Oasis

(Translated from my originale Italian text by DommeDamian)

The band that became synonymous with "Britpop" in the 1990s was, for better or worse, Oasis. Like much of Britpop, Oasis enjoyed a hype that was out of proportion to their actual merits and then struggled to live up to later expectations. Their albums are as brilliant as those of the Beatles in the 1960s: they are collections of melodies that are not particularly original, and not much more than melodies. Without the hype that was given to them, they would be worth as much as the records of many faceless pop singers.

Leading Oasis were singer Liam Gallagher and his guitarist brother Noel (five years older, and the author of much of their songs), who grew up in a dispirited environment in the industrial suburbs of Manchester. After just three singles, Supersonic (Creation, 1994), with a grunt-riff worthy of Eric Clapton's Cocaine , the cheesy Shakermaker (copied from I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing , the New Seekers song that became famous because it was used in a Coca Cola commercial!), and above all Rock'n'Roll Star , with a strong Rolling Stones-style rhythm barrage and shoegaze-guitar (derivative of Ride), the group was catapulted onto the front pages of the whole of the United Kingdom.

Too bad that the album Definitely Maybe (Sony, 1994) mercilessly lays bare the inconsistency of their act. Accumulations of Merseybeat banalities, psychedelic and pop like Up In The Sky or the countless blatant copies of classics: Cigarettes & Alcohol being a pedestrian imitation of Get It On by T.Rex, Digsy’s Diner being a sneaky imitation of the early Small Faces , previously mentioned Supersonic being an elegant imitation of My Sweet Lord by George Harrison , and Slide Away being a careful imitation of Cortez The Killer by Neil Young.That combined with obligatory homage to the psychedelic suites of Columbia (worse than the Beatles' Yellow Submarine) are at most annoying. Live Forever , one of their more solid songs, steals the chorus from the Hollies and the guitar solo from the Outlaws' Green Grass And High Tides . The album nevertheless set a sales record for a debut in Britain.

What’s The Story Morning Glory (Sony, 1995) comes out at the height of "Oasismania". The production is loud, with all the instruments in the foreground screaming as loud as they can, in a sort of tacky revival of Phil Spector's "wall of sound" (but in reality it was the beginning of a new commercial strategy, launched by the hip-hop industry overseas with Dr. Dre's The Chronic , to favor deafening productions). Having understood which side their toast is buttered on, the Gallagher brothers dedicate half an album to the Beatles, winking at Lennon in Don't Look Back In Anger (the piano figures are stolen from Imagine), at Harrison in Wonderwall ,by far their most famous song (with Yesterday-style cello), at McCartney in She's Electric (with musichall piano). If theirs is above all a stylistic fact, then it should be the syntactic constructs of Whatever (the single from December 1994) and Roll With It (the Byrds' jingle-jangle of Feel A Whole Lot Better and the Hollies' vocal harmonies of Bus Stop) that represent them at their best, naturally without a shadow of semantics. The album closes with what is perhaps the most fine-tuned piece, Champagne Supernova, a delicate psychedelic lullaby that soars into a poignant anthem over decent guitar jamming (despite echoes of Hey Jude). The noisy production only serves to mask the chronic lack of ideas (and to highlight the members' instrumental weakness).
Despite the figures advertised by the record company, Oasis attract few audiences. The 1997 American tour must be scaled down (from arenas to gymnasiums).

Following the trend of Britpop towards increasingly exasperated productions (read: noisy, confusing, high-sounding, almost cacophonous), which perhaps confesses the desperation of not knowing what to do after having repeated the same refrain ad nauseam for so many years (thirty), Oasis show off in their third album, Be Here Now (Epic, 1997), a truly terrifying grandeur. Each song is built from layers and layers of sounds. The melodies are even more somnolent than those of the previous albums, but they disappear in the semiotic chaos. The Oasis song is simply an ordered accumulation of "signs", archetypes, stylistic conventions. For this reason, among other things, it lasts five/six minutes instead of the usual three.
And they are undoubtedly great stylists on D'You Know What I Mean (Creation, 1997), almost eight minutes of bizarre noises, sampling, "backmasking", percussive effects and marching bass drums (thanks to the producer Owen Morris). Other great examples of mimesis of banality are Be Here Now . The longest track of the moment is All Around The World (nine minutes), another sonic carousel inspired by the coda of Hey Jude . The trademark of the album is doubtlessly the deafening production, and in this sense My Big Mouth is the most emblematic piece. British critics are too busy comparing them to the Beatles and do not realize that Magic Pie is a purposeless and martial ballad in the typical style of Neil Young, that the affected melody of Stand By Me is inspired by those of the Smashing Pumpkins , that the childish epic of Fade In Fade Out uses the old blues-rock of the Black Crowes.

