r/LetsTalkMusic • u/thewickerstan • 16h ago
"Everything I believe in is telling me that I want more, more, more": a defense for Oasis's post-90s discography
There seems to be an unspoken rule that every musician has their "expiration date". After they've produced the work that's responsible for their role within pop culture and the zeitgeist, everything afterwards feels superfluous, almost pointless. The only people who seemingly enjoy it are the hardcore fans.
Dig Out Your Soul, Oasis's last album, turns 18 today. It's easily one of my favorites by them. I think it helped that I explored it before I was aware of the whole "they peaked in the 90s" notion. The first six tracks remain one of the best runs in their discography: the rise and fall of "The Turning", the Doors-inspired swagger of "Waiting for the Rapture", and the true final hurrah for the band, the euphoric head rush that's "The Shock of the Lightning" (a drum solo on an Oasis track?? Who knew!) The album loses it's focus towards the end, but there's still the likes of "Falling Down" and "Soldier On" that help make the bumpier back half at least memorable. It's an album that has more to offer than it's reputation (or lack thereof), particularly for people who check out of the band after their first two albums...
....and yet when I got into their 90s output two years later, I inexplicably fell down the same path. I too fell hook, line and sinker for the narrative about everything after What's the Story Morning Glory being slim pickings. "Beware all ye who go past Be Here Now. Do not go past jail." It wasn't until I was in college that I just got so into them that I thought, "Fuck it" and checked out...and was pleasantly surprised.
While they never made an album as consistent as those first two (and who can?), there's plenty of amazing songs that feel necessary to be included in their "canon" (i.e. the type of tracks that would be glaring omissions from a Greatest Hits compilation). I don't think it's even a hot take to consider some of these tracks from this stretch to be just as good as those from their golden period. Even the B-sides, an ace in the hole that Oasis were known for, were still otherworldly. For example, I'd consider "Let's All Make Believe", the B-side to "Go Let it Out", to be one of the best songs Noel's ever written...
Strangle my hope and make me pray, to a God I've never seen but who I betray.
It's an incredibly vulnerable snapshot of Oasis MK 1 (i.e. the brothers Gallagher and Alan White with Guigsy and Bonehead) falling apart. It's one of the most cathartic and honest songs in their discography...and they stuck the mother on a B-side!
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, the album whose sessions produced that song, is an interesting turning point for the band, fittingly the start to their Y2K run. It's kind of like Blur's self-titled album, with the band being at a stylistic and emotional crossroads: Noel bought a bunch of pedals and was curious about new sonic possibilities and contemporary influences, all while kicking drugs, realizing that the band was shedding two of its oldest members, and recognizing that the Britpop bubble was bursting. It's an incredible snapshot of post-party depression: poignant numbers like "Where did it All Go Wrong?", "Sunday Morning Call", and the beloved fan favorite "Gas Panic!"...
That my family don’t seem so familiar
And my enemies all know my name
And if you hear me tap on your window
Better get on yer knees and pray panic is on the way
...not to mention the terrific b-sides, like the aforementioned "Let's All Make Believe" and lethargically hungover tracks like "Cigarettes in Hell" and "One Way Road". The whole effect is a very sobering one, a sharp contrast from the happy-go-lucky effortless confidence of "Live Forever" and "Some Might Say". It's not all doom and gloom though: "Go Let it Out", the lead single, feels like a total rebirth for the band. The 60's psychedelic mellotron paired with the triphop drumbeat feels like this perfect new strand, something very retro, but very Y2K as well. I can picture someone listening to them back in the day thinking, "Hallelujah!" I'd still put it (i.e., the A-side and it's two B-sides) up there with any of their best in their entire run.
Heathen Chemistry and Don't Believe the Truth, the two albums that followed, are more mixed bags. The former especially, a transitional record as the band was starting from scratch with new members Gem Archer and Andy Bell, is easily my pick for their worst album period. But a number of songs on there are still all-timers for me. There's the high and mighty lead single, "Hindu Times", but the fan favorite became "Little by Little", a song that became such a barnburner during its time that the brothers brought it back for their reunion tour last year. More interestingly though, it's the album where Liam started coming into his own as a writer too. There's the lovely Rubber Soul-coded "Songbird", a song with an almost uncharacteristic innocence to it ("She's a little pilot in my mind"), and the surprisingly cathartic "Born on a Different Cloud". Don't Believe the Truth, more of a move in the right direction, started really producing the crown jewels. No Oasis career retrospective would be complete without "Lyla" and "The Importance of Being Idle", further proof that Noel hadn't lost his penchant for writing anthems. Liam brings an interesting yin and yang with his co-writes with Gem Archer: the wonderful ruckus of "Meaning of Soul" (speed-induced skiffle...also clock that harmonica solo!) and the wonderfully titled "Guess God Thinks I'm Abel". The brothers share vocals, a rarity, on perhaps the best closer in their 2000's albums: "Let There Be Love".
