Oasis 'Best Of' tracklisting

[Stitchell]

http://www.nme.com/news/oasis/24277

surprisingly nothing from Be Here Now...

[celibate cries]

I dont think it is much of a surprise really that album is awful

[Pervomartovtsi]

nice picks...but songbird is quite awful...

[Manic Rose]

surprised go let it out is on there and that stand my me isn't

[mspendl828]

Be Here Now is my favourite album of theirs. Not sure why it gets so much bad press. Everything they've done since then comes no where near.

[Pervomartovtsi]

the girl in the dirty shirt should be there alsio

[Sir Alec]

Cigarretes & Alcohol is my all time favorite!

[dazzak]

Twas looking for an Oasis Stop The Clocks thread and there weren't any. Consider this one resurrected.

Anyway, with the punk aniversary and the release of Stop The Clocks, I've been watching a lot of Oasis and punk documentaries lately. I've always been a fan of early Oasis, and I alway hated Morning Glory (and naturally everything after that, albeit with less venom), but watching the docs has made me feel robbed.

My view, that Definitely Maybe is genius and Morning Glory is feeble, pretentious shite, is now fashionable. This was not always so. Back in the day, Oasis were a destructive influence on British music. Morning Glory was a monstrous thing, taking music special to a select group of great people and giving it to the very worst sort of people. Up until the release of that MOR monsrosity, Oasis were "ours", another magnificent example of sharp, snotty pricks and another great two-fingered salute to the miserable hippies from America. In '94, Britpop was a coalition just like punk. Suede were our New York Dolls, our trailblazing, arrogant, gender-bending, drug-addled geniuses. Blur were The Clash, brilliant but dogmatic. Oasis were The Sex Pistols. They were the very personification of that brutally genuine refusal to accept the lot that the world had dealt you. They were funny, touching and capable of annoying everybody who so dearly needed to be annoyed. Like The Pistols following The Dolls, they were toned down in their appearance, somewhat more laddish. Unfortunately, they were dumbed down too.

By '95, Oasis were lost. All of those Beatles references went to their heads, and ever since Noel has tried in vain to be like Lennon and McCartney. This, for me, was their downfall. Noel can write great ballads, but it's usually by accident... throwaway B-sides like "Half The World Away". Contrast that with the self-concious balladry of Morning Glory. As bad as "Don't Look Back In Anger" is, let it be known that "Wonderwall" is one of the most atrocious songs ever written. It is truly, truly appalling. It is the 9/11 of songwriting.

Not that this matters of course. "Acquiesce", "Rock 'N' Roll Star", "Live Forever", "Cigarettes And Alcohol"... they make it all forgivable. The problem is that Oasis spawned lad-rock, and much worse, the lad-rock fan. I know it's ancient history, but I'm angry about what could have been. It completely destroyed the coalition. In '93 and '94, being like Liam was cool, but being like Brett or Jarvis was also cool. By late '95, being like Brett or Jarvis meant you were a poof, being some xerox of Liam was cool, and even being like Damon was suspicious. Britpop had become booze, birds and brawling. No wonder the discerning ones turned their backs on it all and became Romos.

So what could have been a new form of punk (and a more intelligent and expansive version too) degenerated into the soundtrack to reading The Sun. Music your dad liked, with Suede and Pulp drowned out by "Wake Up Boo!" and fucking Ocean Colour Scene, with Weller prostituting himself and Surrey stockbrokers' sons pretending to be Northern car thieves.

And yet... if you listen to "Headshrinker", "Fade Away" or any of the loud songs from DM... not one of them would be out of place on Never Mind The Bollocks. And did the punks ever write a song as good as "Common People"? It strikes me that, if things had been different, Britpop would not have been a joke movement, but something that could have warranted the respect and the reverence that is absurdly afforded to absolute no-marks like Television.

...and everybody is a clever clone...

[Busy Clippers]

The fact that Definitely Maybe is so good is the reason why I hate Oasis so vehemently now. They let me down. I'm very bitter. Blur did manage to rebound from their creative nadir, but I don't think Oasis ever will.

I don't know as I'd go so far as to equate BritPop with punk, but it was a vital, viable musical movement for the five minutes it lasted. The bands all got signed too soon, and I think it's a shame because many of them might have developed into really good little outfits. Castigate me if you must, but even Menswear had potential.

