Greetings,
As everyone knows, I am a huge admirer of a little band called The Beatles. And, having been around in the nineties, that means that, when it comes to another little band called Oasis, I either love them or hate them. Because...maybe...derivative...a little. Well, good news for them, I come down on the side of love. I've been enjoying the music of the Gallagher brothers and their group for quite a long time, and I know I haven't been the only one. I, like most people in the U.S., got into them when their album (What's the Story)Morning Glory? was released, spawning hits like "Wonderwall" and "Champagne Supernova". We can all agree that it was fantastic, so I'm going to go a step further and talk about what came right after that one. That would be the 1997 album, Be Here Now.
Let's not sugarcoat this at all. After the massive success of Morning Glory, there were extremely high hopes for the follow-up album. From a sales standpoint, Be Here Now wasn't exactly a failure. It was the fastest selling album in the U.K. at that point, it hit #1 in many countries, #2 in the U.S., and it went on to sell about 4 million copies, if my info is correct. The problem is that, after the first week or so, sales dropped because everyone realized that this was not a repeat of the previous album from Oasis. By that, they meant it was nowhere near as good, and those people spread the word fast. Okay, do I think this album is utterly amazing? Not exactly. Do I think it's terrible? Again, no. Do I think it is as good as its predecessor? Yeah, we're going to check 'no' on that one. But Morning Glory was a tough act to follow. I don't really think anything they did would have lived up to it. Also, they may have been high whilst they were making it...allegedly. No wonder so many of the songs are abnormally long. Having said that, let's talk about the goods and the bads of this thing.
First, the not so great news. Out of the dozen songs on the album, and that includes a reprise, I'd say only about half of them are songs I really like. The title track is kind of meh, as is "Fade In Out", but I can listen to them. Even though, I am not a huge fan of Johnny Depp, and he played slide guitar on the latter of those tracks. No, I'm not kidding. Whilst I tend to skip over songs like "My Big Mouth", "Magic Pie" and "It's Gettin' Better(Man!!)", there is a vast improvement in "The Girl in the Dirty Shirt" and especially "I Hope, I Think, I Know".
And now on to the actually great news. Yes, this album may have weak points, as all tend to do, but it also has some songs I really, really enjoy, starting with the opening track "D'You Know What I Mean?". Despite the fact that it's not a fast song with a driving beat, the way other openers often go, it does have that feeling of a beginning point that will send you on to the rest of what's to come. Then, there's "Stand By Me", which apparently Noel wrote during a bout with food poisoning. Hey, whatever works, as long as a good song comes out of it. "Don't Go Away" is probably the, for lack of a better word, softest song in this collection, considering that it's about not wanting to lose someone that you love. In this case, Noel wrote it when his mother was hospitalized. So, it's a love song, just not one that people may have expected. Also, Liam said he was pretty emotional during the recording, but he ended up being proud of his performance. That's good. And then we get "All Around the World" with all its glorious, self-indulgent epicness. This thing is LOOOONG! I mean, pretty much everything on this album is long, as I mentioned, but this thing clocks in at over nine minutes. And this is the song that got the reprise, so if you add that on, it's almost TWELVE minutes! And you know what? I love it! Yeah, it's so big and it has so much going on. I suppose it's because I'm a fan of songs that have a ton of interesting things to listen to. Speaking of interesting, a lot of people remember this because of the video. It was directed by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton and had a Yellow Submarine vibe to it. Shocking, I know. But it was great, too. I can still watch it today and be fascinated.
So, I know I'm not exactly giving this a glowing review, not as a whole anyway. It does have a lot of problems, but when it's good, it's very good. And when they tried to be productive, it worked. Trouble is, I don't how hard they actually tried. Be Here Now just is what it is. Still, I do love Oasis. They have given us a ton of great stuff, and whatever crazy shenanigans he may have been involved in, I would say that Noel Gallagher is rather a brilliant musician and songwriter. And, thus, I end on a positive note.
Love and full moons,
Becky the Writer
