Oasis

How else could we put it, if not in these words? Wipe that tear away now from your eyes. Because it really is going to happen. In 2025, the Oasis will get back together. If the time isn't yet ripe for a full-blown proper reunionreunion, one thing is certain: they'll be back playing live in a tour across the Channel, not just at Wembley and the predictable Manchesterbut also in Cardiff, Dublin and Edinburgh. For now these are the official dates, set for next summer. Whether the legend will be revived on record too remains to be seen, as there's still no news of a new studio album – but deep down, does anyone really want one? Isn't the idea of seeing them there enough, Liam e Noel Gallaghertogether again on the same stage singing the classics we love? The announcement comes almost exactly fifteen years after the split, falling, almost diabolically, just one day before the anniversary: this time it's August 27th, back in 2009 it was the 28th, when yet another bitter row between the two brothers before a Paris show put a definitive end to the Manchester band's saga.

With today's news, the band's story enters a new chapter, but the reason I can't quite let myself get swept up in the excitement lies in the paranoia of a possible Italian date, which shows up, on one hand, as a vague kind of "performance anxiety on behalf of the audience" for what should (must!) be the gig of a lifetime, and on the other, in worry over the impossible prices of this potential event (seriously, ticket costs are a real problem: it's an insane system that will end up destroying the very thing we believe in, and indulging in spending that kind of money has nothing to do with our love for music).

On closer reflection, this subtle anxiety perhaps hides deeper causes. Favourite band or not, an interrupted love affair is always a violent experience, one that can heal but never be fully cured. And yes, with all due proportion, losing the band of your life at fourteen falls into that category of experience, which is why Oasis of tomorrow are not, and can never again be, for me, what they once were. And yet I simply can't hold back the joy, along with the wonder at how this reconciliation gives a complete shape to my last fifteen years: fifteen years without Oasis, granted, during which I nonetheless grew and changed in every respect, starting in that distant summer of 2009, the summer of the split, at the end of middle school, in a whirlwind of hormones, when the granitas were good and it was precisely thanks to that band that I was forming the idea of music as a matter of identity, a genuine reason to live; years that now come full circle with the band back together, at the dawn of my thirties.

I'm writing this as, on this site's Facebook page, beneath the news from reunion of Oasis, one user thunders in the comments: "The most overrated band in history, obnoxious and utterly banal", at least granting the Mancunians primacy in something: it could have been worse! Given that news of a band reunion shouldn't concern anyone who despises that very band so viscerally, before the Web swallows up these erudite opinions and returns them forever to the great nothingness they came from, I wanted to bring up these comments because they touch on two genuinely interesting subjects – the banality of Oasis and thehatred of that banality – as well as giving me an assist to introduce the real purpose of these paragraphs: plunging into the murkiest depths of Oasis, right down to the nerve centre of their proverbial Banality. Because anyone can defend the Gallaghers by recalling the unforgettable melodies of "Definitely Maybe” and “Morning Glory", but few have the courage to make their case while also diving to the bottom of that well of self-quotation, cunning and arrogance that goes by the name of "2000s Oasis". But that's exactly what I'm here for.

The paradox is that 2000s Oasis actually begins in '97. By "2000s Oasis", to avoid any confusion, we mean that even more megalomaniacal, laddish, tacky and mockable version of the band of cocky upstarts who, in the mid- the Nineties conquered the world with the irresistible pull of its anthems britpop. So here we are in 1997, August 21st, and record shop shelves are stacked with copies of "Be Here Now", the hugely anticipated third album from Manchester's iconic band, just released after months and months of hype. The first two records were instant classics, the two Knebworth 1996 event shows were a triumph, and plenty of people were already calling them the biggest British band since the Beatles: everything seemed to be pointing to a third huge success.

