Brothers Grim in Crap Record Shock (Be Here Now - Oasis)

Name: dave27

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Product:	Be Here Now - Oasis
Date:	19.08.02 (159 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The first track

Disadvantages: They were crap

Eh, such nice boys, the Gallaghers, good steadfast Manchester stock with their parka jackets and National Health specs - good t'their Mum and everything...

Apparently they had some sort of band, called Oasis or some such malarkey and they got paid for making records, they did. They had a couple in the charts, so they did - heard they were called Definitely Mebbe and Morning Glory, then they went away for a while on a bit of a holiday and when they came back, they made another album, what t'kids of today call 'long awaited' it were, but then something very funny happened - everyone hated the buggers and din't buy the record - fair knocked 'em back it did - and they were such nice boys, 'n'all - ah well, I'm off t'the Legion for a pint of Mild - 'appen I'll see Neil and Ian down there and we can hear them do t'Karaoke - evenin' all...

... in which they who what were once world beaters became reviled, bloated rock stars with big houses and egos to match...


When Noel and Liam Gallagher and their band first emerged on an unsuspecting world, they were just what rock needed - unkempt, ugly, hurtful big headed bastards who didn't care and let you know it. They had a nice line in Beatles licks and hard lyrics and stormed the gates in a big way - few bands have enjoyed the success they experienced so quickly, and their first two albums went stratospheric - for a time they were the biggest rock stars on the planet, then came 1997 and Be Here Now, a year in the planning, one massive No 1 single, and then - nothing. The world had learned to do without the Gallaghers and found their offering less than addictive.

The issue of Be Here Now marked the end of Oasis as the all conquering destroyer of myths and pretences and the start of Oasis as meaningless rock whores whose Beatle-copyist tendencies finally got the better of them. Do not buy this album, it is not worth the packagin
g in which it comes, be warned, Don't Be Here Now, or be cuboid, man...

61 and a half minutes of abject indulgence and naff songs, that is all you will get with Be Here Now...

Things actually kick off in quite promising style with D'You Know What I Mean? the massive hit single with which Oasis announced their return, and a classic piece of Oasis Rock, as good as anything they have ever done, with evocative helicopters and a great video, which we came to know and care for on Top of the Pops, the sort of singalonga footie stadium chant that the Gallaghers always threatened to produce. Wonderwall was actually far better equipped and loved, but this would do very nicely indeed, with its impeccable vocal performance from Liam and rolling, battering lead guitar lines from Noel - God, they were so bloody, bloody COOL... you could even forgive them for their quasi religious words - "I met my maker, I made him cry, and on my shoulder he asked me why, his people won't fly through the storm, I said 'listen up man, they don't even know you're born' " - Lennon's 'we were bigger than Jesus' brought very much up to date with the Gallaghers as messiahs for the 90's. The track finishes with lots of self indulgent, self consciously arty effects and treatments, and we know from the instant that the boys couldn't leave it alone and just see this song as an honest to goodness tight rock masterpiece that the number was up. It made you cringe with its prophetic, self importance...

When the big band heavy metal licks of My Big Mouth moved us on, not self deprecation, but the Beatles on acid and all fuzzed up guitar buzzsaw noise underpinning Liam's vocal hook. It sounded okay, alright, but there was nothing here of any real substance, just a load of distorted guitar licks with Noel doing his best Robin Trower goes punk, and again the messiah spoke - "I ain't never spoke to God and I ain&#
39;t never been to heaven, but you assumed I knew the way" - come on, Noel lighten up, you're trying too hard.

The largely acoustic and more bluesy opening of Magic Pie was a bit more like IT, the change of pace we'd found so compulsive on Definitely Maybe, but this soon became just another slab of unhappy, unloved, unfeeling heavy metal, and again the self regard - "An extraordinary guy can never have an ordinary day" - well, who says so Noel, certainly not us, as the soaring guitar paints the band desperately into its self indulgent corner - "D'you dig my friends? D'you dig my shoes?" - a great deal more than your songs, pal... oh and the self consciously matey 'Shut up' at the end and plink plonk piano don't cut much ice with me, you can't sound rough as a bear's ass any more if you wanted to.

Stand By Me is quite a bit better, more singalonga Oasis with anthemic chorus, nice (if heavy metallish) guitar, a feel not unlike the sublime Some Might Say and a less self assured set of words - "If you're leaving will you take me with you I'm tired of talking on my phone" (aah, but then you went and spoiled it) "There is one thing I can never give you, my heart can never be your home" (No, I know Noel, you're going to be a very sad and lonely old man, but at least you'll have some nice guitars to talk to and you can make them sing the blues). Oh yeah, the background strings were a mistake too...

I Hope, I Think, I Know - pass, more whinging rock star rock with trite words-by-numbers and self-loving harmonies, give me a break...

The Girl In The Dirty Shirt - halfway decent, nice change of tempo here, but still only halfway there, mind, it's just too bloody predictable. It lasts nearly six minutes but feels like thirty when two would have been plenty, why let a tune go when you can milk it all night?

Fade In-Out - nice opening,
for about thirty seconds or so, building up to something special, nice chunka chunka acoustic strums, Liam's nasal twang declaiming as only he could, yeah, like this, but 6:52, do me a favour, four at a push. Still, nice understated number, very reminiscent of Sympathy For The Devil-era Stones, 'cept with less charm. Oh, no, three minutes in and them crazy heavy metal guitars are back...

Don't Go Away - lovely guitar intro from Noel, with a great tone and feeling, some nice acoustic bits, some more decent vocals from Noel, but what's this in the background? Them same cack handed, self important strings, why do that, boys? Drags on a bit too, although at 4:48 is one of the shorter tracks here.

Be Here Now - title track time and a bit of a corker, just like they used to make in the old days, even got the Beatles reference again - "Sing a song for me, one from Let It Be" - yeah, I'll give them this one, with its neato guitar lick and rambling, rolling mood, just about untogether enough to love.

All Around The World - from the nearly sublime to the totally ridiculous, 9:20 of absolute Oasis-by-numbers, with absurd, appalling sing along anthemic chorus, but this time a totally naff one. Oasis murdered Quo with Let Me Roll It, and this is just like the denim-sters with strings - Living On An Island, I bloody wish you lot were - this is the worst thing that Oasis have ever done, total bilge which they should be ashamed of.

It's Gettin' Better (Man!!) - more Status Quo gone heavy metal, leaden footed pap with some 'COOL' words but not much else, like the rhythm section murdering a dog with a brick this just grates and goes nowhere, but at least while it last you don't need to be listening to the two minute reprise of that All Around The World crap which finishes this album.


And there it goes - when you haven't listened to this album in a long time, you can feel your
self hoping it wasn't actually as bad as you thought at the time, but believe me it is. Three and a half decent enough tracks leave you weeping at how decent this album could have been, but there are too many strings, too many heavy metal guitars, too much stodgy, pedestrian rock and roll, too much self regard and belief in Oasis as MYTH, a symbol for the triumph of rock - the death of rock, more like, and certainly the end of Oasis as anything worth listening to... can you hear that noise in the background, it's the creak of the Gallagher's credibility disappearing into Rick Parfitt's coffin...

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