[Worm]

Superb post, dazzak. Shades of the classic Morrissey style in that one (in a good way).

From my point of view, I never thought of Britpop as being quite so momentous. I'd been reading Martin Amis and listening to Blur and Suede for a few years before all that "lad" stuff coalesced into what became Britpop, so when Oasis et al came along I was mystified at the connection. I couldn't figure out why people were lumping all these bands together other than the obvious fact that they were British. To me Blur always seemed way out in front of the pack, on another planet really. But I think you make an interesting case for Britpop as a potentially brilliant movement that fizzled.

I certainly agree it ended ignominiously with "Wonderwall", a major hit here in the States (which bugged me, too). I also share your high opinion of "Common People" and Pulp in general. The biggest loss of those years, which you touched on, was Suede. Their first two albums were peerless. Bernard Butler, as highly thought of as he is, has always been underrated. Blur were wonderful but fairly limited. There was only so far they could go, I think, whereas Suede at their best (in particular the sublime "We Are The Pigs" single) sounded like nothing less than the future of guitar-based pop music.

[nightandday]

I certainly agree it ended ignominiously with "Wonderwall", a major hit here in the States (which bugged me, too). I also share your high opinion of "Common People" and Pulp in general. The biggest loss of those years, which you touched on, was Suede. Their first two albums were peerless. Bernard Butler, as highly thought of as he is, has always been underrated. Blur were wonderful but fairly limited. There was only so far they could go, I think, whereas Suede at their best (in particular the sublime "We Are The Pigs" single) sounded like nothing less than the future of guitar-based pop music.

I agree with very word you said about Suede. I also think highly of Pulp, but Blur weren't really my cup of tea (to use that expression - though I suppose nothing is my cup of tea, because I hate tea ).

I always hated Oasis. Always. (And by that I don't mean their personalities or whatever. I mean their music.) Including "Definitely Maybe". The fact that they seemed to be everywhere at the time and they were, for some strange reason, hailed as the future of rock, might have played its part in my dislike. But I later tried to give them a chance and listen to their debut... However, my opinion hasn't changed a bit. I just hear average melodies, an extremely annoying singing voice, and dumb lyrics. But this seems to be the kind of music that appeals to the masses. I can't figure out why.

Like Worm, I never understood why bands so different as Suede, Blur and Oasis were being lumped together in the same 'movement' or 'genre' or whatever it was supposed to be. But I was never able to see it as a 'movement' in the first place, let alone something that could be compared to punk! If it was a movement, what was the idea behind it??? If it was just to prove that British music was better than the American music - well, I can just say: meh.

[Busy Clippers]

You're right, crime. Maybe "movement" wasn't the right word. It was more like a sudden flowering, an electrical crack in the air that had been previously absent - suddenly there was a scene where there previously had been none, and bands (and artists, and others) were all feeding off of each other's energy. Baggy was a good precursor to Britpop, but it wasn't as exciting. It was as if everyone woke up after one too many raves and wanted to hear guitars again. But I was only in the south at the time, London, Oxford, Brighton, so I can't speak from anything other than hearsay about what went on in other parts of the country.

[Noel68]

any one got any live shows from the first album era??????

[Worm]

Was it a scene, though? I can't say for sure, but I read the British weeklies a lot around that time, so I had some vague clue as to what was going on in England. From our shores it seemed manufactured. A little predictable, too. Although the NME had championed Madchester, shoegazing, and a few other "scenes", I noticed that the writers were also taking every opportunity to try and create a continuity going back to The Smiths beginning mildly in, oh, 1990, and gaining steam in '91 and '92. Every few months a "new Smiths" would be heralded. I think Kingmaker were the first. Then Suede. Then Gene and Echobelly.

By the time Britpop became a "scene" it seemed, from where I was sitting, like it was an inevitability rather than a sudden flowering. Journalists and marketing people simply wanted it to happen, so it did. The stylized Englishness of the two heavyweights-- the fiery arrogance of Oasis and the more literate, ironic, artier stuff by Blur-- simply gave them the ideal twist they needed. Suddenly there were young guitar bands who were as English as The Smiths but fundamentally different in outlook. Oasis and Blur (as I recently learned on these very boards) were both immediate inheritors of The Smiths' legacy but ostensibly their primary inspirations were The Beatles and The Kinks, respectively. Thus the weeklies could, at the same time, champion them as heirs to The Smiths and also as a new generation free and clear from them.

