Your music's shite it keeps me Polling all night: OASIS (ILM artist poll 78) --- Voting open until Sunday August 21, 2016

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/J0EJmDo0Ka7Fw2cZ3xldvMg-arxTiOXsOcr9-BBe4CvmCwZBzvBFzlI_vyTWQQ8a6a-rnOLhj3lmYnMdfsQe0WYnkDcjqOuli3x_8MQeWKnv0L0f1mnO05Quql990wkiCs_C8sAMgI23hZ_bvoL05I2ISZRVCGoDqshf0wbQqExlwr3MXSQO3LXUf0157_4jdBVXtR_YtjYjdrL4O8Z4xz1H1g8QaBAHDPey1f5xZHVrnyIT6dFhKkBYCBWIFqlrTwVgD9Y6mH0rAxNVXe3rVBtZ9UyrTLi5geZLOA95kQGhfZ-p9dcJwBdKN1LfUEIwcyNTgGyin7jqtTSVJcsrWMvlaps8gVSosAeBweS1NNNaG2XSB6dY3y3MN_ggZlubYRfB2m3HRCclov8dE6Wl3BSyqcjhp4v5Ujzc5yFW36eS61kVpNBDhJMiP1GnANxUQ4cD7NOirW2e2zQY6TNMn12pvefBZA8ETDqRrP32CsOqSRmvqibuNpVzVTiqNQaia3YDzq6xpGu8BdbTLzCIjABcDSXG86aGEXyFkG2UvXx9axti8JKl1LE0VHL-EVbO19BGei17pMlWsm797rxetNGUg4mYUQ=w1134-h747-no

Ballot part one (mandatory or Part four): Your Top 25 Oasis tracks (or less: min. 5). Please order your list with #1 at the top and #25 at the bottom, no need to number them. I will take unranked lists, just clearly state that yours is unranked.

Ballot part two (optional): Your Top 10 Single’s or EP’s. (or less: min 2)

Ballot part three (optional): Your Top 5 Oasis albums. (or less: min 2) You can pick comps if you feel so inclined.

Ballot part four (optional or mandatory, if you don’t do part one): Pick Only One: Worst Song.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oasis_discography

Send ballots to: ilmoasispoll at gmail dot com. Please include your user name.

Voting is open until Midnight Sunday August 14, 2016 California Time Zone.

YES, this is really happening!

damn, messed up a bit

you can send in only a Worst Song ballot

a few things:

i was going to keep at 20 songs but wanted to make a bit more room for some b-sides.

i was going to do a best quotes for the brothers but it really didn't work out for my Steely Dan poll.

i was gong to just run a artwork poll but decided to do singles and EP's instead. i figured five parts was too much.

i hate worst songs polls but Oasis have some cringe worthy songs and since they are such a polarizing band, i figured why not?

I think I can manage a ballot for this! I'm kinda only really versed in the first few records + b-sides... any must-hear stuff post-Shoulder? I didn't hate "Hindu Times" or "Lyla" - both kinda stupid and over-long but they did have, y'know, the swagger.

I am going to listen to every record for this

This "oh, it's Oasis, so we must have a worst song option" is utter bollocks, btw.

Here's hoping if there's an Animal Collective poll in the future, such an option is added so I can fucking vote for all of 'em.

My Oasis ballot will probably be very heavy on 1994-1998 stuff - after Noel cleaned up and Bonehead and Guigsy left and Creation folded and Brian Cannon stopped doing the artwork, it was no longer the same for me, musically or aesthetically. Now that Be Here Now has come into its own for me, I can guarantee a few tracks from that on my ballot.

https://goo.gl/photos/Vfpa3mgVtSFVFyDq6

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/J0EJmDo0Ka7Fw2cZ3xldvMg-arxTiOXsOcr9-BBe4CvmCwZBzvBFzlI_vyTWQQ8a6a-rnOLhj3lmYnMdfsQe0WYnkDcjqOuli3x_8MQeWKnv0L0f1mnO05Quql990wkiCs_C8sAMgI23hZ_bvoL05I2ISZRVCGoDqshf0wbQqExlwr3MXSQO3LXUf0157_4jdBVXtR_YtjYjdrL4O8Z4xz1H1g8QaBAHDPey1f5xZHVrnyIT6dFhKkBYCBWIFqlrTwVgD9Y6mH0rAxNVXe3rVBtZ9UyrTLi5geZLOA95kQGhfZ-p9dcJwBdKN1LfUEIwcyNTgGyin7jqtTSVJcsrWMvlaps8gVSosAeBweS1NNNaG2XSB6dY3y3MN_ggZlubYRfB2m3HRCclov8dE6Wl3BSyqcjhp4v5Ujzc5yFW36eS61kVpNBDhJMiP1GnANxUQ4cD7NOirW2e2zQY6TNMn12pvefBZA8ETDqRrP32CsOqSRmvqibuNpVzVTiqNQaia3YDzq6xpGu8BdbTLzCIjABcDSXG86aGEXyFkG2UvXx9axti8JKl1LE0VHL-EVbO19BGei17pMlWsm797rxetNGUg4mYUQ=w1134-h747-no

Bonehead's all "Oh, great, here we go again"

(And Tony McCarroll's fadein out, obv)

This "oh, it's Oasis, so we must have a worst song option" is utter bollocks, btw.

I disagree, I think it's in the spirit of Noel's own attitude towards the band's back catalogue.

This will be a fun ballot to put together, I'm going to try and vote for at least a couple of post-'95 songs.

HELL YESSS can't wait to vote

Not voting in this one as I was never a fan, but after hearing 'Rock'n'Roll Star' on the radio the other day, it led me to wonder: Was there a point some time between the first and second album where they stopped writing songs 'about stuff' and just decided to go for whatever just sounded good; quasi-psychedelic stuff about cannonballs and fireplaces etc?

Well, you could say this happened between track 1 and track 2 on Definitely Maybe, but I'd argue that they never stopped writing songs "about stuff" ... 'Gas Panic!', 'Where Did It All Go Wrong?', even 'Songbird' ...

turrican your earnest performance here disqualifies you from posting on the 1975 thread ever again

Oh, do be quiet.

A useful thing;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_recorded_by_Oasis

I'm currently looking through the tracklistings for the post-Be Here Now/MKII albums and trying to figure out what I could possibly vote for from those albums.

I guess from Standing on the Shoulder of Giants there's 'Fuckin' In The Bushes' and 'Where Did It All Go Wrong?', probably 'Songbird' from Heathen Chemistry... 'The Importance of Being Idle', 'Part of the Queue', 'Guess God Thinks I'm Abel', 'Love Like a Bomb' and 'Let There Be Love' from Don't Believe The Truth. I can't remember anything about Dig Out Your Soul!

Are there any notable B-Sides that weren't on The Masterplan?

Yeah. 'Step Out' and 'Round Are Way' should have both been on The Masterplan, IMO. 'Step Out' was bumped from Morning Glory in favour of 'Cast No Shadow' (and because of the Stevie Wonder thing) and 'Round Are Way' was a live favourite for a while.

'D'Yer Wanna Be A Spaceman?' could have gone on there, too. The best two Be Here Now B-sides are on The Masterplan but I really like both 'Angel Child' and 'The Fame' ... '(I Got) The Fever', too.

poll results will probably be the first time I hear anything Oasis did after 1996

Or not.

Yeah, I'll be very interested in seeing what does show up from the post-Be Here Now stuff.

