In which we argue about Oasis

[hypehat]

From the 'Mike Love types' thread....

Quote from: Dead Parrot on Today at 03:00:48 AM
Quote from: runnersdialzero on Today at 01:18:26 AM

The Oasis hate around here is indeed staggering. Listen to "The Masterplan" or "Talk Tonight", you f*ckers.

Or..
Acquiesce
Half The World Away
Flashbax
Gas Panic
Columbia
One Way Road
Part of the Queue
Going Nowhere
Just Getting Older


I have listened to all of those. Many times, as part of my misspent youth. And they're all bleating, plodding sh*te. I even thought you were going to go for something like Idler's Dream, which is about as close to an original song as Noel has written this century, but no. You went for a bunch of stuff of Standing On The Shoulders, which is such a dull record. And the boring Hindu Times b-sides.

I mean, we're derailing the thread and my Oasis hatred is fairly rampant, but I would go so far to say that Britpop, and Oasis by a huge degree of association, pretty much f*cked up british guitar music in spectacular fashion and it's going to take a while to recover. They are not rock and roll, they are friggin' arseholes borrowing copies of '1', '40 Licks' and 'The Best of The Kinks' off each other. Yr whipsmart young men and women might well have been so f*cked off by the post lad-rock world Oasis have left behind (and lets face it, they're dead as a present cultural force) that they wouldn't be seen dead strumming an acoustic guitar or starting a rock band. I don't think any big rock group recently out the gates have confirmed themselves as influenced by Oasis. 'Noel Gallagher' is bandied about as an insult sometimes.....

There is such disdain for actual thought in the craft of songwriting in their music, it's unbelievable. Ever noticed how nearly every one of Liam's Oasis tunes mentions the word 'song' in it?

see? they make me so angry. WHY CAN'T YOU SEE THEY'RE DULLARDS?!

As Liam might say, lets fookin get on it  

[D409]

Acquiesce is a good song, but the majority of their output is like the Emperor's New Clothes

[homeontherange]

Oasis sucks. I used to be a big fan, but getting more musically educated I realized that they really suck.

[hypehat]

Aye, that's pretty much what happened with me - I finally got off the bus, so to speak, when I listened to the last record and kept spotting millions of Beatles references, but couldn't hum the tunes afterwards. But i used to be obsessed, and still have affection for some of their stuff.....

Wibbling Rivalry is still the best thing they ever did, though 

[Dead Parrot]

I could talk about the fact that I actually like Oasis, but I fancy talking about something a little less controversial, so i'm off to find a Beatles board to start a Mark Chapman appreciation thread. 

[hypehat]

You can if you like! If i didn't want to talk about it, I wouldn't have started this thread! Go on, feel free. 

[Mike's Beard]

Oasis are shite. Period. Just another overhyped band to spring from the "Britpop" era, a scene which was basically cooked up by the UK music media who were jealous of the fact that all the decent alternative music in the early 90's was being produced in America.

[hypehat]

There was decent alternative music being produced in America in the nineties?! Like, is there a third Jellyfish album i missed?

[SMiLE Brian]

I can't stand how they rip off great bands from the 1960s and act like jerkoffs to everybody like they are the greatest band ever. They are not like Led Zeppelin in 1970s, which were original and deserved to be gods among men.

[Jay]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQZNNcw9pos

[Alex]

I really haven`t heard any Oasis material from after 1996 (the last time they had a big hit here in the states). I keep hearing that their later stuff is terrible. If I like Oasis for any reason, its childhood nostagia. I can`t listen to Don`t Look Back In Anger or Champagne Supernova without remembering them being all over the radio and MTV when I was 10. I thought Noel`s red sunglasses from the DLBIA video were the sh*t, not realizing at that tender age that he was just co-opting both Roger McGuinn`s and John Lennon`s styles.

[Jay]

I really haven`t heard any Oasis material from after 1996 (the last time they had a big hit here in the states). I keep hearing that their later stuff is terrible. If I like Oasis for any reason, its childhood nostagia. I can`t listen to Don`t Look Back In Anger or Champagne Supernova without remembering them being all over the radio and MTV when I was 10. I thought Noel`s red sunglasses from the DLBIA video were the sh*t, not realizing at that tender age that he was just co-opting both Roger McGuinn`s and John Lennon`s styles.

