Heathen Sophistry

It is a characteristic seemingly peculiar to the intrinsically miserable people of these rainy isles to relish building something up, only to take greater pleasure in ripping it viciously down again. Footballers tend to be the most easily targeted, and for a good example you need only to go back to 1998, and the frankly horrid treatment meted out to David Beckham after his petulant sending off in the World Cup. 

Fitting this example too, though in a slightly milder manner, is Oasis. Carried on the shoulders of the musical world when they broke through, on the back of some admittedly limp LPs straddling the turn of the millennium all of a sudden it was fashionable to have a pop at Oasis. This theme gained another groundswell last night as Noel Gallagher, with a previously unseen degree of certitude, released a statement to the effect that he was leaving the band. Almost immediately the sniping began, and to be honest it just gets fucking boring. 

To begin with, yes, the Gallaghers are fabulously abrasive, Liam in particular. However, I would say that they are no gobbier than people I know (and maybe I include myself in that), they just are amplified volubly around the world. People ask their opinion, they refuse to respond with some inane soundbite, and then they're attention seeking? Their arrogance and rock n roll antics were once feted, but now they are seen as disgusting. Well to be honest, these are a group of lads from a shithole council estate, from a broken home, who had the world opened up to them for playing some tunes. And then, they had the temerity to enjoy themselves excessively (no one has done THAT in music before) and immediately they're animals. The fact that Noel, especially in recent years, is one of the most interesting, funny and articulate people in the business is by the by. If anything, I admire people that come from a background sort of similar to my own showing such independence and a refusal to conform, then telling the world to do one if they don’t like it. 

As a history graduate, I have had my head filled with revisionism, and I truly believe in the years to come that Oasis albums will get a far better billing. The way everyone measures every LP by the Definitely Maybe yardstick is ridiculous; it was a once upon a time album of utter brilliance that unfortunately won't be repeated. I mean, who'd be in a band and make a genius record when you're going to be hung by it for the rest of your career? The first two go without saying, and as someone who likes The Second Coming (for better or worse) I happen to like Be Here Now too, whose enjoyable largesse is quite typical of a band who had one eye and both nostrils on the dusted mirror, but which still produced some raucously good music. Even the supposedly "weak" albums have their numerous standout moments, and you know other songwriters would've given their eye teeth to have written something as good as “Stop Crying Your Heart Out”, "Little by Little", "Part of the Queue" or "Shock of the Lightning". The most recent albums too showed welcome returns to form, even if the second side of Dig Out Your Soul petered out a little bit. Their live intensity has never wavered either, and this is to say nothing of the bands Oasis have inspired, with personages as august as The Coral, The Killers, Coldplay, Glasvegas, Kasabian and The Arctic Monkeys citing Gallagher and Oasis as great influences. 

Following this then is the claim that Oasis are one dimensional, with the inference that their music is merely for boorish football hooligan types that still scratch their head at the milk on the doorstep in the morning. My answer to that is invariably "So fucking what? Is it not a great dimension"? I LOVE Joy Division, Velvet Underground, Yo La Tengo, Bob Dylan and Radiohead, but you don't always need avant-garde introspective angst, Bertrand Russell references or an album to be recorded in the bowels of an abandoned Romanian monastery for music to be real. Four lads and a genius plug in, turn it up to 11, and produce a visceral, aural assault of great, if occasionally lyrically derelict, songs every time, and that is plenty enough. Noel's lyrics are often derided as empty, but he doesn't claim to be a Dylan or a Curtis. "Wake up the dawn and ask her why/a dreamer dreams she never dies" is one of my favourite Oasis lyrics, and yet I have no idea why! This is not always the case though, as songs like The Masterplan, Cast No Shadow or Talk Tonight, among others, do showcase a truly emotional, lyrical intensity. Someone cleverer than me might suggest that Gallagher's lyrics are existentialist, and require you to imbue them with your own feelings and meaning, but I would never posit something as smart as that - after all, I love Oasis...

The fact of the matter is that those sniping are doing it to fit what they think is the accepted musical opinion, with no real basis. They snigger at Oasis for being dull and uninspiring as they stand there in their trilby hats and houndstooth jackets, trying not to spill their fizzy white wine with a raspberry in it all down themselves as they politely clap onstage some awful insipid shit like The Hoosiers or Metro Station. What can be said is that Oasis meant it, and always will, and Liam Gallagher will soon realise he has lost a truly great songwriter, one that drove this band to the most vertiginous heights. When he looks at his own setlist and sees only Songbird and I'm Outta Time, he might think he should've wound his neck in a bit at times, as he'd just be another mouthy lad on the street if it weren't for his older brother putting some of the finest music in history in front of him to be brilliantly snarled out in that unmistakable manner of his.

In any case, there'll be squabbles, and an undoubtedly excellent solo record from Noel before they all get back together a decade or so from now, and I'll be the uncool dad dragging my unwilling children to see the band that soundtracked me and my friends growing up. They defined a generation and produced some of the finest music the world will ever hear, and there are millions around the world who will agree with me. 

LIVE FOREVER

Read a response to this here...

http://4ortherecord.com/Oasis-Split-Definitely-not-Maybe.html

Words: Paul Madill

Digsy
Posts: 1

Re: Heathen Sophistry : Oasis The Split
Reply #1 on : Mon October 12, 2009, 10:57:42

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Well written, well said. You've put into much better words than I could, my own thoughts! In typical Gallagher esque mode lets just stick two fingers up to those that criticise the band, and now rejoice in their demise.

The greatest Brit-pop band of the nineties. Full stop.

29 August 2009 will go down as a sad day in British musical history.

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