I haven't heard any of the B-sides after the Go Let It Out single.

wow this is awesome! so....can you vote Masterplan as one of your top 5 records?

Yes, you can.

re: b-sides - yeah "Round Are Way" is great. "Let's All Make Believe" isn't bad IIRC?

re: Shoulder - I always thought "Roll It Over" was the standout track there. A little ponderous maybe but a great album-closer, like their attempt at Elton's "High Flying Bird" and similar songs.

my ballot was probably half b-sides

Thanks mods!

They corrected my original post

xxxpost:

I'd forgotten about 'Let's All Make Believe'! Yeah, that ones not too bad. I'm not a fan of Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, really.

i actually think i own all their albums and maybe 20 or so singles.

hope to get through most of it for this poll.

now i actually see, i didn't buy the last album Dig Out Your Soul. hope to have time to give it a listen before voting myself.

definitely maybe is so obviously their best set of songs, and they're all dragged down by the leaden drummer

Alan White was technically a better drummer than Tony McCarroll, but I'd argue that White was also capable of being far more plodding in his worse moments.

I'd like to see this later era Oasis track place high. Its as close as they got to Krautrock. its also one of Rick Nielsen's favourite songs!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87IQhui_Yy8

ok lol at the first frame of that video, come on guys

well its Oasis, they could never help themselves

song is cool though, yeah! i like them better as they verge closer to shoegazey hypnotic wall-of-noise kinda stuff. this has an okay hook (the "all in my mind" vocal part) but it's definitely more about the sound than the song at this point.

So, I'm giving Standing on the Shoulder of Giants a listen now for the first time in years, and christ, what a mostly woeful record. People like to stick the boot into Be Here Now probably the most of all the Oasis albums, but at least it sounds confident and sure of itself in the same way as the previous two Oasis albums. Standing... sounds unsure of itself, tentative, defeated and miserable. The partying/"let's have it" mentality had gone from the band by this time and replaced by a sober, miserable Noel Gallagher forcing himself to make music for the sake of keeping the Oasis brand going. 'Put Yer Money Where Yer Mouth Is' and 'Little James' are particularly horrendous.

Basically, I think this band were at their best when they were off their tits and full of excitement and confidence - it showed in the music. As soon as Noel cleaned up, his songs became downbeat - 'Gas Panic!', 'Where Did It All Go Wrong?', 'Little By Little', 'Stop Crying Your Heart Out' etc. - and performed with about as much excitement as someone doing the washing up when they can't be arsed.

yeah im listening to that one too atm and its soporific.

I'd go as far as saying that it damaged the band far more than Be Here Now did.

yeah i didnt buy it when it came out but a friend put it on a cassette for me. i didnt bother with them at all after that

oh god "little james" is on now....

"have you ever played with plasticine? even tried a trampoline?"

I couldn't imagine the Noel Gallagher of 1996 or 1997 letting that onto an album.

yeah "little james" is probably their nadir up to that point. agreed that the lack of confidence really hurts the record. even the cover - it feels faceless, generic, a total non-event. they needed something punchy and alive, even a "back to basics" record or some energetic cover tunes or anything. would have been better to wait until they had that ready than to ship a mere ten tracks of which only a few really show any spark. "i can see a liar" may be a bit forced, but at least it shows some version of a rock band they could have been at this point. actually reminds me a lot of the foo fighters on the (better) there is nothing left to lose.

Whereas the first three tracks show some promise, and about as experimental as they ever got up to that point.

Yeah, 'Fuckin' In The Bushes' still sounds good, but it falls off pretty damn quickly from there.

This Shock of the Lightning track is going to singlehandedly cause me to revisit some of the later stuff.
thanks to whoever posted it. I seem to recall how Standing was just awful, and then they toured with the Black Crowes and I was done.

So much changed between Be Here Now and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants: Noel cleaned up, Bonehead and Guigsy left the band, Noel & Liam both had kids and got divorced, Creation Records folded, they stopped using Brian Cannon for their sleeves and changed their logo (a mistake, IMO), Noel decided he couldn't be bothered being the sole songwriter anymore, and they brought the guitarist from Heavy Stereo (of all bands) into the band, and Andy Bell - who, as great as he was in Ride, always seemed like an ill fit and a bit ofl a tourist in Oasis. The fact that they relegated him to bass was amusing, though... but you had all of this shit going down and it seemed to me like all concerned were in it to top up their bank accounts by that point. The whole fun and purpose had totally gone, they weren't the same band in any way and Noel should really have gone solo then, rather than waiting another 9 years to do it. It marks the point for me where Oasis stopped being about five guys having a laugh and having a great time doing what they were doing, and started being a way of keeping the cheques rolling in... and I think it showed in the music.

When they played Wembley Stadium in 2000 or thereabouts, and Liam was drunk and slagging off the audience, the venue and Noel and ranting on about how Patsy was taking all of his furniture and leaving him with a "teabag", I really thought that it was game over. I was really surprised that they continued after that, but it could only have been for the money.

Well their sole purpose was to be the biggest band in the world and once they got to be for a brief moment, it was like there was nowhere else to go. As much as the songs being bad on "Giants", I always wished theyd branch out a bit seeing as their scope was getting limited. Noel isnt a hem hem aesthete but hes certainly more adventurous in his listening (his "whats in my bag" episode has albums from Can and David Axelrod) but he is such a "not 'avin that pretentious shite" fogey he doesnt challenge himself with his own music and prob a fear that Oasis fans want ye olde meat and potatoes. Wasnt there a psych album that was shelved (produced by Amorphous Androgynous)?

I always thought it was funny, given Noel's endless comparisons to Beatles, Stones, Crazy Horse etc, he never gave a shit about emulating the constituent parts of those bands, part of what made THEM great. There's no Wyman or Molina or Harrison in the Oasis story - it just became the Noel and Liam show. It all wore thin after the original rhythm section left.

There's no Wyman or Molina or Harrison in the Oasis story - it just became the Noel and Liam show. It all wore thin after the original rhythm section left.

― Master of Treacle, Wednesday, August 3, 2016 7:11 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I couldn't agree more with this, and it definitely was the "Noel and Liam show" after the originals (Bonehead, Guigsy, McCarroll) had gone.

Bonehead was as much of a character as Liam and Noel were during his time in the band, probably more so. When he left the band, his official line was that it wasn't fun anymore and he wanted to spend more time with his family. On the other hand, Noel's on record as saying Bonehead decided to leave when the newly-sober Noel got annoyed with him wanting to party/have a "good time" during the Standing... sessions when he was trying to keep Liam off the alcohol for three months so he could sing on the album. Basically, a kind of "if I'm not allowed to have a good time, nobody can" type of attitude - which, given how the band had operated up until that point, must have rubbed everyone up the wrong way.

The post-Be Here Now Oasis were so relatively professional that it's easy to forget just how excessive they were before that...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jfQ4q4Hfcc

i'm having an absolute blast listening to Oasis again, never thought i would say that again in my lifetime.

i listened to Be Here Now twice in a row now, trying to see if i want to pick a song from that album.

i could pick 25 b-sides and be happy with my ballot. that is how much i love their b-sides.

this is amazing for anyone who hasn't seen it/ heard it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caB5RoaBvsI

going to probably play Standing today.

Kinda into how this is becoming the SOTSOG listening club thread. I spun a couple tracks yesterday but maybe I'll do it in full today. The Masterplan is where I really need to dig in though - it was so big that at the time I kinda zeroed in on a few select tracks and never fully explored the rest. Rediscovered ''Listen Up'' yesterday, man that's great.