Comparisons with the Beatles do not hold up: the Beatles wrote melodies (basic, but effective), and George Martin suggested the arrangements. Oasis "write" arrangements, and then dress them up in a melody (usually insipid). As arrangers and composers in the broad sense they are worth more than the naivenessin Lennon and McCartney. As melodists they are worth way less.

In 1999 guitarist Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs and bassist Paul McGuigan were replaced by rhythm guitar from Gem Archer (ex-Heavy Stereo) and bass from Andy Bell (ex-Ride).

Derivative to the point of nausea (they have been sued by at least Stevie Wonder and Gary Glitter, and in both cases they have been forced to add those musicians among the authors of their respective plagiarisms), Oasis are only the hundredth link in a long chain of ephemeral chart phenomena fabricated by the British industry. Gallagher is simply a male pin-up along the lines of Brett Anderson of Suede, Richard Ashcroft of the Verve, Mark Gardener of Ride, and the progenitor of them all, Ian Brown of the Stone Roses. As a songwriter, his brother is no more talented than typical pop songwriters. The rest of the band could be replaced at random.

Masterplan (Epic, 1998) is a compilation of B-sides. Acquiesce and Going Nowhere are first-rate songs that make the previous two albums look silly. Too bad half of the songs are mere filler.

On the soporific Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants (Epic, 2000) the only tracks that avoid Oasis' trademark monotony are the punchier Put Yer Money Where Yer Mouth Is and I Can See A Liar. A Led Zeppelin-induced instrumental, Fuckin' In The Bushes, their darest stylistic departure yet, shows promise, and its energy and imagination almost spill over into Where Did It All Go Wrong. But Who Feels Love is John Denver's Leaving On A Jet Plane in diguise, Liam's Hey James sounds like Hey Jude and Go Let It Out (the first single) is quintessential Brit-pop routine. If nothing else, the Beatles influence is fading away and the band is less obsessed with catchy tunes. The fashionable club-oriented sound is due to producer Mark Stent, famous for dance-rock productions for Madonna and Bjork.
The album was the swan song for guitarist Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs and bassist Paul McGuigan, recently replaced with (hopefully less inept) guitarist Gem Archer (ex-Heavy Stereo) and bassist Andy Bell (ex-Ride).

Heathen Chemistry (Epic, 2002) delivers the usual load of hummable ditties, all of them as predictable as a cloudy day in London. The Hindu Times is perhaps the least derivative. Stop Crying Your Heart Out, with its Prince-meets-Bowie affectation over a heavier New Order beat, was the hit (but too similar to Slide Away). Nonetheless, it climbed to the top position of the British charts just like the previous albums.

Don't Believe The Truth (Sony, 2005) is slightly better than its two predecessors (a fact that justifies the band not breaking up). At least, it doesn't sound like self-parody. Nonetheless, it does reference their career: one can't help analyzing each song against previous Oasis songs. Typically, the past wins, and not only because one is more familiar with the past than with the future, but also because most songs are as cheesy as their worst. The exceptions are few (Lyla, Turn Up The Sun, The Importance Of Being Idle and Let There Be Love) although admittedly worthy of their canon.

Given how overrated they were at the beginning, Dig Out Your Soul (2008) is not necessarily a bad album, even by their low standards, just one of the many they have made, and The Shock of the Lightning (lots of guitar noise a` la AC/DC but wimpy psychedelic litany) is not particularly more tedious than previous singles. Bag It Up is a syncopated hard-rock a` la Beatles' Get Back with a chorus a` la Sgt Pepper Not even the Beatles would have concoted something so embarrassing but also so sellable as To Be Where There's Life (bouncy beat, raga drone, booming chant). At least Ain't Got Nothin' is a Kinks-ian burst of energy. It's amazing that anybody ever took them seriously.

The two brothers split in 2009 after selling more than 70 million albums.

Liam Gallagher and three former members of Oasis (guitarists Andy Bell and Gem Archer, drummer Chris Sharrock)) formed Beady Eye that released Different Gear Still Speeding (2011), mostly muzak for the nostalgic crowd but peppered with a couple of bouncy ditties in the Merseybeat vein (The Roller).

Meanwhile, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds (2011) continued the lame Oasis sound, occasionally entertaining (notably the very last song, Stop the Clocks) but certainly not groundbreaking. The High Flying Birds returned with second album Chasing Yesterday (2015) and third album Who Built the Moon? (2017). In 2019 the band released three singles: Black Star Dancing, This Is The Place and Wandering Star. Back the Way We Came (2021) is a compilation of the High Flying Birds.

Liam Gallagher released the solo albums As You Were (2017), another best-selling album, containing the single Wall of Glass. and Why Me? Why Not (2019), produced by Greg Kurstin (producer of pop stars such as Adele, Lily Allen, Sia, Kelly Clarkson and Katy Perry) who had already produced Wall of Glass. Shockwave was the single of 2019. He then released C'mon You Know (2022) and Liam Gallagher & John Squire (2024).

The brothers kept trading insults for more than a decade but then in 2025 reunited for an Oasis tour.