That post just took me back to that period. I thought Champagne Supernova was the best thing that happened to music since The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. I just listened to the song a few days ago and forgot just how much I loved it.  Don't Look Back In Anger is another good one. I remember my dad and I watching that video and agreeing that Noel was a much better singer than Liam.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

I find it amusing when someone talks about how derivative Oasis are. It's a textbook definition of irony. I think the height was that typical Guardian review of Dig Out Your Soul where the critic went through a great deal of effort to tell us that Noel was referencing Blackbird (or was it Dear Prudence? Depending on the review, the song Oasis was ripping off changed) at the end of The Turning. In doing so, he missed the even larger reference to The Doors' "5 to 1" on the following song. But it was easy for the critic to go to the ol' "ripping off the Beatles" chestnut when he wasn't ripping into Noel for not making an opera like Damon Albarn.

Of course you don't have to like them - but Oasis are really the only important band to emerge after Nirvana. Not only did they pick up on the zeitgeist in England before any other band did (or at least, quite so well), but they really created an entire culture, shifted the direction of music in the UK entirely, and had one of the biggest selling rock albums of the decade.

The problem was they were working class boys who became successful. This is why most of the arguments against them are usually about how boorish and stupid they are. If you don't want to come across as a bougeois cliche, you might not want to evoke the typical buzzwords that bourgeois cliches evoke when degrading lower classes.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

I can't stand how they rip off great bands from the 1960s and act like jerkoffs to everybody like they are the greatest band ever. They are not like Led Zeppelin in 1970s, which were original and deserved to be gods among men.

Is this supposed to be a joke? Tell that to Willie Dixon

[SMiLE Brian]

I know they used old blues songs, I just just thought they used them originally compared to the crap Oasis does.  I take them over the jerks in Oasis any day, hell this is why I like the Beach Boys so much, they are original compared to Oasis.

[hypehat]

I find it amusing when someone talks about how derivative Oasis are. It's a textbook definition of irony. I think the height was that typical Guardian review of Dig Out Your Soul where the critic went through a great deal of effort to tell us that Noel was referencing Blackbird (or was it Dear Prudence? Depending on the review, the song Oasis was ripping off changed) at the end of The Turning. In doing so, he missed the even larger reference to The Doors' "5 to 1" on the following song. But it was easy for the critic to go to the ol' "ripping off the Beatles" chestnut when he wasn't ripping into Noel for not making an opera like Damon Albarn.

Of course you don't have to like them - but Oasis are really the only important band to emerge after Nirvana. Not only did they pick up on the zeitgeist in England before any other band did (or at least, quite so well), but they really created an entire culture, shifted the direction of music in the UK entirely, and had one of the biggest selling rock albums of the decade.

The problem was they were working class boys who became successful. This is why most of the arguments against them are usually about how boorish and stupid they are. If you don't want to come across as a bougeois cliche, you might not want to evoke the typical buzzwords that bourgeois cliches evoke when degrading lower classes.

I don't get your point about ripping off? 'Stupid reviewer only catches one of several rip-offs Oasis incorporated into single song'. That is a reviewer who maybe doesn't know his Doors, but that doesn't change the point they rip off their record collection incredibly obviously. Step Out = Uptight (Everything's Alright), to name one. And themselves. D'you Know What I Mean = Wonderwall, and all that.

The lyrical ones are the worst - Noel has a fantastic habit of chucking song titles into his lyrics. 'Blood on the tracks, and it must be mine/Fool on the Hill and I Feel Fine'. How does he sleep at night?!

If the class thing was the problem, I'd hate The Beatles too. As it stands, can I hate them for being boorish thugs separate to their upbringing? I also don't like Blur, FWIW, and can just about deal with Pulp/Jarvis Cocker in interviews.

I think you're right with the 'important band' thing. Which is a shame, as I don't like where they took british music and guitar bands are not going to be able to remove themselves from their shadow. Which is a shame, but then you can make great rock and roll music with synthesisers nowadays so it's not dead. But post-Oasis (and post-Arctic Monkeys, I spose, but thats a different thread) the concept of making music on guitars and being a 'rock and roll' band seems to be less popular than ever.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

I know they used old blues songs, I just just thought they used them originally compared to the crap Oasis does.