The version of 'Listen Up' on The Masterplan has been edited down. I think they cut out a portion of the guitar solo!

'Underneath The Sky' is probably the most underrated track of that period, though... they never played it live, like 'Acquiesce', 'Round Are Way', 'Rockin' Chair' or even 'Step Out', but it's as great as any of them.

Yeah, that's totally my fave from that disc, definitely making my ballot. ''Going Nowhere'' is also very pretty, and effectvely yearnful imo. They had this great mix of braggadocio and desperate need when they were still on the rise, very hard to sustain that once you've hit the top (and once you're on the decline even). Like the whole vibe of Live Forever disappears from their output very quickly; they lean for a while on the Shakermaker/Supersonic steez and it works up to a point, but leavened instead by weary ballads, it's not quite as compelling of an album-length listen.

'Stop Crying Your Heart Out' ... I remember hearing that on the radio and thinking "fucks sake Noel, you're not even trying anymore" ... It just sounded like he'd written it in his sleep, and he'd definitely written better ballads... and it sounded so dreary and miserable and... it felt like a fucking power ballad.

I think the chorus on that is okay, for a power ballad, but the rest is soooooo turgid. Like they heard, idk, Stereophonics' "Mr. Writer" and said "what if this were less energetic?"

watching these guys' early videos.. man the 90s, alt rockers so schlubby looking!

i guess they're wearing fred perry and stuff.. still... bagginess!

If you watch the videos in order, you can see an immense leap in production values from 'Don't Look Back In Anger' to 'D'You Know What I Mean?', one moment they're making yer-bog-standard '90s "indie band" clips, the next it's fucking helicopters, bright colours and Yellow Submarine rip-offs.

Even from the DM singles to the Morning Glory ones is a big jump I think - still kinda standard "standing around and waiting for it to look cool once it's cut together" alt-rock band stuff, but Supersonic looks (in the best way possible) like a band with one afternoon, five hundred bucks, and access to somebody's roof, while, like, Don't Look Back In Anger has like two dozen made-up extras, location rentals, nice color film, and "wossisname from The Avengers." But yeah suddenly with D'You Know What I Mean it's like, okay, imperial phase has arrived.

As much as Noel's (hilarious) commentary slags the idea of video-making generally it seems clear to me that they were super crucial to their rise and domination - their videos make them look cool as shit and 100% support the narrative of some ordinary blokes who're just here to rock, mate, and yet who also have this superstar swagger and sneer waiting to shine. It was catching Champagne Supernova by chance on MTV once that made me have to get their album, they just looked and sounded cool as shit. Now I cringe a little at that - Liam's beard! - but at age 14-15, mannn....

'Morning Glory' and 'Champagne Supernova' weren't even released as singles in the UK, but the videos to both still got as much airplay as the four singles they did put out ('Some Might Say', 'Roll With It', 'Wonderwall' and 'Don't Look Back In Anger') to the point where it felt like they'd actually released six singles from the album. It turned into some kind of alternative rock Thriller, which I don't think anyone saw coming when 'Some Might Say' came out. Of course, the band were playing a lot of the B-sides live, too, so any time a live gig was broadcast, the B-sides would get a fair bit of exposure - stuff like 'Talk Tonight', 'Acquiesce', 'Round Are Way' and 'The Masterplan'. I'm looking at the gigography for the Morning Glory tour and it's just nuts - the tour kicks off in July '95 and wraps up with the Maine Road gigs in April '96, but then they're back out four months later to do Loch Lomond, Knebworth, MTV Unplugged and the North American tour that nearly finished 'em off. A month later, they're in the studio starting to record Be Here Now. I once read a comment by Marcus Russell (Oasis manager) where he said something like "maybe we went into the studio too soon" ... you think!?

I remember 'D'You Know What I Mean?' getting a lot of airplay, with it being the first single from the album, but I don't remember seeing 'Stand By Me' or 'All Around The World' as much, and the latter is probably one of the most expensive videos they ever made. I wasn't even aware that they'd made a video for 'Don't Go Away' (it wasn't a single here) until many years later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab1nJg4RKw0

listening to definitely maybe i'm only now realizing that the japanese band the pillows were prob huge oasis fans (it's extremely visible on stuff like "up in the sky" and "digby's diner") so now i can't help but thinking of them as "what if oasis were actually good"

'Up In The Sky' is definitely one that's going on my ballot, it's always been a favourite of mine and I was always a bit confused as to why they stopped playing it live circa Morning Glory. Some nice chord changes in it, too.

great song, i'm def voting for it too

One thing that did grab me when revisiting Definitely Maybe was how lemon fresh Liam's vocals sound on it, although I think his best singing is actually on Be Here Now. He'd lost a lot of range by the time of Don't Believe The Truth and it's nice to hear him sing without all those "solo Lennon"-isms he picked up later.

"slide away" is a p rough vocal take but it's kinda endearing

"d'yer wanna be a spaceman" has always been my fav oasis song and it's almost entirely due to this silly macross plus amv

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6VQlGeAUC8

My favourite Liam vocal is actually on 'Don't Go Away', which I think is one of his more sensitive, emotional pieces of singing of the type he'd be completely incapable of just a few years later. Just compare it to the bulldozing he gives 'Stop Crying Your Heart Out', for example.

On the whole, though, revisiting all of this stuff has reminded me that I actually do still really like Oasis' stuff from 1994-1998. It's reminded me why I liked all that stuff in the first place. By the same token, most of the stuff from Standing on the Shoulder of Giants onwards has reminded me and made it clear to me why I stopped giving a shit.

Both '...the Sky' songs will be high up on my ballot (several xposts)

'Slide Away' is my favourite Liam vocal, his singing definitely lost something as the years went on.

Apparently on their last tour they were playing the songs in different keys to the original recordings to accommodate for the changes in Liam's voice... seems to me that he never really looked after his voice.

The thing about Morning Glory as alt-rock Thriller is that those six songs pretty much exhaust the album IMHO - "Hey Now" is filler, the "Swamp Song" tracks might as well not be there, and "Cast No Shadow" is just a lesser "Don't Look Back In Anger." That leaves "She's Electric" and "Hello" as good-to-great album tracks but that's not really what classic albums are made of, especially since "Roll With It" is pretty underwritten and wearying (IMHO). If they hadn't burned so much stuff on B-sides, they actually could have done a much more consistent record, even if maybe not a wall-to-wall classic, with "Round Are Way," "Underneath the Sky," "Acquiesce," etc. I like "It's Better People" but it kinda doesn't fit on that album maybe (and certainly doesn't answer the "underwritten" problem). "Rockin' Chair" also just kinda "feels" like a B-side to me. I suppose it was really too far past the release of "Whatever" to stick it on there. Still, there's some material to work with.

Of course, the fact that the singles were packed out with good songs probably helped them be such hits! I wasn't a British record buyer in the mid-90s but I can imagine feeling like, "ehh, it's a few bucks but there are all these songs on there and they've got a solid track record with me!"

