Some might say that standing on the shoulders of giants isn't all it's cracked up to be ((What's The Story) Morning Glory? - Oasis)

Member Name: dave27

Product:	(What's The Story) Morning Glory? - Oasis
Date:	24/10/02 (538 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brilliant songs, Great performance, Tremendous vocals

Disadvantages: None

After the startling adrenaline rush of the debut Definitely Maybe album, Oasis could look down on much else of the musical landscape with a certain amount of smug satisfaction, safe in the knowledge that if they were never to release another single product they had already marked themselves out a decent page whenever the history of great rock music is eventually written.

However, for the Gallagher brothers one page just wouldn't be enough. They had set their sights high and they aspired to be nothing less than the new Beatles, as long lasting and magnificent as the marvellous Merseymen. Except the Beatles had a surprisingly short period in which to make their indelible mark. From Please Please Me to the posthumous Let It Be album in 1970 was just eight short years in which they achieved a status far beyond anything which had preceded them, literally dwarfing anything else around them.

Speed of record making slowed down drastically over the years as the artistry of the recording studio became the real key and Oasis were as guilty as the rest of fiddling while Rome burns, eager to fully exploit the new capabilities that lay before them and committed to creating the perfect record. All the same it was only a little more than twelve months when they were ready to release the follow up to their critically acclaimed first album.

However, time passes oddly in the music business and it felt more like a decade had gone by when they booked in for another sojourn in the dark underground bunker, this time foregoing the grime of their native Madchester for the more restful climes of Rockfield Studios at Gwent in South Wales.

A lot of water had passed under the bridge since the release of Definitely Maybe. The Gallaghers had become firmly ensconced on the front pages and gossip columns of the gutter press with their high profile bad boy behaviour. Original drummer Tony McCarroll had departed the band in a haze of bad feeling and resen
tment, prompting a long running sore of a financial dispute, to be replaced by Alan White. Bassist Paul McGuigan went through his own difficult period when he seemed to be on his way out of the band. And yet above all the sniping Oasis continued to produce startling music, with the astonishing and grimy beauty of the Some Might Say single thundering its way to the top of the charts and into the nation's collective hearts.

Apart from White, the rest of the line up was the same as that on Definitely Maybe, although Some Might Say was recorded when McCarroll was still around, and Paul Weller, Noel's spiritual godfather featured on lead guitar and backing vocals on Champagne Supernova.

Completing the line up alongside Liam (vocals), Noel (lead guitar, vocals, mellotron, piano and E bow), McGuigan (bass) and White (drums and percussion) was Paul Arthurs who contributed rhythm guitar, mellotron and piano.

One clue to the sound of the album was the presence of the mellotron in the credits of both Noel and Bonehead. The machine, which had been popularised by Rick Wakeman and Yes in the 1970's, was a notoriously mellow and poppy contributor, so one could have feared the worst for the hard edged appeal that Oasis had engendered with Definitely Maybe. However, it was Shakermaker from that first album which was more the thematic root, for the huge, booming, adorable glam rock sound of that particular song which oozed through every pore of Morning Glory, evoking the good old platform soled days of the early 70's and such dubious giants as Slade, Gary Glitter and Suzi Quatro as the more normally quoted influence of John Lennon.

Morning Glory was one truly glorious splash of glam rock colour and verve with many of the tricks and licks filched wholesale from Noddy Holder, Dave Hill and the former Paul Raven. However, Oasis have never been mere copyists. They may have plundered the vaults for their inspiration but they have a
lways breathed new fire and energy into what they have found there, stamping them as very much their own. It is relatively easy to spot the references on the album (most notably with Hello, a bizarrely noticeable adaptation of Glitter's Hello Hello I'm Back Again, although shorn of the camp raised eyebrow and imbued with an unashamedly male flicked V sign), but for all that this album is one hugely enjoyable romp. It may not have the naive enthusiasm and grit of the first set, but it is packed from stem to stern with colour, life and powerful songs, energetically performed. And it also contains the fragile and intensely beautiful Wonderwall...

Unfortunately, Be Here Now, the messy, unsatisfactory dross which eventually succeeded Morning Glory, saw an end to the sure touch of the Gallaghers and captured a band obsessed with both themselves and the Beatles legend rather than making strong music. However, that was a story to come, and for the moment at least Morning Glory was truly a wonder to behold.

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Hello
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How dare they! How dare they! The ghosts of Gary Glitter and Noddy Holder will be turning in their grave at the very idea of Noel Gallagher ransacking their back catalogues to create this effortless celebration of all that was right about the glam rock period. I loved Slade for a period when I was a teenager and remember getting extremely excited when they brought out the Flame album and movie and this song captures perfectly the essence of all the reasons why with a telling lift of the theme from Far Far Away. The usual criticism is that they copped the chorus from GG's Hello Hello I'm Back Again, but there's only a passing similarity apart from the words, whereas you can fee Holder, Lea, Hill and Powell shaking their booties to this one.



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Roll With It
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If Hello was rooted firmly in the history of the W
olverhampton skinheads, then Roll With It owes its allegiances to the brainless three chord thrash of Status Quo in the period when they had no trouble creating Top Three singles. Consequently, I cannot feel quite the same sense of adoration for this song as many of the others on Morning Glory, but that's when I'm in my less charitable moods. You can't listen to Oasis songs without playing spot the reference point and ripped off lick and that creates quite a strange kind of tension. The familiarity breeds pleasure, but the horror at the shame faced thievery of it all never lets you altogether forgive the magpies of rock. Still at least they pick their influences with a daring degree of taste and judiciousness.