Erm, LZ took songs that were not commercial hits that very few people outside of connoiseurs knew about at the time, re-vamped them, and made huge sums of money off them without crediting the original writer. Oasis typically references mainstream songs that most people know (see more on this in my response to hypehat below) so really I think it is harder to claim that what LZ did was in any way better. There have been fairly good arguments stating that what they did was, in fact, shameful.

 I take them over the jerks in Oasis any day, hell this is why I like the Beach Boys so much, they are original compared to Oasis.

To be honest, I just don't think originality is a good way of evaluating art. Art is typically a borrower's game - it's about a free exchange of ideas. It really only became more about "originality" because it was forced on artists after stronger copyright laws were put into place. That being said, most art still remains heavily indebted to something else. The Beach Boys is a fine example - the Four Freshmen and Phil Spector especially are all over their music. Meanwhile "Girl Don't Tell" (a great song by the way) is basically a re-make of Ticket to Ride. I think the more "original" artists you find, the less I'm likely to enjoy them.

[markcharles75]

I have to chime in here and come out of hiding.  This thing about the Gallaghers being "jerks and a bunch of assholes" is so ubiquitious that it is almost comical.  People (for example co workers that I work with) who you just know never bothered to listen to the albums including the latter ones just have that knee jerk reaction "what a bunch of assholes." It is so ingrained in the public psyche.  I remember arguing  with a friend and all he kept saying was "yeah but they are just a bunch of assholes."    Now this guy is a casual music fan at best and I knew he never listened to the albums.  But the point remains.  It is the same attitude I encounter when I say "Beach Boys."  The reaction is shock, pity, misunderstanding, ridicule etc...People love to have an uniformed opinion.

I am not saying the people on this board do not have a right to their opinion.  They do.  Don't like Oasis?  Fine.  Cool.  But something smells fishy with this dismissive attitude.  Personally, this whole "they ripped off the Beatles" is tiresome and perhaps the result of media influence/infiltration backed up the band members themselves always waxing on about the Beatles.  I remember distinctly hearing the first album and thinking "what the f*** are people talking about?  This does not sound like the Beatles.  Jesus Bring it on down, live forever?  Beatles?  What?

Yes there was lyrical nods and some similarities (i.e. She's Electric). But nobody has a monopoly on a chord progression.  Everybody recylces musical ideas in some form or fashion.   Noel is one of my favorite writers.  So many great tunes.  Live Forever was and always will be beautiful and emotional.  There more recent stuff was hit and miss (but what isn't with bands?) I thought Waiting for the Rapture was a brilliant song.  So what the intro sounds like five to one?  What someobody owns an Aminor chord in that rythm?  Just my 2 cents...long live the Chief!

[Chocolate Shake Man]

I don't get your point about ripping off? 'Stupid reviewer only catches one of several rip-offs Oasis incorporated into single song'. That is a reviewer who maybe doesn't know his Doors, but that doesn't change the point they rip off their record collection incredibly obviously. Step Out = Uptight (Everything's Alright), to name one. And themselves. D'you Know What I Mean = Wonderwall, and all that.

The lyrical ones are the worst - Noel has a fantastic habit of chucking song titles into his lyrics. 'Blood on the tracks, and it must be mine/Fool on the Hill and I Feel Fine'. How does he sleep at night?!
 

Yeah, just like Surfin' USA = Sweet Little Sixteen and Amusement Parks USA = County Fair. Artists do that all the time. The difference between Oasis and many other bands is that Oasis is very upfront with it. They wear their influences on their sleeve and there is nothing wrong with that. It's not like someone who has the slightest knowledge of Beatle music doesn't catch the references - just as anybody who has an awareness of film history catches Quentin Tarantino's nods to say, The Graduate, at the beginning of Jackie Brown  or Woody Allen's repeated use of Ingmar Bergman's shots in his films. Which brings me to the important point of context. What, I think, makes Oasis really above most other musical acts is precisely the kind of referencing that you think should keep Noel Gallagher awake - this is a point that Pete Townshend agrees with, incidentally. Oasis were really the first to do in music what artists in other mediums had started doing in the 70s. Music was lagging in the realm of postmodernism, and Oasis were the first ones to really pick up on the important trend of recognizing that their are making texts in a field of other texts. Tarantino doesn't constantly reference other movies because he is a bad writer - he does it because it speaks to the role of the author and nature of origins.