I dunno, I've always really liked 'Cast No Shadow', mostly because of Noel's harmonies on it and the mellotron strings. Funnily enough, 'Cast No Shadow' was originally meant to be a B-side, but got promoted to the album after 'Step Out' got bumped from the tracklisting. There's early promo copies that exist with 'Step Out' on the album, but these promos got withdrawn. They didn't even bother to change any of the running order, just swapped one track for another...

https://img.discogs.com/J4Iu5SqB6di-JlX3z_GQeCWk710=/fit-in/500x488/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-5941309-1406911583-5972.jpeg.jpg

^ Although, hang on, that promo has both 'Step Out' and 'Cast No Shadow' on it... wtf?

But yeah, 'Cast No Shadow' was basically written as a B-side and got promoted to the record, while 'Step Out' was written for the album and got relegated to a B-side.

I like "Hey Now" and I really like "Cast No Shadow". "She's Electric" is a dreadful tune tho and played to death on Irish radio still (even tho it was never a single)

I remember liking She's Electric okay - the Beatlesy moves there, like the vocals on the outro, worked very well for me as a teen - though it certainly has a B-side-ish quality. Probably needed to stay on the album to establish that they were still "fun" and pub-ready or something. I remember a review claiming it was basically Digsy's Dinner pt. 2 which isn't quite right, but not totally off either. I think if the "And I need more time" part were a little more interesting the whole song would work better - as it is every verse sorta ends with "and I'll write more lyrics to this later."

Listening to "Some Might Say" right now and I think it might end up higher on my ballot than I'd figured - it's almost totally empty as a lyric, total McCartney nonsense-writing, but it sounds great, super hooky and the guitars just pound away at it. Great swirling racket around this basically upbeat jaunty kinda rock number. Whoever decided to run that echo effect over all the vocals was OTM, it makes even stuff like "Ah my dog's been itchin' / itchin' in the kitchen once again" sound so good.

xxxpost:

As for 'Hey Now!', I always thought that one was a touch underrated even at the time, but I can understand why - it's kinda dwarfed by many of the other tracks on the record, and I don't think Oasis actually played it live at all. I do like the way the strings build up at the end, though. I think 'The Swamp Song' "snippets" on the record work better than the actual track itself, particularly as an interlude between 'Morning Glory' and 'Champagne Supernova' (the whole "radio tuning in"/"waves" part) ... 'She's Electric' and 'Hello' are probably my two least favourite tracks on the LP at this stage, the former is kinda the 'Digsy's Dinner' of the album, whereas 'Hello' is definitely down there at the bottom of the Oasis 1994-1998 pile for me. I don't think the band themselves considered it to be one of their better songs either - it had disappeared from the setlist even by the Be Here Now tour, and unsurprisingly (for obvious reasons) never made it into their set on subsequent tours.

yeah "Hello" is kinda a rubbish opener

I wonder if Noel ever commented on that, by the way... the 'Hello' lift was legally cleared and the songwriting credits were shared right from the moment the LP came out, and the album sold a fucking truckload. Must have been fucking embarrassing given what happened afterwards.

I agree, the Swamp Song transition to Champagne Supernova is great - but bumping it up to a "track" status kinda feels like faking a full LP's worth of material when you don't have it. It's forty seconds long and there are several rather long tracks on the album, so just making it part of Morning Glory wouldn't have been uncalled for.

I like "Hello" though! Even if some of that comes from Gary Glitter, I think it's an all right opener. It's got the right attitude and I think it's catchy enough. As far as setlists go... were they using it as an opener? If so, I could imagine it just getting replaced with other things in that role, but I really don't know much about live Oasis.

Y'know, I don't think they ever did open with it! I think they'd normally open with 'The Swamp Song' and then go into 'Acquiesce', although if I remember, it was 'The Swamp Song' into 'Columbia' at Knebworth.

I love 'Hey Now', it's the best example of the wall-of-guitars approach actually working.

Listening to Be Here Now again now and thinking there's only really one song on there that I really, really dislike: 'The Girl In The Dirty Shirt'

TBF Thriller does have 'The Girl Is Mine'.
thinking this DBtT track will crack my list:
vhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiVJD10Bv7k

I remember when I saw FLCL for the first time my initial thought was "Man, I love this music. It sounds like Japanese Oasis!". This was before I knew of the phrase "Power Pop".

spending time with morning glory today. i really enjoy "hello"! "roll with it" is garrrrrbaaaage

'Roll With It' is easily the weakest single from the album, and their weakest single up to that point. I still like it, though. 'Sunday Morning Call' ... now, that's garbage.

turrican otm about noel's harmonies elevating "cast no shadow"

I have loved me some O back in the day (it's Better People prob my favorite track) but I was sure everything that needed to be said about them has been said 15 years ago

lol u guys only one song from Morning Glory was ahead of She's Electric and Cast No Shadow on my ballot

she's electric sucks

"The Girl Is Mine" is great! Certainly beats "Roll With It" as a first single.

Anyone considering voting for 'Angel Child'?

I liked 'Roll With It' at the time (bought the cassingle too!). It's easily one of the weakest songs on WTSMG but I still prefer it to Country House (xposts).

fuck almost all of the morning glory and be here now b-sides are incredible

"going nowhere"!

Oh yeah, don't forget about 'Sad Song', which was a vinyl-only track on Definitely Maybe, which they never issued as a B-side...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5efXnQIBmc

it's on the deluxe edition of def maybes

Sadly, I can't really recommend the Blur pisstake 'Bonehead's Bank Holiday', which was the vinyl-only track on Morning Glory... heh!

i listened to that one for the first time today and it's unbelievably stupid which makes it kinda...enjoyable

I think it's meant to be unbelievably stupid... Noel wrote it as kinda like a "Ringo" track for Bonehead to sing, but Bonehead decided to go out and have a couple of drinks with Liam first to steady his nerves. When they both got back, they were both too hammered to sing, so Noel ended up singing it but you can hear Bonehead and Liam in the background talking drunken gibberish.

.. dont'cha knowwwww

i still like Bonehead's Bank Holiday.

the first few lines of verse 2 of Hey Now are the worst, least thought-out lyrics i've ever heard in my life, literally sounds like they were being made up on the spot as he was singing them, those aside it's in my Top 5 funnily enough.

i always liked the cough between Roll With It and Wonderwall which is part of neither of those songs in their single form, so it's an album-only bonus!

i, so far, have a handful of ballots, only one worst song ballot. maybe not a good idea, will see.

those are called (untitled), lol.

xpost

this is turning out to be a fun experience, hope to go all out for this poll.

i might be way sick of them by the end, haha.

starting to see what mookieproof is talking about, i'm oblivious at at times.

probably will never change, it's too late for me. ;-)

a bit too much Gin tonight, i see

i never vote in these things but listening to sad song for the first time since i was 16 has made me kinda excited to see the results of this poll.

The lyrics to She's Electric are so terrible that sometimes I forget the song itself is not bad

Giving Morning Glory a listen now and... yeah, it's really not surprising at all why this album was what it was.

imo it'd be an actual classic if "acquiesce," "underneath the sky," or "step out" were on it but the singles are all very good and it feels like an important album, i.e. less flimsy than it occasionally is

anyway i'm hanging out with be here now rn and wow, such digital distortion

There's no doubt that it would have been even better if some of the B-sides had been on it, but it didn't do too badly as it stands!