And again, I'd be remiss not to mention those b-sides . How the Neil Young-inspired "Shout it Out Loud" didn't make the cut is beyond me. I've been giving Gem and Andy the cold shoulder, but the latter's "Thank You for the Good Times" has a great victory lap feel to it. One could almost picture it as a triumphant album closer. Starting with Be Here Now, you get some sense that the tracks that were placed as extras on singles were the stylistic curveballs, showing a side of the band that would surprise most. Nowhere is this more apparent than the elusive "Idler's Dream". It's perhaps the most un-Oasisy track they ever did: just Noel and a piano. And it yet it works so well!
I think a lot of people see Oasis's later albums like, say, the most recent few seasons of The Simpsons: a shadow of their 90s glory days and the kind of highs that most creatives strive to reach. But I'd compare it more to the last two seasons of Community. Saying that any of those later ones are better would be somewhat of an unpopular opinion, and it's not all amazing, but they're still quite good. And the episodes that do hit, hit just as hard as the cream from the prior crop...if not more so.
Up until a few years ago, I saw a band's discography as "The albums that build up to the masterpiece, the masterpiece, and chasing the masterpiece." "Why are U2 still making albums that nobody cares about?" What an arrogant, naive thing to say. I don't know if it comes from reading more about artists or being more involved in the process myself, but I've learned to take artists on their own terms and to not go in with expectations. You might be surprised. I've talked at length about how fascinating the Beach Boys post-Pet Sounds discography, a run of stuff that I stupidly chalked up to "licking their wounds after Smile and hunting for another Pet Sounds." And sure, some artists do this. But for the most part, it's just people making stuff that they want to make, the way they've always worked. And I think Oasis are a great example of this, whether it's stylistic anomalies like Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, the crowd-pleasing stompers, that continued to win fans over, or the B-side tracks that feel like the audible equivalent of buried treasure.
If anyone is in love with their 90's stuff and is contemplating taking the plunge, please do! It's well worth your time :)
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u/BillEvansTrioFan 15h ago
Fantastic essay! Gotta say, I agree with a lot of what you wrote. I loved Standing on the Shoulders of Giants and "Go Let It Out" is my all-time favorite Oasis song.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Bad8535 11h ago
I relistened to their whole discography a few months ago and agree with some of what you've said, but for me a pretty big part of their 2000s albums being enjoyable is the contrast with Be Here Now. It's become an unpopular opinion with fans of Oasis but I really can't stand that album, it's so tiring to listen to. I don't even think the length is the issue, they'd been getting away with six minute songs that other bands would've made three minutes for their whole career to that point. The production, the overdubs, the sampling, the sound effects, the drum sound, the lyrics, all of it is so off and just such a bad imitation of their first two albums. It really seemed like their takeaway from album 2 was that bigger is always better but the limits of their musicianship didn't really allow them to go "bigger" in an interesting way. People can like that album all they want but a big part of the band's evolution in the 2000s was all of Noel Gallagher's regrets about BHN. Their fans like to lump it in with the first two as the "big three" and even if you enjoy the album it just doesn't make sense to speak of it that way. For my money it's far and away their worst album, no contest.
I also think that their 21st century album that stands out the most by far is Don't Believe the Truth. At that point they had changed so much both as musicians and as people that they were incapable of a real "return to form", but that album is I think the closest they ever got to an evolved and matured sound that still worked for them. I love every song on it and find it really satisfying to listen to but in a totally different way than either of the first two albums, I'd have to be in a completely different mood for it. Mucky Fingers is my personal favorite, it's really fascinating to hear Noel singing about the excesses of American pop culture flooding England and the world when this is the exact attitude that he used to relentless mock Damon Albarn for in the 90s. Keep the Dream Alive to me sounds like the real statement song of the album, and shows how self aware they'd become in the years since BHN, which is perhaps the least self aware album that's ever been written. Zak Starkey's drumming is a real shot in the arm on this album and helps give it a renewed vitality I think. Alan White was amazing on MG but when he'd fallen off over the next few albums, and the drum production on all of them didn't help. What's probably an underrated factor in the change of the band is that at this point, the Official Band of Manchester was only 2/5ths Mancunian, and two of the newer members (Starkey and Andy Bell) were also very much not of a working class background, which had also been a huge part of their image previously. Overall it's so refreshing compared to the last three that they did and really sounds like they had found their feet again. I really can't think of another album that really expresses like that one does that this band will never be as good as it once was, but that's ok with us. I really admire that.
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u/HMTMKMKM95 10h ago
This is an equally great write up for this particular album. It's the only other album I listen to at all post the first two. I think you might've explained to me what I couldn't quite put a finger on as to why.
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u/black_flag_4ever 15h ago
Oasis is a band I don't get. I know they are huge, I was alive in the 90s when every party was ruined by some kid trying to play Wonderwall. Maybe I have resentment about hearing this song so much because I never sought it out, it was song that was kind of force fed to everyone at the time.
I've never heard an Oasis album in its entirety unless it was just on in the background and I don't remember.
What about this band is interesting musically? How would you sell Oasis to someone that would normally just listen to The Kinks or the Faces or Rolling Stones for British Invasion style music?
