The Album Review Club - Week #127 - (page 1545) - Definitely Maybe - Oasis

Maybe it’s over familiarity but similar to yesterday, the most enjoyable song so far has been Up In The Sky.
Noel has a very catchy riff going.
One we’re not over saturated with.
Similarly Columbia isn’t bad.
The two voices make a difference.
 
mancity2012_eamo said:
I’m on my second listen now and tbf, I haven’t had the instant revulsion I had yesterday by the second song.
I do still have much of the same observations particularly regarding Liam’s irritating off key drone and pronunciation and general delivery…….
But……. be positive Eamo.
I will try to be totally objective and will add reaction as I go.

Positive: Noel can write a decent tune and although I wouldn’t regard him as anything exceptional as a guitarist, he’s accomplished enough to deliver decent breaks and intros and outros. Prime example being Live Forever.
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I think that Shakermaker is an objectively bad song. I also think Supersonic is an objectively great song. And so it goes.
 
mancity2012_eamo said:
The Hedge? A guitarist?
I agree about Larry.
Learned how to play the drums properly in The Artane Boys Band.

Seriously though. That R/S list is ridiculous for these very reasons.
I could name half a dozen better Irish guitarists alone, than The Hedge.
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Rory Gallagher for a start.
 
Coatigan said:
My relationship with Oasis' music, has been, at best, apathetic. Mild dislike perhaps with some of it, but generally not that bothered by it. I get what is catchy about it, I get what people can see in it to relate to, and I get why it is popular. I even get what some might have considered 'fresh' (eventhough in itself there is nothing original there) about it. Eventhough, most of the time, that is down to their own lack of breadth and depth. Like anyone that says they were a breath of fresh air in a dire decade, clearly isn't someone that spent any real time listening to music in that time period, but got hooked on an easy hook. But as music, it doesn't move me in any way. It also, as music, in no way annoys me.

My relationship with Oasis - the culture, has been, not good. I have no time for it and find the hype and overrating irritating. As I do the dogmatic need to convert everyone.

My relationship with Oasis fans and fanbase, has been even worse. Irreparable perhaps. To the point, that it has taken significant effort, and being on here exposed to some level headed fans I respect, just to soften enough be able to swallow an immediate sense of disappointment in someone that says they are an Oasis fan. That is one broad brush do wave, I get that. But that has been my experience, and in the same way that people who have found something in them to resonate with, think I can't understand what it means to them, I think it is hard for others to understand what that means to me. If we accept for example footballing tribalism, and I happen to have the same innate prejudice that takes time and alternative exposure to erode at.

It is then impossible for me, to separate those two things from the experience of listening to their music or to attempt to take it at face value. Hence this was always going to be a struggle. Noel's album I could just about convince myself there was Some difference, but with this, it is impossible. I gave it a good shot, managed two whole listens. Won't be doing a third. Don't feel I need to either, it is simplistic enough to get everything out of it, and it is well known anyway, not like it is my first time hearing it.

The music itself is what I thought and expected. Fine. What it has made me appreciate, is that as their debut, their intentions would have been good. Honest guys trying something they felt like. It is not their fault, the phenomenon they would become, and the fanbase they would attract. And they do know how to write a pop song. And pass it off well as rock and roll. Just like the Beatles, which is why the comparisons are there. It has aged well. Partly, because it was always basic enough, and partly because there aren't that many gimmicks in it.
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Blimey a lot to unpack there, if you could just lie on the couch for me and I'll be with you in a minute ;-)

"Like anyone that says they were a breath of fresh air in a dire decade, clearly isn't someone that spent any real time listening to music in that time period"

I think it's reasonable to say that at a commercial radio play level, they helped usher in a bit of a renaissance in British guitar bands. Was it a breath of fresh air musically?, not really in and of itself, but in terms of what was in the average radio listeners consciousness at the time it was different I think. Obviously that spiralled into the media idiocy of Britpop but you can't blame that (entirely) on them.

"My relationship with Oasis fans and fanbase, has been even worse. Irreparable perhaps."

I have occasionally bumped into the odd 50 year old who is bizarrely still treating Liam as some form of role model but by and large I don't think I've had the same experience as you. You mentioned the Radiohead comparison and I've probably had more arguments with RH fans than I ever have with Oasis fans despite considering both of them to be overrated. What I would say is that the limited number of run ins I've had with Oasis fans have been less cerebral affairs but that's ok. I have been accused on more than one occasion of not being a proper manc because of both my very generic somewhat northern accent and my lack of love for Oasis; but at some point along the line I just stopped caring about my identity in that sense.

"It is then impossible for me, to separate those two things from the experience of listening to their music or to attempt to take it at face value."

I'd normally be inclined to say well try a bit harder then, but I do think Oasis are one of those bands for whom where the music ends and all the other stuff starts is that much harder to discern and compartmentalise. In many ways this is to their credit as it does mark them out as cultural phenomenon as much or more so than musicians,

I've had three listens to try and focus solely on the music and it's kind of confirmed where I was all along. If you listen solely to the music as it is committed to tape they are one thing. If you look more broadly then it and they take on another dimension. I think this is to do with how they tap into certain aspects of communality in music, where less is often more.

"What it has made me appreciate, is that as their debut, their intentions would have been good. Honest guys trying something they felt like."

I think the timing of this album straight after The Jam is good fun. I waxed lyrical about the youthful nature of All Mod Cons, well you can't get a much more youthful outlook than DM so how come I feel quite different about the two albums. I think it's in their vision of what it means to be young and their respective intent, I can get why people love Oasis's take on it but that's just not me as a person. I think there's an irony in that Oasis are in theory the antidote to the musical nihilism of the 90's but in many ways they simply replace it with a swaggering vacuity that is adjacent to that nihilism.
 
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Coatigan said:
You are maybe coming at this as my passing judgement on their music taste. It is not that, it is broader behaviours and personalities, under the identity of Oasis fans, that I have not had the best experience of. The music in that context was a distant overlap, but one where the association has stuck.
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No not really. I’m guessing you are talking about the equivalent of Oasis ‘Swifties’ rather than those that like the band as part of their list of go to bands. I was at a HFB concert that was full of Liam clones all trying to outdo bad behaviour. Is that the type who you are referring to?
 
mancity2012_eamo said:
Amen.
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Just had a look at the BM Jan 2023 Top 100 Poll. RG came 16th so clearly BM has more of a clue than Rolling Stone.

It's quite a fun couple of threads, @OB1 explaining that his 'short' list was at 100 and growing! For comparison, the collective BM wisdom was...

1. Page
2. Hendrix
3. Gilmour
4. EVH
5. Marr
6. Clapton
7. Blackmore
8. Moore
9. Richards
10. Hackett
 
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