The music papers and monthly glossies, in both countries, rely on rock and roll fans to buy their publications. If you look around at the fans you know, by and large the people who spend the most time, money, and mental energy on reading about their heroes are rock and roll fans, not least because rock music relies so heavily on promoting and reinforcing its own history. Pure pop music has continuity and history, too, but not for most casual fans. (When you read about Morrissey speaking so passionately about Sixties female singers, for example, it just reminds you of how seldom anyone actually does it.) And going the other way, the more fragmented subcultures of modern music have their own little pockets of information exchange. The money's in rock pubs, and that's why every so often we're treated to "Rock's not dead!" storylines. Rock and roll can't die because a parasitical industry devoted to endlessly reproducing itself doesn't want to die out with it. The NME's about-face on Morrissey was motivated by the same reasons behind the Britpop explosion. It's all of a piece.

Anyway, that's how it seemed to me-- another example of writers trying to resuscitate a dying patient to keep circulation up (in both senses)-- but of course I got all this secondhand. I don't doubt it took on a real life of its own, as there were some great records and I know it must have touched people as it did dazzak. I'm sure I missed a lot.

[Busy Clippers]

Worm, you might be right. I said "scene" because at every gig you'd see people from other bands in the crowd just hanging out, taking it all in. I don't read the UK music papers, haven't done for years, just used to thumbed through them to look for gig listings. Now, with the internet, that's made them redundant for me. The magazines I stopped reading with the advent of the ridiculous lists, and with "if you like x band, you'll also like these..." I do vaguely remember how rotten they all were to Louise from Sleeper, a particularly heinous example of someone they built up and then tore down.

[Pervomartovtsi]

I can't help it but love Oasis in most of their eras...and probably I can forgive Liam for being a cunt and Noel for being an arrogant cunt ,can't help but lovin em,when I knew they were coming Chile for the last tour I went inmediatly to buy the ticket even though I hated the setlist...can't help but give em respect for acts like the masterplan, slide away, talk tonight,the hindu times and roll with it...anyway I'm still pissed because nor supersonic, nor let there be love were played

[Worm]

I do vaguely remember how rotten they all were to Louise from Sleeper, a particularly heinous example of someone they built up and then tore down.

That's right. They also showed some condescending affection for Justine Frischmann, Damon Albarn's girl, which I know angered Elastica and their fans. Me, I knew the real action was with Sarah Cracknell of Saint Etienne, so I didn't care much.

[WhatDifferenceDoesItMake?]

any one got any live shows from the first album era??????

6th February 1994
Gleneagles Golf Club, Scotland (soundboard)
One of the first shows, relatively unknown.

1. Shakermaker
2. Bring It On Down
3. Digsy's Dinner
4. Live Forever
5. Cigarettes & Alcohol
6. Supersonic

http://rapidshare.de/files/29845790/...Gleneagles.rar


15th October 1994
Cabaret Metro, Chicago (soundboard)
Album released, beginning the US Tour.

1. Rock 'N' Roll Star
2. Columbia
3. Fade Away
4. Digsy's Dinner
5. Shakermaker
6. Live Forever
7. Bring It On Down
8. Up In The Sky
9. Slide Away (includes Smiths reference )
10. Cigarettes & Alcohol
11. Married With Children
12. Supersonic
13. I Am The Walrus (cover)

http://rapidshare.de/files/23924484/...icago__IL_.rar


11th December 1994
Civic Hall, Wolverhampton (audience)
One of the last pure DM era setlist, Morning Glory tracks soon to be added.

1. Rock 'N' Roll Star
2. Columbia
3. Digsy's Dinner
4. Shakermaker
5. Bring It On Down
6. Up In The Sky
7. Slide Away
8. Cigarettes & Alcohol
9. Married With Children
10. Sad Song
11. Whatever
12. I Am The Walrus (cover)

http://rapidshare.com/files/6561031/...n__England.rar

[Aly Panic]

Oasis were good in '93/'94 but since then they're the dullest band in the world.

[bikubesong]

erm.. You couldnt upload that from 15th october on megaupload, could you?