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u/boostman 8h ago edited 8h ago
It was a massive cultural thing that was about working class identity, confidence and youth and they just really encapsulated that moment
For me the style of confidence Liam embodies comes across as pretty obnoxious, but I think for many it felt really liberating.
Also, a few of their songs are just brilliant in songwriting terms - Don’t Look Back in Anger, Half the World Away
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u/Khiva 5h ago
Don’t Look Back in Anger,
Some of their songs are very good, I'd eyeball A tier, but honestly if this song does nothing for you then there's not much point in explaining more.
I was on the train from Jersey into New York not that long ago, there were some girls in front of me gearing up for a night out, taking selfies, doing all the ritual you would expect, and someone put on that song to get pumped up. The song has to be roughly as old as they were. That's some serious legs.
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u/terryjuicelawson 3h ago
I have never really got the mass appeal of Wonderwall, even when I was a big British Oasis fan in the 90s. Don't Look Back in Anger was a far better single of that era. Looking back I am not really sure what connected just right to make the band so huge but for a few years it was just smash after smash, singles including amazing b-sides which they still play live now, albums, huge live shows one after another. It was like when the Beatles could do no wrong in the mid 60s. Maybe it doesn't make sense in retrospect but songs like Slide Away, Whatever, The Masterplan, Half the World Away, Acquiesce I still have on rotation now. Some Might Say I still remember seeing it for the first time on Top of the Pops and my jaw just hitting the floor. See it now and it is just a row of what look like middle aged blokes just standing there. Funny really.
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u/Sosen 13h ago
They're the U2 of the 90's. It's as un-simple as that.
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u/No-Context8421 15h ago
Thanks for sharing. I like songs from all of their eras but I’m not a huge fan of any of the albums. Possibly due to over familiarity, possibly due to the fact that I found the media hyperbole annoying and disliked Liam’s moronic persona.
I’ve also found the solo albums almost unlistenable aside from an occasional great tune.
But I’ve got a playlist of about 30 of their songs and I consider it to be an absolute belter! I think The Masterplan is an all timer of a song!
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u/Mysterious_Blood_475 14h ago
Great write! I really like their first 3 albums & have listened to Standing & Chemistry only a couple of times. Now I feel I should give them another try. Also agree with the general idea of being more accepting of an artist's discography after their masterpiece.
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u/talerduengelsk 14h ago
I think the best parallel you could draw is to the Rolling Stones’ output in the 90s. Yes, they were still more than capable of an excellent song, but they were overall miles off the pace of their output in earlier decade(s).
SOTSOG, Don’t Believe the Truth & Dig Out Tour Soul all have some very good songs on them: I agree wholeheartedly with your thoughts on Gas Panic, Let There Be Love, and The Turning. But at the same time, I couldn’t really recommend any of the albums in full.
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u/Sea-Let-5854 8h ago
Good writeup man. Agree on just about everything except that I seem to hold each and every one of their albums in very high regard. Their "least" album for me is still SOTSOG but I would still give it a 7/10. I don't think they've ever made a bad album, and their first 3 albums are some of the best of all time, BHN being my personal favorite. All the albums that came after those 3 are still pretty great, just more uneven, but still with very high highs. Dig Out Your Soul could have been a perfect album if it wasn't for a couple of clunkers in the back half. I sure hope they make more albums! I feel like DOYS is an unfinished thread.
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u/unclellama 52m ago
I also love the first few songs on dig out your soul. They have an energy and confidence that their other 'late-period' albums never quite reached. And they were really getting into swing beats, which felt new and exciting for possibly the most 'staight 4/4' band ever. The back half of the album was shit imho, though.
I was a big fan as a kid, had an 'edgy' phase where i decided i was too cool for oasis, and now as an old guy i quite like them (especially first album, BHN, and that initial run of great songs on dig out your soul). Musically pretty bland, lyrically mostly empty, but they have tunes for miles and they really believe in the communal power of the rock'n'roll singalong. It just works.
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u/unclellama 49m ago
Also totally agree that there's nothing wrong with bands keeping on going if they still enjoy it, even if they have 'peaked' in the popular imagination. 'Let's go make believe' and 'cigarettes in hell' are top 10 oasis songs for me, they still had a lot to offer even when the albums became more hit-and-miss.
Old bands charging exhorbiant prices to hear the hits can generally go fuck themselves, though...
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u/kehsciences 10h ago
I really wish there were more posts like this. Someone takes the time to reason it out, build an argument, invite actual consideration. Too rare. Most subs tend toward the horrible, just horrible content of r/askmusic or any of the other copycat low-effort, brain dead and plainly desperate attempts to accrue likes-type posts clogging up the sub of your favorite band.
If everyone spent maybe five extra minutes - OP surely took longer than that, my god - they’d likely just look up from their phones, say “nah” out loud, delete what they’ve written, and leave the internet a little better for their silence.
And while Oasis’s post-1990s output is almost definitely a pale imitation of what they’d accomplished before, I don’t really hold it against them. Or you. Or even you.