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Wonderwall
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BLISS.

That gorgeous strummed acoustic opening is like nothing else before or since. The big empty feeling on the opening of this song as Liam and Noel play off each other to perfection is almost perfect, setting the scene expertly for the sheer elegant emotion of what is to follow. Wonderwall is one of the most classic hit singles of all time, and certainly the best song that has ever been chanted round the terraces at Manchester City's Maine Road.

Rarely have strings and brushed drums been more adroitly deployed on a rock song and the sense of timeless majesty which drips over from the grooves here cannot fail to touch you in all the right spots. Liam's plaintive, thrilling vocal sends shivers down my spine to this very day.

If ever you get the chance to watch the MTV video that accompanies this epic cherish the moment. As I write this listening to this marvellous song I just cannot resist sending it off again. I will never tire of Wonderwall and its emotional treasure chest. "Today it's gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you..." SHEEREST, SHEEREST BLISS.



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Don't Look Back In Anger
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Big Imagine-like Lennon piano chords open this blistering hit single, with Noel for once taking responsibility for the vocal honours. It's stereotypical, balladeering Oasis with enormous, flaring lead guitar lines and hugely memorable chorus, although its nose is so far up Mr Lennon's bottom that only the feet are showing: "I started a revolution from my bed", indeed. Unfortunately, I never considered this to be one of the band's better singles, but tucker away here on this album it makes absolute sense. "Please don't put your life in the hands of a rock and roll band and throw it all away." I'm not sure why not on the strength of this great number, despite all my misgivings.



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Hey Now!
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Chunky heavy metal guitar rhythm and lead fire us on up and this feels distinctly like the Mop Tops singing Twist and Shout at 25 rpm. At least it would if I wanted to be hypercritical. As I don't I'll say instead that it's another great song, less well celebrated than some of the others here, but to my mind well good enough with its rambling up and down feel and assured way with dynamics. "Feel no shame." I second that emotion.



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A brief instrumental interlude, but nothing to get worked up about. Like a quick drawing of breath before we're away again.



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Some Might Say
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Slow paced My Friend Stan guitar and shimmering tambourine combine nicely for one of the ultimate Oasis singles. Its reminiscence to Slade when they had completely forgotten how to spell properly is eerily disturbing, but then you start to go with the flow and find a smile playing across your features. That devilishly addictive chorus and Liam's captivating passion remov
es all trace of doubt as they kick out all the jams. I really adore this song and will always recall it as one of my favourite pieces from the band.



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Cast No Shadow
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Characteristic strummed acoustic guitar opens the piece before the soaring electric and sky bound mellotron pick up the mood. This is a yearning, slower paced epic which stretches over almost five wonderful minutes. Noel has always loved the big, booming anthemic numbers and that particular approach caught him out once or twice too often on Be Here Now. He managed more economy and taste on Morning Glory and where much of the stuff on the later album was overplayed, overwrought and over stretched, Cast No Shadow is quite mellow perfection which a wonderful, almost unaccompanied vocal on the chorus. "As they took his soul, they stole his pride" sings Liam, but here both pride and soul remain wonderfully intact.



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She's Electric
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Filling the place of Married With Children from Definitely Maybe, She's Electric is the small time, sing alonga fireside number from this album, and every bit as good as the former was in the old running order. Noel's guitar on this song, resembling nothing so much as Lonnie Donegan's skiffle magnificence, is tremendous, while you get the assembled hordes cooing along in the background, like Harrison and McCartney in their prime while Liam does his best version of Sergeant Pepper-era Lennon in the foreground. It's quite simply lovely and would have fitted in sweetly alongside When I'm 64 and Lovely Rita from that archetypal 1967 album, even down to the AAH AAH AAH backing vocals on the fade out. Brilliant.



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Morning Glory
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The album's title track is ushered in with radio interference; helicopters, far off distorted guitar chords and all
round meaningful bits before Gallagher and Co kick in with power chords and chunky rhythms, pleading for your involvement. The whole thing is gorgeously addictive with more power pop anthemic qualities than you can usefully shake a stick at. Liam's vocal is every bit as powerful and seductive as it has ever been giving that weird impression of him being trapped somewhere off in the middle distance, using a bullhorn to make himself heard over the din. The five minutes taken by this track are among the best on the album.



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Thirty nine seconds of filler jamming with Noel wearing his Jimi head don't amount to anything worth commenting on, but at least they kept things short.



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Champagne Supernova
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More atmospheric opening seconds, this time with the romantic sound of the tide rushing in and lovely acoustic guitar, before Liam is away with his urgent question "Where were you while we were getting high? Someday you will find me, caught beneath the landslide in a champagne supernova, a champagne supernova in the sky." This particular song is as late-Beatle-ish as anything here, but is genuinely great, a big brash, almost drug induced trip to somewhere very nice indeed. It rolls on and on and on, taking you gleefully with it, atop Noel's effortlessly compulsive lead guitar licks. Now if they could just have avoided that clumsy reference to a cannonball, whose only point in life seems to be to provide a suitable rhyme for "slowly walking down the hall", then this song might have been absolutely perfect. As it is, it certainly does cook and provide a fitting run down to a brilliant album.

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