For an album that sold over 20m copies worldwide and still gets cited as one of the best albums of the '90s, I'd say it already was an "actual" classic.

i mean understand, i'm not an oasis fan, and i kinda think an album with "she's electric" and "roll with it" on it kinda marginally sucks. i get that it's a classic in the sense that it's anointed forever

i'm only halfway through and i feel like i've been listening to be here now for days

"my big mouth" is prob gonna make my ballot though, it's ridiculous

stunned that the two b-sides i've heard from be here now ("stay young" and "going nowhere," which are both on the masterplan) are imo maybe the two best oasis songs...ever? and yet this is the album from which they were cut. :|

'Stay Young' was bumped off the LP for 'Magic Pie', 'Going Nowhere' was recorded after the LP came out and was written before Definitely Maybe.

There's probably four or five songs from Be Here Now that are going on my ballot - I won't say which ones!

Important reference material perhaps: Worst/most cringeworthy lyric on Oasis' 'Be Here Now'

ah i was wondering where "going nowhere" actually came from. "all around the world" was also really old by the time they recorded it right?

"stay young" >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "magic pie," it's ridiculous

Yeah, 'All Around The World' and 'Whatever' were written around the same time. I agree that 'Stay Young' is miles better than 'Magic Pie' ... 'Magic Pie' was written after the rest of the LP and Noel only stuck it on there because he sings a lead vocal on it. I won't be voting for 'Magic Pie', that's for sure.

I can't believe 'I Hope, I Think, I Know' and 'It's Gettin' Better (Man!!)' weren't singles.

The opening minute of "D'You Know What I Mean?" will never not sound cool to me though. I do get how people convinced themselves this was a great record day-one, it really announces itself as a massive thundering classic, and you can totally get steamrolled by a listen-through. You figure "wow, that was something! I don't really remember all the songs but that's how it goes with a first listen, after a few more spins I'll be singing them all in my head for weeks!"

In hindsight though, a 71-minute album with only twelve tracks, one of which is a "reprise," doesn't really bode well for Gallager's strengths as a songwriter or Oasis's skills as a band. They don't really "jam," so if that time gets taken up by instrumental sections it's going to really be a lot of overdubbed guitar-blanket stuff (which this band does well as part of an album's mix). If that time gets taken up with a bunch of repetitions of the choruses, then it's going to come down to whether you find "All Around The World"'s various bits catchy and interesting. I'm in the minority that does, but, boy is this ever a classic case of an album from a band poised to deliver a super-statement and the only thing they forgot was to leave time to write the songs. Gonna try and give it a full listen-through today though just in case it has some gems I overlooked when I wrote the whole thing off as an overheated headache-inducer.

I can't believe 'I Hope, I Think, I Know' and 'It's Gettin' Better (Man!!)' weren't singles.

was impressed by both of these songs on the listen i just gave it, think the former might make my ballot

Weirdly, they didn't even play 'I Hope, I Think, I Know' live, even though it's one of the tracks on the album that stands out as a song that you'd think would part of the live set.

last night i fell asleep listening to the masterplan and briefly woke up during "listen up," thinking it was "supersonic." both great of course but basically mirrors of each other

I have to point out that it took me 19 years to like Be Here Now! Before then, I was as down on it as everyone else was.

when i listened to oasis a lot when i was a kid (before i decided i actually really disliked them (except for the masterplan) which is an opinion that i wanted to challenge with this poll and hey it's working!!!) i focused on be here now a lot bc i tend to believe super-maligned albums tend to be a band's best or at least really valuable in a specific way (my favorite album of all time at that age was adore by the smashing pumpkins). doctor casino otm, it's messy sprawl is sort of superficially impressive! and yet almost all of the songs failed to stick

At least some of the songs have okay cores, but either needed more time to work up better and less vague/generic lyrics, or just can't survive being six minutes long. Like, "Stand By Me," there's plenty there waiting to be made into a good song, but so much work left to be done. It's like they went straight from the first demo to larding it up in postproduction. "I Hope, I Think, I Know" is much closer to being done - has enough energy and punch to it that you almost don't notice that there's only one goddamn verse worth of lyrics. It might make my ballot on catchiness alone. It'd be better at three minutes than four and a half but, good riff, several different hooks, nice earnest performance from Liam.

making my way through the rest of the be here now b-sides right now. surprise, for the most part they're better than anything on the album. "the fame"! "flashbax"!

On "The Girl With The Dirty Shirt" now and it sort of encapsulates the bigger problem - this just isn't really a very catchy or interesting song. Everybody's throwing themselves into it as if it is, and there's plenty of extra stuff piled into the mix, but it doesn't even really sound very fun to play. God knows what point it's trying to make. "If you ever find yourself inside a bubble, you've gotta make your own way home / You can call me anytime you're seeing double, now you know you're not alone." What? So is this person making their own way, or are they not alone? A bubble? Huh?

'The Girl With The Dirty Shirt' is one of my least favourite Oasis 1994-1998 tracks, maybe even my least favourite. It's the only track on Be Here Now that I'd say I out-and-out hated.

Magic Pie sure torpedoes the momentum on this fucker.

standing on the shoulder of giants (infuriating title) is like, "ok, the last album was excessive, what if we scale back in arrangements and make them a little
more tasteful, but also what if we make every vocal melody a tuneless drone"

Yeah, this was the part where it was all over for me.

I hated the title, I hated the artwork, I hated the fact that they'd carried on even though all the original members had gone, I hated how utterly boring the new members they'd brought in were, I hated the majority of the songs - particularly pointless, tedious and unmoving ballads like 'Sunday Morning Call', I hated the way all the confidence had been sucked out of the band, I hated the fact that Noel was blatantly forcing himself to write and record songs even though he was completely uninspired. Everything just pointed to a "grab the cash while you can, fellas" type of situation.

But to be fair, by this point most of Oasis' so-called "Britpop peers" were also down the toilet, just in different ways.

I love She's Electric so much it almost makes me want to vote in this poll, but I'm not sure I can think of four other Oasis songs I like.

"And I need more time" part were a little more interesting the whole song would work better - as it is every verse sorta ends with "and I'll write more lyrics to this later."

― we're gonna live in spatula city (Doctor Casino), Friday, August 5, 2016 2:39 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I like the way that "And I need more time" works as both "I need to spend more time with this amazing person" and also "I need more time before committing, because I'm an egotist", especially with the brutal "she's got one in the oven, but it's nothing to do with me" kiss-off. She's Electric is my favorite iteration of what Doctor Casino describes here:

They had this great mix of braggadocio and desperate need when they were still on the rise, very hard to sustain that once you've hit the top (and once you're on the decline even)

and the solipsism that the braggadocio and desperate need entail, but but only with the dream of "making it" applied to a romantic relationship rather than becoming a rock star or whatever. The jaunty but bittersweet feel also reminds me of Squeeze, who I always associate with Blur more than Oasis, so maybe it's Oasis' most Blur-like song.

Whereas Blur's most Oasis-like song was "She's so high" there you go I said it.

It's true! Particularly the chord progression, although not even Gallagher would be that lyrically lazy.

