good.

 

Well that's it in a nutshell. Noel in particular was always pretty press-savvy and knew the value of a good soundbite. And while they never seriously claimed to be "the next Beatles", they were honest in saying they wanted to be as big as, or even bigger as them. But that was just a youthful statement of ambition - I'm not sure why so many people perceived it as pure arrogance. Certainly that self-belief was a big part of why they made it so big in the UK, especially with the youth, who normally, and certainly these days, get told they're useless.

 

I love the Monkees AND Oasis, so there!

(...and don't mind a little Carpenters sometimes)

 

Yes. How does the BB mastering sound? Worth the investment?

 

I suspect Noel might appreciate the Carpenters just a little bit. He and Richard and Karen could bond over their shared love for Burt Bacharach.

 

Britpop was sort of UK's retort to Grunge, and Oasis were the answer to Nirvana.

 

Right. Oasis are pretty easy to criticize or just dismiss: they're unoriginal, the brothers are jerks, they only made two good albums, etc. I know, I did that for years too, never cared for them much during the height of their popularity. Too bad, because I've found that the music holds up much better than lots of 90's stuff.

By the way, my favorite Noel Beatles quote was when someone told him that George Harrison had criticized them and he said, "I thought he was supposed to be the silent Beatle?"

 

The Oasis story is hilarious and their success somewhat unlikely. That they came from Manchester as a bunch of louts with a good songwriter whipping them into band-shape to become the biggest band in the world (for a time) - is remarkable. And that Noel got his brute brother to sing all his sensitive songs was the key.

As an American, I first heard them on MTV - 'Wonderwall' of course, but didn't think anything of it. I heard the Beatles comparisons and really didn't hear it. It wasn't until a few years later, before Be Here Now came out, that I got interested in the pre-release hype and decided to check them out - got their first album and enjoyed it. Didn't hear the 2nd album for a while. But Be Here Now and its attendant singles/EPs is top Oasis - the best they ever got. Sure, it's bloated, and you have to be really stoned to enjoy it - but it is a great album.

As a fan of The Jam and The Smiths (not to mention the Kinks, Beatles, Who, Small Faces, Sex Pistols, Stooges, etc.) I could recognize that Oasis were part of this lineage of guitar bands with 'original' songwriting. In some ways Oasis were 'the last Mod band' - kids with 60's childhoods who were impacted by that music, and the biggest. I stopped listening after Be Here Now, because the original band sort of broke up after their world tour, and I knew they'd never be as good again.

 

Noel is six months older than me: born in '67, he was too young to have had a literal 60s childhood, but, if his childhood was like mine, he was heavily exposed to 60s music by his mother and by older siblings. Liam wasn't born until 1972, by the way.

I find Oasis Mark II, with Gem, Andy, and Zak to be a massive improvement over the original lineup.

 

Same here - two of my top 10, if not top 5 favorite bands.

Oasis was the 2nd part of the two-pronged assault that made '90s rock fun again. First, Green Day came along and sounded like I wanted every band I'd been in to sound - loud, hooky, and wittily obnoxious. That was so refreshing after the attitude of the previous few years, which were a little too dour and morose for me. Don't get me wrong - I loved a ton of bands in the early '90s - but it took three dudes my own age to make modern rock really resonate with me again. I didn't really discover Oasis until early '96. I bought Morning Glory at around 7 PM, got home & listened to it, and then raced back to the record store on foot in a snowstorm to pick up Definitely Maybe before they closed. The rest of the evening was very loud. Green Day may have made rock fun again, but Oasis made rock stars cool again. They were ridiculous - everything was larger than life. The songs, the production, the accents, the attitude, the antics, the quotes, the album covers, the cover songs, the humor, the drama... and BOOM! - I had a new favorite band.

I loved the Be Here Now era (except for their show in E. Ruthorford, NJ, in '98 - by far the worst show by a major act I've still ever seen, especially after the two NYC Hammerstein shows in Oct. '97) and I still think Standing On The Shoulder... is one of the most criminally underrated albums ever. I sweated out Bonehead & Guigsy's departure in '99 and Noel's walk-out in '00, but the Chief came back and Gem & Andy were simply better musicians (even though I could have lived without most of their songwriting contributions - not that they were bad, per say, but Noel raised the bar sky-high in that respect). I think they reached their live peak in '00-'02, as well. I dug Heathen Chemistry a lot and thought it flowed really well as an album but there was a noticeable drop-off in songwriting quality; however, Don't Believe The Truth was my first true Oasis disappointment. And the MSG show that summer was pretty boring, at least compared to the Radio City/Roseland/Beacon shows of the previous few years. Dig Out Your Soul was a huge rebound in quality to me (especially "Falling Down"), but I accepted the split pretty quickly. They were still good, but they peaked so hard so early that it almost didn't matter that they were gone. And honestly, I don't really miss 'em that much (though the 3-5 great songs per the last few albums are definitely missed).

As far as Beady Eye and solo Noel is concerned, I think I'm equally as happy for the press coverage as I am for the music itself. Liam's still surreal and Noel's still the biggest raconteur in the game. But man, their first decade was one hell of a run - absolutely legendary in every possible way.