The Album Review Club - Week #145 - (page 1923) - Tellin' Stories - The Charlatans

[Marklr]

I got Defo Maybe about a year after it came out. I was quite late to them.
Oasis were never "MY" band, "MY" bands were the local bands I got into but weren't that known yet, so I felt like i was experiencing Oasis from the outside looking in. Also, I'd become quite a heavy drinker in the mid to late 90s, so I'd lost interest...for the price of a CD, I could get 10 cans of strong lager!
But i still liked Oasis...just the first two albums, though. And many of the B-sides...
This is the first time I've heard this album as a whole. I already liked the songs... Where's Round Are Way? Was that not a b-side? Top tune.
This album is better than a lot of the Britpop band's BEST albums. Gotta be an 8 from me.
"it doesn't matter if it's outa tune..."!

 

[Marklr]

Just listening to "Half the World Away"...I'm now off to make a brew, a nice joint, and I'm gonna watch The Royle Family. One of those reaction vids channels you get on YouTube. Some guy called After Work Reactions. Some Black American guy watches all the UK series recommended to him...and we watch him watching them. It's the Royle Family tonight. Last night was The League of Gentlemen!! He loves them all...totally gets the humour. Watched every single Only Fools and Horses from the first to last. What the fuck that has to do with Oasis....
Nice this marsh-mellow.

 

[crublue1]

Just listening to "Half the World Away"...I'm now off to make a brew, a nice joint, and I'm gonna watch The Royle Family. One of those reaction vids channels you get on YouTube. Some guy called After Work Reactions. Some Black American guy watches all the UK series recommended to him...and we watch him watching them. It's the Royle Family tonight. Last night was The League of Gentlemen!! He loves them all...totally gets the humour. Watched every single Only Fools and Horses from the first to last. What the fuck that has to do with Oasis....
Nice this marsh-mellow.

If we ever have a music club meet, can you do the "catering" ?

 

[Marklr]

If we ever have a music club meet, can you do the "catering" ?

Tea, one sugar?

 

[BimboBob]

To be fair @BimboBob , this is my favourite review of this album thus far........... :-)

I tried. I really did. I listened to it all 3 times today. And it irritated the hell out of me.

2 styles of song. Start slow and then get nasally. Or start big and nasally before staying nasally.

It's just bang average.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

“Hello, Glasgow police? I’d like to report a murder. Yes, I’ve found a cover version of ‘I Am The Walrus’ lying dead on the floor covered in blood, surrounded by empty Carling bottles and cigarette ashes.”

Ok, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s move on.

There’s nothing small about Oasis, like there’s nothing small about U2, or Stone Temple Pilots (or most “super groups”) or (especially) Boston. All were built nearly from the beginning for arenas that seat 17K. As such, one needs big songs that thunder and echo and explode with hooks and a vocalist who is declamatory and can hold a sustain (and writes simple rhymes everyone can understand and remember). Since arena bands don’t keep filling or playing arenas unless they keep writing, publishing and selling good arena songs, we don’t typically get to hear those tunes that weren’t deemed big enough. On The Masterplan we do.

“Acquiesce” and “Fade Away” don’t count — they are standouts that sound like big Oasis, though a bit chalkier and not as hooky. But a lot of this sounds smaller — not like a jam band in a club, but like, say, some band who’s opening for Belle & Sebastian in a 2,000 chair hall. In the case of “The Swamp Song”, they’re opening for, uh, Phish I guess. But “Going Nowhere” and “Talk Tonight” and “Half The World Away” feel much more grounded and quiet and almost like a different band.

Beyond “Acquiesce” (my fave here), there’s enough “regular” Oasis to make me happy too. When Liam slips into those classic Liam conversational note shifts mid line that he invented and that sound so good (“I try to make a / Better daaayyyy” on “Rockin’ Chair”) it’s just so hard for my ears not to succumb. “Listen Up” works too, even with the first ten seconds sounding exactly like “Supersonic”.

Now these are B sides. There’s no concept here, other than — let’s be honest — milking the fans overseas who buy albums and not singles, and being pretty confident they can get by on brand and sound alone and not songs, which they can (and apparently did given how much this sold). This isn’t “great” Oasis, but when your junk is good enough to build a credible record, you’re a pretty decent listen.

This is a 6/10 record for me, but I’m officially posting 5/10. It sounds low, but please note — I docked them a point for the aforementioned criminal butchering of that corpulent, tusked Arctic creature. RIP.

 

[crublue1]

I tried. I really did. I listened to it all 3 times today. And it irritated the hell out of me.

2 styles of song. Start slow and then get nasally. Or start big and nasally before staying nasally.

It's just bang average.

To be fair it's quite good to read a review from someone who knows a bit about music, but doesn't like oasis.
Fair play Bob, you had a go.

 

[Bill Walker]

I tried. I really did. I listened to it all 3 times today. And it irritated the hell out of me.

2 styles of song. Start slow and then get nasally. Or start big and nasally before staying nasally.

It's just bang average.

Actually Bob you have summed up my feelings about Oasis.
I'm just not a fan. There's a few decent songs here but no variance.
No musical subtlety for me I'm afraid.
Too derivative of 60s pop. I like Half the World Away but sounds too much like a certain Burt Bacharach song.

And yes, nasally...
My apologies Oasis fans.
4/10

 

[Onholiday(somemightsay)]

To be fair it's quite good to read a review from someone who knows a bit about music, but doesn't like oasis.
Fair play Bob, you had a go.

Exactly.........

 

[Onholiday(somemightsay)]

I tried. I really did. I listened to it all 3 times today. And it irritated the hell out of me.

2 styles of song. Start slow and then get nasally. Or start big and nasally before staying nasally.

It's just bang average.

To be fair mate, no-one can levy lack of effort at you if you listened to an album that you don't look like 3 times in a day.

Fair play to you.........