 

Instead, that's not what happened. It's hard to say exactly what broke down in the two years between them, but between "(What’s The Story?) Morning Glory" and "Be Here Now" lie oceans of difference. Where one is a great album, inspired and lively, the other is a tired, overloaded rehash. Although sales on release were excellent — driven mainly by the enormous expectations surrounding it — "Be Here Now" was clearly a misstep. And this despite the fact that any mainstream radio station still plays "Stand By Me" at least once a day, that "Don't Go Away" was for a long time the second most-played song around European campfires after "Wonderwall", that "D'You Know What I Mean?" is a genuinely great opener, and that with "I Hope, I Think, I Know" the Gallaghers hit on a bona fide fan favourite.

Yet the album, which doesn't really overturn the band's winning formula, simply isn't very good. Some blame the intense tensions within the band, others point to the wrong producer (an out-of-form Owen Morris), while Noel has always talked about all the cocaine going around the studio. But what's glaringly obvious is a lack of inspiration: with "All Around The World" (ten minutes long) they try to cut their own "Hey Jude", forgetting they'd already found it with "Champagne Supernova"; on "Fade In-Out" they bring in Johnny Depp to play electric guitar, and it turns out involving Depp in a rock project is never a good idea; in short, none of the above is worth as much as the least significant track on "Morning Glory" (for many that's "Hey Now!", I'd say "Cast No Shadow"). The fact that the best song of this period is the joyous "Stay Young", a B-sides which you can find on the rarities collection "The Masterplan", says it all about how haphazard and confused the moment was.

From here on, right up to the band's sudden split in 2009, the new hits by Mancunians never stop harking back to the flashes of brilliance that made them eternal Nineties icons on their first two albums. Even the aforementioned "The Masterplan", released in 1998, with all its hidden gems drawn from these early golden years, tastes more than anything like a bittersweet swan song for the britpop.

The Oasis of the 2000s are minor Oasis: that's the gist of popular opinion on the matter, and, roughly speaking, it's the truth. And yet, it has to be said that this version of Oasis, always maligned by "highbrow" critics, is something that today is simply missing. Where have the melodies of "Little By Little" and "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" gone in today's pop? The obvious, irresistible riffs of "Lyla" and "The Hindu Times"? And ballads like "Songbird" and "Let There Be Love"? They've vanished, like the dreams we had as children.

It's easy enough to talk about how Oasis were "derivative", simple, predictable; it's harder to find the magic at the core of that simplicity, the secret heartbeat at the centre of this extraordinary pop band. That doesn't erase the fact that the Oasis of the 2000s arrive in 2000 somewhat drained of ideas — and without two of their longtime members, Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs and Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan, guitar and bass, who during the gestation of the new album are replaced by the more skilled but less loved Gem Archer and Andy Bell (yes, the one from the Ride).

"Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants" comes out in February, notoriously the worst Gallagher record. But is that really true?

It's hard to argue otherwise, although the sound rougher than the lead single “Go Let It Out”, as well as the follow-up “Who Feels Love?”, both tailor-made for a Liam whose voice grows ever more matted by cigarettes & alcohol, hints at a consistent evolution for the band. The same goes for the instrumental “Fuckin’ In The Bushes”, the heaviest song, in hard-rock terms, that Oasis ever recorded. It's worth dwelling on it a little longer: this is truly a opening song on a colossal scale, with a riffs granite riffs pinched from the Led Zeppelin and a drum part lifted wholesale from Jimi Hendrix (a brief aside: Oasis have always been very classy in their “borrowing”, and I wish they got more credit for it). I've never found an explanation for how Noel came to write a track so far from his usual style, but all one can do is set logic aside and dream in peace.

Despite a great opener and two enjoyable lead singles, the album nonetheless runs into trouble with the remaining songs – among which we can exclude the mournful “Sunday Morning Call”, the other single sung by Noel. Everything else is anonymous at best, and “Little James”, Liam's first song, dedicated to his son, simply isn't worthy of a band of this stature. In their attempt to move away from the territory of britpop, Oasis remain trapped in what feels like a bad trip brought on by badly cut drugs. What weighs the songs down the most, beyond writing that's even thinner than usual, is precisely the way they're soaked in a vague, muddled idea of psychedelia, something Noel Gallagher has always shown little feel for – except in his collaborations with the Chemical Brothers, , who probably deserve all the credit. Case in point: someone out there has the nerve to claim “Gas Panic!” isn't a disaster, and I honestly don't know how they manage it.

