Michael Corcoran
American-Statesman Music Critic
In their third album, 'Be Here Now,' the world's best band has attained a certain (no offense meant) consistency
Even when they were so unknown that they had to feud with Blur to get noticed, Manchester, England, band Oasis -- led by a pair of uncouth party yobs named Gallagher -- laid claim to the title of the best band on the planet. On their third album, "Be Here Now," which hits stores today like a ton of neon molasses, the reasons why that's a true boast have become clearer.
Quite simply, Liam Gallagher is an exceptionally instinctive and attractive singer with the power to, as Graham Parker once sang, "turn a cliche into a sensation." Witness his treatment of "All Around the World," with its feel-good lyrics and "Hey Jude"-like chorus, and you can also say he has the ability to turn a Coke commercial into a stirring anthem.
Meanwhile, older brother Noel Gallagher, the band's songwriter and lead guitarist, is an awesome creature of melody with a supersonic guitar drive that, in conjunction with Paul Arthurs' sheets of six-string rhythm and Paul McGuigan's brazen bass lines, gives this pop band its edge. The songs have gotten a little slower and longer, with a more textured sound, but that doesn't make them any less searing and exuberant.
Although there's not much here that matches the melodic jolt of the band's 1994 debut "Definitely Maybe" ("Columbia," "Bring It on Down," "Live Forever") or "Some Might Say" and the title track of their second album "(What's the Story) Morning Glory," there's also nothing as instantly skippable as "Shakermaker," "Up in the Sky" or "She's Electric" from the first two albums. "Be Here Now" is a pleasure-packed journey from the first cut to the last (not counting the pretentious string-laden outro).
Consistency is not a word you'd expect of a band whose songwriter seemingly loves his every burp, and in a way consistency also implies the backhanded compliment "maturity." "Be Here Now" finds Oasis in amore satisfied mood befitting the Gallagher Brothers' new marital states (24-year-old Liam to actress Patsy Kensit, 30-year-old Noel to longtime girlfriend Meg Matthews). To extend the Fab Four comparisons Oasis seems to thrive on -- as evidenced by their use of Beatle titles in song lyrics (the latest: "Down the long and winding road ... back home to you" from "My Big Mouth") -- this album is their "Rubber Soul."
Lyrically, Noel sometimes sports a naive vision of brighter, better days ahead and leans toward the obvious ("Stand By Me," "Don't Go Away," the "Get on the roller coaster/ The fair's in town tonight" intro to "Fade In-Out"), but he writes melody lines that can elevate the simple sentiments into grandiose statements. Hearing Liam wrap himself around the stunningly gorgeous "Don't Go Away," for instance, is to erase every other song that has said the same thing. Then when the singer teeters between a whine and a wail on "My Big Mouth," the album's lone hard rocker, he gives it some much needed bite. And how's this for a slice of autobiography: "Into my big mouth you could fly a plane/ Who'll put on my shoes while they're walking/ Slowly down the hall of fame?"
Besides being one of the most beloved of the newer bands, selling more than 4 million copies of "(What's the Story) Morning Glory," Oasis is also one of the most loathed. Their brash, beer-spilling attitude, mixed with the omnipresence of last year's lighter-than-air hit "Wonderwall," have made them the band that people love to hate. But Oasis generally gets tremendous respect from longtime rockhounds and people in the music industry. Plus, they receive the Johnny Depp seal of hip approval, as the music-crazed actor adds slide guitar to "Fade In-Out."
If you've been listening to rock music daily for decades or for only the past few years, you should be able to hear something special about Oasis. It's pure pop music in the Beatles tradition, but it's rougher and harder to reflect the changing times. The music of Oasis is as direct as a string of "yeah, yeah, yeahs," but it's also dense and evasive. It goes through walls, even with the front door open. It swaggers and it staggers, right back to loving arms.
Oasis is the last great true rock 'n' roll band (opposed to those grand bores like Smashing Pumpkins and U2), and their indelible linkto the first great rock 'n' roll band symbolizes a full circle in the band era. After the Beatles caused hysteria in 1964, thousands and maybe millions of kids went on to start four-piece guitar bands, and the public developed an affinity for these musical teams through the '90s. When Don Henley or Glenn Frey have released solo albums in recent years, for instance, these albums practically go straight to the cut-out bin. But when Henley and Frey call up fellow wash-ups Joe Walsh, Don Felder and Timothy B. Schmitt and call themselves the Eagles, they're soon topping the charts and grossing millions per concert. Fans love bands.
If you watch MTV or listen to modern rock radio, however, doesn't it seem easier to slip into Beavis and Butt-head-like mocking as bands have become increasingly vain and silly, while feigning aggression in their Fabian Cobain compositions? The current crop of rock bands has been sprayed by the pesticide of cynicism, selling their souls for one big hit as some twisted new sort of careerism. It's no wonder that most of the hipper kids these days would rather listen to the electronic apocalypse harkened by the likes of Prodigy and Chemical Brothers.
Fifteen years ago, the same teen-agers looking for something harder, faster would discover Metallica or Anthrax. Nowadays, they're cranking up studio nerds who can't play "Louie Louie" on the guitar. It's getting to be more about the sound than the process, and the idea of lovable lunkheads piling into a van and heading out to play music in the rock-in-a-box clubs of America is starting to seem ludicrous. One wonders how long before rock musicians are held in the low regard we now reserve for mimes.
Right here, right now, Oasis makes 95 percent of the other modern rock music being made sound like well-produced pablum. They've exposed all the tough poseurs by being real jerks, and they've brought personality, no matter how abrasive, back to a rock arena overrun with shave-headed politicians and leather-clad hawkers of sugar water. In the midst of so much personal chaos and turmoil, the brothers Gallagher have found order in their art and in turn have widened the gap between the fabulously mediocre and the truly gifted.
Oasis is a musical wolverine, eating as much as it can from a fresh kill. When they're full and are ready to hang it up, they'll urinate on the rest of the meat so no one else can eat it.