I'd always though that the "she" in "she's got one in the oven, but it's nothing to do with me" was the same "she" who is electric i.e. that the songs protagonist is going out with this girl he's infatuated with, but then denies responsibility and dumps her after getting her pregnant, because he's basically a solipsist. but I just looked up the lyrics to She's Electric on genius and someone has annotated it with this Noel quote:

It’s about a boy who’s got a girlfriend, and he used to go out with her sister, that he fancies her mother, doesn’t get on with her brother, and, as somebody gets her cousin pregnant, and everybody thinks it was him, because he’s a bit of a f—in' run c—, but it wasn’t.

so maybe I've misunderstood?

the blurriest oasis song is surely "underneath the sky"

standing feels less like a sober album to me than one recorded after a considerable withdrawal, brain too scraped out and droning to put together anything but the dullest thoughts

the album only starts to get interesting when it's almost over, during "roll it over," though the stolen beatles guitar licks feel pretty cynical at this point in their career

hey, this is great! it was on the "sunday morning call" single

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-2dG_Kwn8E

I always felt that the criticisms of Oasis "ripping off The Beatles", on the whole, were overstated, particularly on the first three albums. Although, by the time of Standing... they're putting in those 'Come Together' licks into 'Roll It Over' and have the 'Strawberry Fields Forever' flute sound on 'Go Let It Out' ... but on the first three albums I mostly hear influences that aren't The Beatles.

But yeah, I think you're OTM about the album being the product of someone whose mind wasn't really on the job.

i think they got called "beatle-esque" in the u.s. bcz of their hair liam's glasses

their hair + liam's glasses

Was surprised to learn that neither Gallagher bro is on the cover of Morning Glory

As a kid, I didn't know what the phrase "one in the oven" meant, so I thought the song was saying that she's burning on of her dozen cousins in the oven and the lead singer doesn't want to have anything to do with it.

aaaahahahahahhaha

I thought it was "She's got one in the other," a very odd way of describing an incestual relationship among the cousins.

Was surprised to learn that neither Gallagher bro is on the cover of Morning Glory

― Οὖτις, Sunday, August 7, 2016 2:15 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Producer Owen Morris is on there, holding the master tapes of the album, but he's not one of the two guys in the foreground.

It's hard to choose a favourite of all the sleeves that Microdot/Brian Cannon did for Oasis, and I always liked how all the single and album sleeves had a visual continuity to them, which was lost when they stopped using him after the Be Here Now era... I guess it helps to distinguish the good Oasis releases from the shit ones, though.

Yes, they were very well served by their graphics. Hard to imagine their brand being well served by a more rudimentary / d i y style.

Suede had (still have) a similar continuity to their artwork.
Blur, too, had those distinctive Stylorouge sleeves, but stopped using 'em after Blur

the popmatters oasis b-sides list is topped by the two b-sides to "the hindu times." i was like, "can they really be that good?" and the answer is "yeah they're pretty nice!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atWQMzDerA4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbL-zl0s6-k

I'm not a fan of either, fwiw... for different reasons.

jesus magic pie is fucking cat

cat?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMXQqoHAWmo

cat = catastrophic

it's great though

I broke out my singles and see that I have 17 of them.

Stop crying... was the last one I bought.

Re: Turrican's points on Beatles-yness - I dunno, I think it's a pretty big part of their thing, even on the first few albums. (Later, it's just oozing out of things like "Just Getting Older," which I'm now listening to for the first time - I mean, that drum fill at 1:17 even.) Obviously there are all the obvious things - "it's all too much for me to take," "in my yellow submarine," the "Imagine" lift on DLBIA, the titles of "Wonderwall" and Be Here Now, "tomorrow never knows..." etc. I don't find most of these distracting but it is an unusual density of references to one specific band.

But I think it's there in aspects of their sound - especially the backing vocals early on. Those big "aaahhhhhhs" on "Supersonic" and "Shakermaker" are super-Beatlesy to me. There's other bits and pieces that you could have swapped onto an Elephant 6 record without anybody noticing. "Up In The Sky" is louder and fuzzier than anything the Beatles would have done, but at its core, built around that wiry mod riff, it's a "Paperback Writer" kind of thing.

Brimstead is right that the glasses and shag haircuts also played a role though. For a minute when I first found out about them I convinced myself they had to sound something like Elton John, based on seeing my mom's copy of this around the house:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41DJJ8BD1PL.jpg

Yeah, could insert that into an Oasis lineup and nobody'd be any the wiser..

I always felt that the criticisms of Oasis "ripping off The Beatles", on the whole, were overstated, particularly on the first three albums.

"ripping off" =/= "being influenced by"

Loads of bands were influenced by The Beatles, including Oasis, and most of 'em didn't cop the level of flak that Oasis got for having a Beatles influence either. Yes, I do think it's there in the sound of the early albums, but people bang on about it as if Oasis were copping entire Beatles songs and passing them off as their own, which is why I say the criticisms are overstated.

Apart from a few seconds at the end of 'She's Electric' and the intro to 'Don't Look Back In Anger' (which was put in deliberately and doesn't repeat anywhere else in the song) and the piccolo trumpets on 'All Around The World (Reprise)', I can't think of much that's a direct lift... and those things always came across as "tributes" to me, anyway. All the other references are lyrical, or in the titles.

I always felt that Noel's real musical passion was for early '70s glam rock, hence the blatant steals from T-Rex and Glitter and why their version of 'Cum On Feel The Noize' is the most convincing cover version they ever did.

totally agree - their sound is way more Chinnichap than the Beatles.

although you left out one direct lift (the horn line in "Round Are Way" = the horn line from "Good Day Sunshine")

er Got to get you into my life? one of those

Blatant lifts from: Orange Crush, Waiting for the man, Uptight, How sweet to be an idiot, and so on.

unfamiliar with those entries in the Beatles catalog

Oh, and the end of "With a little help from my friends" went into "She's electric", there I filled it in.

Xpost yeh, what I'm saying is that the Beatles were an influence, but direct lifts mostly came from other places. Like, hundreds. OK, maybe not hundreds, but.

Finished my BHN and Standing... re-listens while cleaning the house today. Sadly they're both a little worse than I remembered - BHN kind of in exactly the ways I'd remembered, but so much more of it. In particular, "It's Getting Better (Man!!)" is probably going to drop off my ballot; it's got a great hook and some really energetic playing, but it's seven minutes long and I don't think it introduces one actually new element after the three-minute mark. Maybe there's an extra backing vocal with Noel going "Yeahhh!" or something but that's really it. "All Around The World" bears the brunt of the criticism of the excess but idk, I might keep that one in my list since it sort of stands in for this whole enterprise while being slightly hookier. "Be Here Now" is okay but again - does this kind of lightweight "silly song" need to be the kind of thing where a whole verse repeats just to make space between guitar breaks? "Magic Pie" is indeed dire though less irritating somehow just because it's at least more sonically different from the rest of the album. In general I don't much enjoy Noel in ballad mode ("Talk Tonight" is one of my least favorite cuts from the 'classic' period) and this, again, doesn't have enough to say to justify its length.

Standing on the other hand is a little more varied than I remember, and refreshingly cleaned-up versus the simmering dross of BHN, but the average song quality is lower if anything. The tracks I liked in 2000 I still like, even if "Go Let It Out" wears its influences a little too cheekily (and "Who Feels Love," actually a pretty good tune, wears them so hard it seems like the kind of thing they should have given away, Lennon/McCartney-style, to Kula Shaker). The appropriately-titled "Where Did It All Go Wrong" is a true generic rock mediocrity. "Sunday Morning Call" and "Little James" are awful - much, much more boring than I remember. I think I must have just gotten in the habit of skipping them every time. Basically, if you trim it down, there's an EP's worth of competent material that you could have swapped onto Be Here Now to improve it considerably. In fact, I'm just now realizing that I made exactly that mix CD, sharpie-labeled Be On The Shoulder of Giants (ugh).... though it didn't get too many spins as later that year I went off to college, discovered indie rock, and never looked back.