In short, Oasis greet the new millennium with a dark, muddled record, let's just say a misfire, and once again the real surprises come from the B-sides of their singles. In particular, “Carry Us All” and “Full On” shine, both B-sides of "Sunday Morning Call" and sung by Noel, two convincing examples of an alternative Oasis ready to leave behind the the Nineties. A live album from the Wembley show is also released, "Familiar To Millions", best remembered above all for a great “Supersonic”, but the truth is the tour is anything but triumphant. The two brothers can no longer stand each other, they come to blows practically every day, and at a certain point Noel decides to quit the band and tour, leaving Liam as the sole frontman and forcing the crowd to provide the vocals for the chorus of "Acquiesce". He'll rejoin the group in September 2000, once the tour is over.

While it too can be filed among Oasis's minor records, 2002's "Heathen Chemistry" brings with it a nice surprise: the best song is written by Liam. Do we need to talk about how beautiful "Songbird" is? Not just the glistening acoustic guitar, but the push of that radiant organ, with insistent, encouraging handclaps and tambourine, that brisk and unquestionably, incorruptibly beautiful melody, that "she's not anyone" you wish never had to end, and the harmonica passing through just at the right moment, a scribble in the wind. This is a great example of Oasis at their Noughties best, and an underrated gem of English pop if there ever was one. It's released as a double A-side single alongside "She's Love", written by his brother, and there's really no comparison.

Otherwise, "Heathen Chemistry" puts on display the worst and the best of the songwriting by Noel. On one hand we have the singles, memorable; on the other, a string of filler tracks incapable of sticking in your head. Let's talk about the good stuff, then: "The Hindu Times" has a riffs sticky guitar riffs (again, a kind of rehash of "Even Better Than The Real Thing" by the U2) and a perfect nonsense chorus ("'Cause god give me soul in your rock 'n roll, babe!"), two things that scream "Oasis" from every pore and are never quite enough; "Little By Little" is peak romantic, matey, brotherly Noel; and "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" is open and dreamy, simply an instant classic.

As for the other songs, nothing is worth saving. Even though it's carried by its excellent singles, clearly superior to those on the previous record, the album does Oasis and their reputation as lazy self-plagiarists no favours. This makes three albums in a row that not only "aren't 'Definitely Maybe'", but don't really push much beyond mediocrity. Ten years into their career, after the great promise of their first two albums, the Gallaghers now seem like just another formulaic English band among many - and the comparison with the experimental evolution of their former rivals Blur gets ever more merciless.

But it's time for another lineup change within the band's ranks. Out goes Alan White, drummer since the days of “Morning Glory“, making way for a chip off the old block: the excellent Zach Starkey, son of Ringo Starr. As a band of musicians, Oasis have never been more mature or cohesive than they are now. All that's left to wait for is a resurrection in the songwriting. It will arrive three years later: 2005, new album. It opens with no surprises: “Turn Up The Sun”, with its circular melancholy and its overwhelming refrain, carries on the Oasis tradition of great opening tracks, never lacking even on their worst records. But the big news is that “Don’t Believe the Truth” is finally a good album front-to-back, and indeed the best since “Morning Glory”. The flagship single “Lyla” or, as Noel would put it, “my most pop song since 'Roll With It'”, is joyous in every possible sense, from mood to hooks; if you have any doubts, just watch the power with which it sweeps up the Manchester crowd in live that year and the tide of people jumping around, galvanized. Half the songs on the tracklist aren't Noel's, and they're all good: Gem Archer does his bit on “A Bell Will Ring”, so does Andy Bell (the aforementioned opener is his), and Liam still convinces with the energetic “The Meaning Of Soul”.

But everything else is pure Noel show: first with the piano-rock ride of “Mucky Fingers”, then the dark “Part Of The Queue”, and finally the masterpiece “The Importance Of Being Idle”, the “Don't Look Back In Anger” for the Oasis of the 2000s, boasting one of their solo best.

