UK Music Hall Of Fame: Oasis

[Partridge's Love Child]

I've not checked the thread about this Channel 4 show in General Discussion yet, but I was sat watching it last night and I thought it might be worth having a thread to discuss the various merits of every single nominee rather than having some monster thread where all the arguments get lost.  Perhaps the thread about the show in general can be used to rant about who's been left out, though far be it from me to tell people what to post.  This idea has been given the okay by Neil, so feel free to start threads about the other nominees - you won't get told off or owt.

So, Oasis then?  Whatever you may think of them musically, I don't think you can have a UK Music Hall of Fame without them.  If we dissolve to nine to or ten years ago, the band were an enormous social phenomenon.  Their records flew out of the shop and it seemed like everyone loved them.  I'm quite pleased to say that I have never owned a single Oasis record, and wasn't a massive fan at the time.  However, I do think their success has changed the music scene for at least a decade, and even though I didn't like them, they were a part of something that was very exciting for me.  I think people tend to forget that until the Blur v Oasis mullarkey and the explosion of Britpop circa 1993, we'd not really seen guitar bands be successful since the early 80s.  Obviously there were a few exceptions - U2 shifted a sackful of records (though they didn't have a number 1 single in this country until Desire in 1988) for example, and the odd appearance from "Madchester" bands, but the songs that sold big numbers were largely Stock, Aitken & Waterman pop or dance anthems usually with a sample from the theme tune to a children's television show (I can think of Rubharb and Trumpton just off the top of my head, plus Prodigy [as they were in those days, before they adopted a definite article] released Charlie Says).  Suddenly there were guitar bands everywhere, some of them in retrospect were utter arse, but at the time that wasn't the point.  It was an exciting time to be a long-haired Indie kid, though fashion suggested I should've had it cut and brushed it forward into a bowlish cut.  I didn't - I kept it long for another few years.

Anyway, this isn't about me, it's about Oasis.  I've never rated them as The Greatest Band Ever In The History of Everything, but now the uberhype surrounding them has died into something of a memory I'm happy to pick up the albums and give them as unbiased an appraisal as it's possible to do, which I did a little while ago.  Love them or hate them, I have to admit that they knocked out a good tune back in the day.  I think Definitely Maybe's raw guitar sound is probably their finest work, the likes of Cigarettes & Alcohol and Live Forever have a fine two fingered fuck you to the world - a dirty rock & roll noise from five blokes you probably wouldn't want in your house.  Sadly the two-fingered fuck you seems to be all they were capable of once the dust had settled on What's The Story, Morning Glory, and the sight of two 30 somethings swearing and saying how they're fucking great they fucking are and how no fucking body is as fucking good as they fucking are is a little embarrassing, frankly.  Oh, and Noel - you weren't the biggest band in the world, you were the biggest band in Britain.  The rest of the world never gave a sod.

I was actually present at one of the Knebworth gigs in 1996, and I thought as a live spectacle they were actually rather dull.  All the songs sounded precisely as they do on the record, which means I could've saved a fair few bob and not been wedged in one position for six hours unable to move or sit down between acts by staying at home and putting it on.  The Prodigy (complete with definite article) were the highlight that day and were one hundred times more entertaining than the headliners.

[Borboski]

Yep good idea...

I'm really underwhelmed by them.  Like I've said, I'm well aware that liking them as 15 year old means there forever tainted alongside other choices like No Doubt and Reef... and I'm also massively put off them by the type of comments my mates who don't really like music, but like drinking and nuts and zoo make about them (and robbie williams).

Still, I should judge for their own merits.

That first album certainly had a certain something. Looking back though - what was it? A rallying call? A position? It sounds like a bloody racket now though - I can't think lyrically of anything that's interesting.  That said, I think Noel had a point when I said "we wrote lyrics about having a good time and being young, and I know that sounds a bit trite - but it's that what connected with people".  Well I think there's some truth in that.  But it only goes so far.

I try to imagine if I listened to it now rather than in 1995.  Well, I do think as Partridge as pointed out its easy to forget just how bad pop music was then.  There wasn't even well-manufactured pop - there was just asinine shit like Let Loose and Boyzone, then waves and waves of tepid R and B. Remember Eternal? good god.

So by virtue of just being different, and that punk rock ethic of not having to be particularly talented to make music worth your time, got them very far.

And then they disappeared up their own cracks. Even on the second album there's waves and waves of nonsense.

I do think they were the last great singles album - partly because they treated singles with a bit of respect and put some good tracks on them.

So I think they have one debut album that's fairly listenable (although having said that I can't ever see myself putting it on again - unlike Supergrasses first which is ace) and a selection of early singles. And I know if my kid asks me in the future what i listened to growing up... well I may root him out an Oasis CD, but I don't think I'm particularly likely to.

[Ghost of Troubled Joe]

"What's the Story" was the first album I ever bought, at the tender age of 12. I very much was a Britpop kid, it was exciting to sit down and watch Top of the Pops every week knowing we'd get an Oasis, Blur, Kula Shaker, Suede or Supergrass performance. I was never much of a big fan of "Definitely Maybe" though, always preferred the second album which still today is a just a great fun rock and roll LP in the grand tradition of great fun rock and roll LPs. I mean, the brothers Gallagher disappeared up their own crackholes pretty soon after, I mean, "Be Here Now" is just a festering pile of shit and always will be. I did quite like "Heathen Chemistry" though, there's some good ditties on that.

I mean, in the Britpop era, there were better bands (early Suede and Pulp), but Oasis have that iconic position in the same way the Sex Pistols were the icons of punk, but were never the greatest punk band.