But in the spirit of the poll I will say that "Go Let It Out," "Who Feels Love?" "Gas Panic!" "I Can See A Liar" and "Roll It Over" are all, tbh, pretty decent even if none of them seem like all-time Oasis classics, and only the last, by running back to "Champagne Supernova," seems like an Oasis song.

Now back for another pass through The Masterplan. God, "Going Nowhere"! Amazing. Like Belle & Sebastian if they'd been a completely different band. If you put this and "Supersonic" side by side you have almost everything that's actually special about Oasis, certainly almost everything I want out of them. And yeah I don't think I've raved about "Supersonic" yet on this thread but boy is it awesome, it keeps getting stuck in my head but it's really fun, so forceful, so pleased with its own juvenile aggression and rock machismo. It sells the hell out of lines that on a later album would just sit there calling attention to their own dumbness (doctor / helicopter rhyme in particular) and then others are kind of perfectly dumb, as carried by Liam's echoed sneer. The second verse is probably the best line delivery of his career, and then yeah, those great background vocals... great fucking song.

whoah never listened to that before, I guess they did have good songs after 1996..?!

What, The Masterplan? Oh, it's essential listening! There's a strong case for just calling it the third album since it's basically all B-sides from the DM and Morning Glory eras. It's sort of glaringly missing "Round Are Way," "Cloudburst," "It's Better People," "D'yer Wanna Be A Spaceman," and probably some other good stuff, but it's a lot of canonical Oasis stuff and a bunch of ballot contenders for me - the aforementioned "Going Nowhere," "Underneath the Sky," "Fade Away," and "Listen Up" are all top-drawer.

oh wait you said you were voting for a bunch of B-sides, sorry if I misread you there!

yeah I never got the Masterplan because I already had bought all the singles and didn't think the Be Here Now b-sides would be much cop

Ahhhhh gotcha gotcha. Wiki reports that "Going Nowhere" was written in 1990, which makes sense for its desperate aspirational quality, and the fact that it's miles better than the A-side "Stand By Me." The only other BHN b-side on that comp is "Stay Young" which is much more like a Be Here Now track if a bit better than a lot of those.

I'm kinda rummaging through the other BHN b-sides now. The "Heroes" cover is almost exactly what you'd expect; like most straightforward rock band covers of the song it misses some of the strength of the original by turning it into a really heroic anthem, but as far as that goes it's better than the Wallflowers/Godzilla version from the same year. "Street Fighting Man" is kinda pointless but it sounds good. Has that funny thing about covers that remind me of weaker karaoke singers, where something that's slurred and unintelligible in the original gets carefully enunciated as if someone's working from the lyric sheet. I bet they sounded fucking massive doing this live though - a better classic-rock pick for their guitar-wall approach than "I Am The Walrus," that's for sure.

the other bhn b-sides are all pretty good but i've got a lot of affection for "my sister lover," which is kind of a weird jaunty shoegaze track

apparently noel liked it too bc he basically rewrote it as "dream on" for the high flying birds

might as well embed it, it rocks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WC4aY3Hb0Y

I'm really fond of 'Angel Child', myself... which is actually one of the Mustique demos!

i listened to heathen chemistry today and while it's better than standing it's still super dull

which is why I guess the opening few tracks of dont believe the truth actually sound legit awesome. "turn up the sun" is andy bell's faceless oasis rocker but it has such a pretty outro, "mucky fingers" is noel doing a velvets/dylan pastiche and he kind of sounds like he's having a blast not writing a typical noel oasis song, and I completely forgot that I actually like "lyla"

Its a halfway decent album, just to prove it can happen.

wow zak starkey really kicked this band in the ass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUSiclkjjtw

Golden Brown, texture like sun...

Don't Believe The Truth was an improvement on the previous two, but still nowhere up there with the Creation-era stuff. I've never liked 'Turn Up The Sun', 'Keep The Dream Alive', 'A Bell Will Ring', 'The Meaning of Soul', 'Mucky Fingers' or even 'Lyla'...

lol I love "lyla" so much rn

I remember hearing it when it came out and it was like "oh, that melody again..."

the bonus track from don't believe the truth is AWESOME

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lBp5bExsEE

Cool sound to that! Not at all what I expect from Oasis. Kinda, idk, Velvets-y? Would prefer it with a full vocal - it's not quite interesting enough to keep me hanging on as that riff chugs along, but it's a cool direction for them to take.

It makes me wanna sing Pulp's 'I'm a Man' over the top of it.

dig out your soul i think suggests that they were about to become an interesting band again, in a different way from their creation records, but then ofc noel left

First listen to Heathen Chemistry. Always dug "The Hindu Times," still do, though after all that time spent in BHN-land I'm kinda trained to notice the exact moment when a song presses its luck one too many times on another go-round of the chorus. But at least it's got some oomph to it. In general the sound of this record feels like a nice correction from the overstuffed BHN and the basically muted and studio-based SOTSOG - they sound like a band again, even if Liam's vocals feel sorta pasted-in on e.g. "Hung in a Bad Place." The songs are back to reasonable lengths but still have things going on in them in terms of arrangement/performance; they're not just trusting the guitar solos to carry them. "Better Man," smartly, tries to close things not with an epic statement but a dirty rocker: heads up folks, this is an Oasis ready to play smokey, dangerous basement clubs (not that that will ever happen again). (This is one of several things about this record that reminds me in a weird way of R.E.M.'s later, better Accelerate.) That said, it's more of an attitude than a song - note the reliance on "All right now, yeah yeah" segments and the repetition of the title line while the band just kinda plugs away. Why they bothered with the hidden track I can't guess - it just cancels out the choice to end with "Better Man" and instead goes with a plodding jam that if it were in the middle of the album would be an obvious slab of momentum-killing filler.

Unfortunately the writing's not super consistent; Noel still hasn't refilled his bag of hooks after the flood of '94-'96. "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" is very weak in this sense - just riding the chorus over and over, and the rest is sorta by-the-numbers - but at least it sounds great. A passable answer to Coldplay and Travis. The Kula-Shakery psych pastiche is still lurking in there, particularly strong on "(Probably) All in the Mind," but it's handled with those mid-period Beatles gloves again (I mean, this is basically "Rain," right?), which makes it feel much more natural a fit for the band. "She Is Love" is in the same boat, but a pleasant surprise - an old-school urgently-strummed Noel tune with some nice coloring from the added instruments and production touches. Spritely. "Born On A Different Cloud" goes instead for Imagine (I mean, this is basically "How Do You Sleep," right?) with the plodding piano and vague bitterness (and then fake George Harrison for the solo!). Really muddled lyrics though - the first track that really wears by the time it's over.

Overall the record is a kind of thing I don't really consume anymore - midtempo, middle-of-the-road guitar rock, another platter of workaday songs for the drive home and larded up with Sixties flavor 'cause that's when rawk was great, mannn. I know it has a really low reputation with the fans, and I guess it doesn't really add much to the Oasis canon, but it goes by pleasantly and doesn't overstay its welcome. Even stuff like "A Quick Peep" which would feel like the twentieth pointless cherry added to Be Here Now here feels just kinda like Noel and company having fun playing their instruments while waiting for Liam to show up. But if this had come out in 2000 instead of SOTSOG I would have given it enough spins to really get attached to some of these tracks.