And then there's the closing track, a ballad. Liam and Noel sing together like they haven't since "Acquiesce", and as the tempo fades and the words hold back, everything shines in its faint clarity. It's all there in the five minutes of "Let There Be Love", the exact reason why I never bought Noel Gallagher's solo records, why I never went to see Liam sing "Supersonic" at I-Days, why I never listened to those who said that at least they carried on solo, and they were still them after all. How do you replicate something like that? How can you pretend it's the same thing?

Of the following - and to date the last - "Dig Out Your Soul", released in 2008, not much remains. Oasis show up tough and pissed off, loaded with sound, with psychedelia spread on thick like layers of molasses, just look at the opening one-two punch of "Bag It Up" and "The Turning", perfectly in step with the supersonic energy of the lead single "The Shock Of The Lightning". And fine, Noel does his Macca more bucolic take on "(Get Off Your) Eye Horse Lady", and with the sad "Falling Down" he moves you just right, but this time it's the other brother shining again, and the song that lasts is his. So, a shout-out, then, for Liam the songwriter: shall we talk about how beautiful "I'm Outta Time" is? In other words: Lennon comes back to life, and I mean the solo one, with heavy piano ballads, like "Jealous Guy". I can see you doubting me. But this isn't rehashing, it's making a lesson your own, it's understanding the mechanics of a pop song as it should be, the melancholy trigger of a ballad in G major, the flight of a dreamy chorus: “‘Cause if I have to go/ in my heart you grow/ and that’s where you belong”. Simply magnificent.

Even beforehand, the album's trajectory had the flavor of an epilogue, kicking off with a collection of songs full of imploded, at times tormented rage, and continuing with a world tour that crashed into that cursed 28th of August, in the backstage of Rock En Seine in Paris, where chairs went flying, Noel walked out of the band, and something broke – or so we believed – forever. So each brother went his own way, right up to today: Noel made Noel with his High Flying Birdsof which we mainly remember a fine debut album; Liam first turned what remained of Oasis into the forgotten Beady Eyethen he too moved on to an unremarkable solo career, not particularly brilliant, revived earlier this year by the good album of unreleased songs written together with John Squire of the Stone Roses.

But now that the brothers are back together, it's as if nothing had happened since that August fifteen years ago, and time had preserved the aura of the original band fully intact. So what were Oasis in the 2000s? For the first time, they were fully themselves, with all their strengths and flaws. With their first two albums, the Gallaghers had lived above their artistic means, buoyed by a string of favorable winds born of that specific historical moment: the intrinsic force of early works, with all those things to say when you're just starting out, the fashion for britpopthe reaction against the harshness of grungethe cockiness of being twenty, the rivalry with Blurthe sense of capturing the spirit of British youth at that time like no one since the Smiths had managed to do. In 1994, Oasis had a record market ready-made for their arrival. In the 2000s, the emergence of new pop cultures – from clubhip-hop to crossover, from American indie-rock to the new British bands, all currents more tied to the shifting present of the early millennium than to the Gallaghers' classic pop – gradually pulled the Manchester band away from the spirit of the times. And that's where something died and something was born. Where the shockwave faded, craft was born, that sixth sense, that automatic instinct for genuine melody, the kind of stuff you sing and live by. I'm not extolling their genius here, but their wingspan, the breadth of their breath, the intangible honesty found in songs like "Litte By Little" and "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" that still ring true. When genius is missing, as in Noel's case, talent steps in; but once talent runs out, all that's left is heart, and in the Oasis of the 2000s, amid so many throwaway, second-rate songs, in those few and enchanting moments of light, a heart this enormous still beat.

There was never a drop of humility in the Gallagher brothers, but their songs spoke a universal language that no one, I'd venture to say, knows how to play anymore. If you asked me for more, about the mystical origins of this spell, well, I couldn't tell you… and maybe it's better that it all stays a little like this, suspended in the unspoken. Because a new chapter of this story has just begun, and it will be beautiful to live it in real time under the stage, there, all together. For everyone who that thing, inexplicable in words, know perfectly well what it is.