That critics should usually only comment on The Beatles thing is more of a comment on the critics than Oasis. Oasis said all the time that they took from the Beatles - they even made it obvious in their song lyrics. So a critical response that highlights all the Beatles references is probably the easiest thing anyone could say. The critic not only did not know his Doors, he didn't know his music in general. He talked about how Oasis ripped off The Beatles because he just figured that that's what you do when you put down Oasis.

If the class thing was the problem, I'd hate The Beatles too.

But The Beatles overcame a lot of their working class background right before they came on the scene. Even when they rebelled by taking off the suits, they didn't exactly revert back to their teddy boy days.

As it stands, can I hate them for being boorish thugs separate to their upbringing?

Honestly? No. Their attitude and actions are pretty much entirely bound to their class.

I think you're right with the 'important band' thing. Which is a shame, as I don't like where they took british music and guitar bands are not going to be able to remove themselves from their shadow. Which is a shame, but then you can make great rock and roll music with synthesisers nowadays so it's not dead. But post-Oasis (and post-Arctic Monkeys, I spose, but thats a different thread) the concept of making music on guitars and being a 'rock and roll' band seems to be less popular than ever.

It was pretty unpopular before Oasis too. What, I think, Oasis did was temporarily revitalize a genre that was on its last legs. I think it's safe to say, though, that rock and roll is pretty much a dead medium now.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

, this whole "they ripped off the Beatles" is tiresome and perhaps the result of media influence/infiltration backed up the band members themselves always waxing on about the Beatles.  I remember distinctly hearing the first album and thinking "what the f*ck are people talking about?  This does not sound like the Beatles.  Jesus Bring it on down, live forever?  Beatles?  What?

Absolutely! Oasis hardly sound anything like The Beatles and rarely even try to. They are, like several others, a band that came up in the post-Stone Roses atmosphere of England in the early 90s. The Stone Roses were like The Velvet Underground in many ways in the sense that they were a band that didn't have a tremendous amount of success (though more than VU in their first run) but inspired a bunch of kids to pick up guitars and make music. So that's why you have a scene of music emerging in the early 90s of artists like Oasis, The Charlatans, and The Bluetones who have basically the same sound. The difference between Oasis and those other bands though, is that, simply put, they could write better songs, had the ability to create massive hits, and had the kind of attitude to disrupt early 90s sensibilities (the hallmark of any great artists). So, yes, I agree, they don't sound like The Beatles and they don't try to. And I think someone who really called themselves knowledgeable about music would recognize that after listening to about 30 minutes of Oasis music.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

I thought Waiting for the Rapture was a brilliant song.  So what the intro sounds like five to one?  What someobody owns an Aminor chord in that rythm?  Just my 2 cents...long live the Chief!

I thought it was a great song too. My point was not a point of criticism. I was saying that it is ironic when critics say that Oasis are derivative when critics typically say the same thing about Oasis music that just about every other critic says. In other words, the critic is as guilty of being unoriginal as the artist that they're criticizing. The Guardian article was particularly laughable but the critic was trying desperately to point out where Oasis stole from The Beatles (because he just knows that must have done it) and because of this, he missed what was probably the most obvious reference to another song and another artist on the entire album. Almost the entirely of Waiting for the Rapture sounds like 5 to 1, but he went for the coda of The Turning as an example of something that made a vague reference to a Beatles song (maybe Blackbird, maybe Dear Prudence) because it is simply ingrained in him from other critics that Oasis are bad because they rip off The Beatles.

[hypehat]

So I'm not bothering to quote each point, R&R, because lolbeer. But hopefully the following makes sense.

Oasis as postmodernism is something that I've heard before, but I never really bought that even in the midst of my fandom. I think people can write similar songs by accident or design (Hell, i started a thread here about that!), there are only a certain amount of chords and notes and everything.....

