Oasis redux
Apr. 26th, 2010 01:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johncomicI've heard it said that Be Here Now was one of the major catalysts for the collapse of Britpop -- namely, that it was a shambling self-indulgent mess arriving at a time when the masses wanted the Second Coming and anything short of the Second Coming would have disappointed them utterly. In a sense, it was very much like the anticipation of the second Stone Roses album: people's expectations were raised so high that nothing could've lived up to them...
Anyhoo, listening to Be Here Now today, I find that the songs on it are actually quite good. The problems with them are twofold:
1) the songs are buried under so many layers of loud that it's hard to hear their hooks and merits as clearly as on, say, Definitely Maybe
2) most of them overstay their welcome -- which Oasis always had some tendency toward (Columbia, anyone?) but this time it affected pretty much every track
But if this album was stripped of its overdub clutter and extended codas, and made tight and neat, I think those songs would shine. As good as Morning Glory? Maybe. As good as Definitely Maybe? Probably. The raw material of the songs is not the problem with this album.
Even so, I'm still not sure that this would have staved off the collapse of Britpop -- at least, not for long...
Anyhoo, listening to Be Here Now today, I find that the songs on it are actually quite good. The problems with them are twofold:
1) the songs are buried under so many layers of loud that it's hard to hear their hooks and merits as clearly as on, say, Definitely Maybe
2) most of them overstay their welcome -- which Oasis always had some tendency toward (Columbia, anyone?) but this time it affected pretty much every track
But if this album was stripped of its overdub clutter and extended codas, and made tight and neat, I think those songs would shine. As good as Morning Glory? Maybe. As good as Definitely Maybe? Probably. The raw material of the songs is not the problem with this album.
Even so, I'm still not sure that this would have staved off the collapse of Britpop -- at least, not for long...
