Historically, Oasis are underrated. I can hear the music snobs and try-hards laugh aloud at that. I accept many of the criticisms of the Oasis as a band: they were derivative, increasingly samey and over-hyped. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t brilliant.
There was a period around 1995/6 when it seemed there was a consensus: everyone loved Oasis, they’d triumphed conclusively in the battle of Britpop with Blur, they were very briefly part of the zeitgeist. The Gallagher brothers had a star quality that had been missing in British pop music for ages: Liam had an amazing voice and presence, Noel wrote songs that everyone wanted to sing. The consensus started to fracture with the launch of Be Here Now, maybe the most hyped album release ever and really fell apart with 90s lad culture as Britain became a slightly different place following the death of Diana and the hegemony of New Labour. But for that time – and for their first two albums in particular – Oasis rode a wave of popular admiration that only a few seemed to dissent from.
So where did it all go wrong? Well, I’m not entirely sure it did. They continued to churn out good albums – five more of them, all with good songs on, though not with the pomp and consistency of Definitely Maybe or (What’s The Story?) Morning Glory? But it wasn’t trendy to like Oasis after about 1997; look at any article relating to the Gallaghers on the more painfully cool music sites – from Pitchfork to The Guardian’s music section – and the snide dismissals come rolling in. It is as if some people feel they were tricked for a while in the 90s, but they have maybe forgotten just how explosive Oasis were when they first arrived on the scene.
Definitely Maybe is a near perfect debut – it has a case for being the greatest of all debut albums. There was certainly hype around it, but it absolutely roared along, from Rock n Roll Star to Live Forever to Supersonic, Cigarattes and Alcohol and Slide Away. One storming, life affirming anthem after another. Songs that sounded like they’d always been there, or should be – cue jokes about that being because they were largely stolen. But here’s one reason the lazy ‘bootleg Beatles’ narrative just doesn’t stack up: Noel Gallagher stole from many more than the Fab Four. A riff here, a snatch of melody there – bits of glam rock, bits of The Smiths, Stone Roses and The Jam (and later The Velvet Underground, The Stones and The Kinks). Oasis made an absolute triumph of being magpies: their songs sounded like older songs but with new twists. The production was blinding: everything felt turned up to 10: and the attitude, the old school rock n roll swagger with a dash of 90s irony, just carried the whole thing along. with aplomb.
Morning Glory was equally good; and a progession whatever people say, –Definitely Maybe never really promised songs like Wonderwall, Don’t Look Back In Anger or Champagne Supernova. At this point, even the B-sides are stonking– Round Are Way, The Masterplan and their riotous Slade cover Cum On Feel The Noise all became Oasis classics. The legendary Knebworth gig followed as Oasis cemented their place as the biggest band in the UK for years – and one of the biggest in the world.
The backlash started not long after – we have a weird British tradition of building things up to knock them down. Later albums didn’t have the glorious pomp and assurance of the first two, but they all had stand out songs – and the band remained a magnificent live act. It doesn’t matter anyway. Those first two were the albums that defined the band and the era – and there’s not a lot that retrospective whining can do to change that.
“The lyrics were shit” is the other moan – it might be true that there was an overuse of ‘shine’ and ‘star’ and ‘better day’ as the years went on, but the early stuff has some great words – Round Are Way, Supersonic, Live Forever for example. And as over-played as it is, that line “I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now” has a gorgeousness and wistfulness that we now probably look past. Noel isn’t a great lyricist, but he is often a good one – and a wonderful tunesmith. Liam’s lyrics… well, they got a bit better after Little James
It’s when you hear teenagers at Glastonbury – or indeed, my living room – singing along to Noel’s Oasis hits with gusto, that you realise the new generation has little truck with the naysayers. Oasis songs defined a generation and even in an era where people no longer hear the same music as each other, they’ve crossed over into being pretty universally familiar.
I can accept that there was hype, there was minimal innovation, there was plenty of cheeky theft. I could at one stage have accepted the ‘overrated’ tag – Oasis certainly weren’t Bowie or the Beatles (but who is, apart from Bowie or The Beatles!) But the kids loving Oasis are the backlash to the backlash. The sneering, the sometimes transparent classism and the determination to dismiss the entire catalogue of a band who dominated an era in the way few have, ends up doubling back on itself: Oasis in some quarters, incredibly, are now under rated.
I know this blog will annoy some friends and I’m sure it will undermine any aspirations to being seen as a cool and discerning music fan, so it’s good that I don’t have any. My tastes are wide and eclectic, but will always have space for stomping, swaying anthems you can sing when you’re drunk; for bands with attitude and presence and for melodies that stay with you until they are passed on to your kids. Like it or not, Oasis will live forever.
Rory writes 