But with Oasis it just seems so obvious half of the time - I can believe, for example, that Noel did not intentionally rip off Neil Innes for Whatever - but to write songs with album titles in them, or song titles, just seems so incredibly dumb, or either incredibly cynical or lazy. That, as a songwriter, you could be so lacking in even cliched phrases that spring to mind that you'd just glance over at the records on the floor and write down their titles. I just can't fathom how he thinks writing a song, then producing it so from it's very core it sounds like a Doors song seems OK to him. I can't.

Maybe the Surfin' USA' = SL16 comparison has legs, but then Brian was 18/19 at the time of said plagiarisms and went on to write some of the most innovative chord sequences and arrangements in pop music. Noel Gallagher has not - He is a 44 year old man who still starts songs off with 'High time, summer in the city' (His latest solo single, fwiw). Maybe he is a perpetual teenager with his record collection. His other lyrics have huge cliches holding the way.

As having been friends and lovers with plenty of smart non thugs who are working class, I think I can, actually. Noel and Liam Gallagher are, in fact, arseholes no what social strata they originated from.

Sound is one thing. You'd have to be a madman to suggest that The Beatles somehow were not running through the Gallaghers heads throughout almost the entire nineties in some capacity. From Liam claiming he is John Lennon reincarnated to Noel trying to rewrite Hey Jude with 4 keychanges and all that nonsense. I mean, it's their own fault that critics (even Pietridis, the main guardian critic, who can be astonishingly OTM at times) latch onto it. So I suppose we agree, but I still think that's a huge problem with Oasis. I mean, using the point that the critic was too quick in condemning one plagiarism to notice another is such a weak argument.

This is just me being a bitch, but I just think Noel Gallagher is a lazy songwriter. I think he's uninspired, but as any arsehole can pick up a guitar and jam out some chords or some riff, another Oasis album gets made. Like I say, it's subjective. But all the lyrical cliches in Oasis' music (not the rip-offs, but the rest) are just so banal and tiring that I can't believe Noel actually has anything going on in his brain besides his record collection and when he last had a cup of tea. And, after hearing the Beady Eye record, I don't think Liam even thinks about tea.

[SMiLE Brian]

I know they used old blues songs, I just just thought they used them originally compared to the crap Oasis does.

Erm, LZ took songs that were not commercial hits that very few people outside of connoiseurs knew about at the time, re-vamped them, and made huge sums of money off them without crediting the original writer. Oasis typically references mainstream songs that most people know (see more on this in my response to hypehat below) so really I think it is harder to claim that what LZ did was in any way better. There have been fairly good arguments stating that what they did was, in fact, shameful.

 I take them over the jerks in Oasis any day, hell this is why I like the Beach Boys so much, they are original compared to Oasis.

To be honest, I just don't think originality is a good way of evaluating art. Art is typically a borrower's game - it's about a free exchange of ideas. It really only became more about "originality" because it was forced on artists after stronger copyright laws were put into place. That being said, most art still remains heavily indebted to something else. The Beach Boys is a fine example - the Four Freshmen and Phil Spector especially are all over their music. Meanwhile "Girl Don't Tell" (a great song by the way) is basically a re-make of Ticket to Ride. I think the more "original" artists you find, the less I'm likely to enjoy them.

Yeah after further review, I was thinking about how they were original with all the Lord of the Rings references in their songs along with other references, I totally forgot about the ripping off of old blues music.  I won't take back what I said about Oasis and the Beach Boys because Brian created his own sub-genre of rock with Chuck Berry+ Four Freshmen= The Beach Boys. The whole reason I like the Beach Boys so much is there is no other band like them and this is due to Brian Wilson's creativity and vision for a unique group.

[Loaf]

I'm going to be very controversial and say that Oasis are "alright".

Some good tunes, some dull ones. Catchy, derivative, attitude. They remind me of the sunny summers of the mid-90s.

[Mike's Beard]

I never thought Oasis sounded ANYTHING like the Beatles. Plodding rhythm guitars, the most unimaginative basslines of all time, Noel's one and only guitar solo and Liam's awful lager lout vocals. Yes they may have blatantly stole a fab four riff here and there but that's where the comparisons ends. I do remember a song where they ripped off The Kinks wholesale.