Realized yesterday while scrubbing the shower that my relationship with Oasis is really similar to my relationship with the Foo Fighters - came in through the second album, got into the first (later deciding it was the best and the only real start-to-finish keeper), sadly got off the train right around the third, partly because of the aforemntioned college/indie-rock discovery... and then they meanwhile kept putting out albums, occasionally surprising me with an MOR single that sounded good to my ears, but never taking me to the point of actually buying a new album by them. They both went pretty quickly from a sort of scrappy, urgent creative spark to feeling like huge institutional dinosaurs, one foot already in the Hall of Fame and with nothing much to say. Doesn't mean the albums from that period are necessarily shitty though.

"the turning and "shock of the lightning" sound so cool, which isn't something i thought them capable of at this point in their discography

oooh i really like that "part of the queue" song. nice find, brad. yeah insane drumming

Foo Fighters comparison is v apt - similar cultural stance, loads of hookless songs evoking rock's "heyday" but with modern sonic trappings and none of the wit or adventurousness

OK im listening to "Dont Believe the Truth" now. My Oasis-mad friend reckons its their best album post-BHN

welp, i'm done. that was fun! gonna send in my ballot

xpost:

It's the best of the post-1998 records, yeah, but it's still only half a good album.

we are up to double digits in ballots. i will start to send out confirmation emails starting tomorrow night after work.

not getting a lot of Singles/EP's ballots and of the ones i'm getting are mostly Top 5. Top 10 was too much but i'm going through my collection.

It's the 20th anniversary of Oasis playing Knebworth today!

Happy 20th to the last day I ever gave a shit about Oasis

Your music's shite it keeps me Polling all night: OASIS (ILM artist poll 78) --- Voting open until Sunday August 14, 2016

haha, wrong thead

and wrong link

anyways. i never had the need to buy The Masterplan as i was buying the singles at the time. so now i;m going through all those singles and saying to myself, yep that one will make it ect. now i'm sort of wondering if all the ones i pick will also be on that album?

anyways, the best part about doing this poll is listening to their b-sides again. they are, for the most part, great.

never really listened to them much before beyond the big singles but I'm a bit surprised to find just how much better Definitely Maybe is than Morning Glory

--------------------
Help Wanted
--------------------

i'm asking for help with images. i would like someone to take over and do the images for the roll out of this poll. your vision, you can use Oasis or something else, if interested please email me at the above Oasis box.

thanks!

Moka punched up a pretty dope-looking template here - ILM Ballot Polls for 2014 and beyond -- order, timing, "I would have voted if I'd known about it," etc Font is definitely right, anyway.

that is a good Oasis image. Moka is probably out though as she is having computer issues.

bump--------HELP needed.

bumpy, bump, bump. was really hoping to get someone today.

Weekend, dude.

be patient, ok i get it.

Can I write in the following?

It's Better People
Acquiesce
Supersonic
Roll with it

all you need is one more song and then email the address above.

i can't do this in the upcoming week because of work issues, so i'm going to extend voting for one more week. countdown will start that week.

i still think that 'dig out your soul' is a cracking album.
far better than any of their other post BHN albums.
the extra stuff that came in the boxset was wonderful stuff.
(mainly down to the production by richard fearless)
oh, and the 20 minute FSOL/AA remix of Falling Down was the best thing they had done in years.

^^^^^^

'Bag It Up', 'The Turning', 'The Shock of the Lightning', 'I'm Outta Time' and 'Falling Down' are all good, I suppose... but '(Get Off Your) High Horse Lady', 'To Be Where There's Life', 'The Nature of Reality' and 'Soldier On' are just... eurgh.

i genuinely like "(get off your) high horse .. "

the opening section drifting into the full band groove i find very enjoyable.

and despite all the cliches, i love the sitar excess and big bass groove of 'to where theres life' ..

and 'the nature of reality' is just a full on glam stomp ..
nothing different for them i know, but damn, its a big fuck off stomp of a track.

and as for 'soldier on' ..
well, as final send off, i aint complaining..
i agree it's not anything special, but it's a solid oasis track.

summary : their final album is up with their best in my world.

and despite all the cliches, i love the sitar excess and big bass groove of 'to where theres life' ..

― mark e, Saturday, August 13, 2016 8:32 PM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's not the cliches that bother me, really, it's more that the song itself isn't very good. Then again, I feel pretty much the same about every song that Gem Archer wrote for Oasis.

well, given i still listen to the heavy stereo album ..

hope the extended time can bring in some more ballots.

sorry i had to delay the roll out but that's life sometimes.

Oh god, Heavy Stereo were awful, just awful!

Definitely still gearing up on my ballot! Glad of the bonus time tbh, will try and give spins to the last two albums just in case anything knocks me out.

glad the extra time is going to help some.

for those of you who have missed this, Oasis deadline has been extended. you actually have one more week.

Thankful for the extended deadline, now I'll actually be able to put together a ballot

"Dont Believe The Truth" is surprisingly decent

I guess I should put together a ballot for this. I'll probably just stick to the 1994-1998 stuff, though... I find it hard to narrow that stuff down to a ballot as it is.

do it!

I hope you do. We really need the ballots.

i will still be sending out confirmation emails and since this poll got delayed so did those emails. i should get them out to everyone tomorrow night.

this is still OPEN, please vote as we despriately need some ballots.

starting to send out confirmation emails.

if you don't get one in the next few hours let me know.

all confirmation emails have gone out.

voting is still O P e N

three days left to vote.

it's time to name our results thread. any suggestions?

..Polling down on all that I ever knew..

WONDERPOLL

Cause God gave me POLL, In Your Rock 'n' Roll, Babe

or: Tonight, I'm A Rock 'n' POLL Star

Poll with it

Saw You Walking Down The Hall, Faster Than A CannonPOLL

Where Were You While Bee Was Countin' Votes?

Poll with it

^^^

i will use one of those

love that one Doctor Casino! haha

we almost are in the 20's.

last weekend to vote, even if you just like five songs please submit.

finalizing my 25 now! Gets tricky ranking some of these and I think I could probably scramble most of the list and think "yeah, that looks about right." But so it goes. List overall feels like a pretty kickass two-disc comp even if I ended up giving up on really learning the last few records enough to pick much from 'em. Gotta be true to what really got the repeat plays out of my battered old CDs. This is fun!

Hastily assembled ballot sent!
I'd planned to include a lot from the last two albums but couldn't justify them against the classics - in the end only "Lyla", "Shock of the Lightning" and "I'm Outta Time" made it on

http://blogforarizona.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/i-voted_sticker.gif

Voted! Only stray tracks from later releases... The b-sides from be here now singles could possibly have made the list had they been on spotify.

should I vote

How long have we got? Til midnight Sunday/Monday?

Found Acquiese on an old tape in the car, but couldn't for the life of me recall the title. My son googled the lyrics. Great track.

yes Alfred please vote.

also still waiting for Turrican ballot, results are not going to happen without it. ;=)

;-)

I'll send it over in a couple of hours.

yay

piscesx, the deadline is at Midnight on Sunday San Francisco time but i will be asleep so it is soft. if you are a few hours late that would be fine, Monday night would be too late however.

i finally voted myself. it was so much easier picking 10 EPs then it was picking five albums. i did not pick a worst song, not that i don't they have one, but rather i didn't want to actually go through those later records again to find it. i found it two weeks ago but forgot what song it was.

they = think

about a day and a half left to vote!

last day to vote

Managed to get a 15-track list together (a very rockist one, almost all from 1995).

starting to get really excited for this roll-out.

no-one volunteered but i'm getting some artwork together too.

ballot sent!

Just use that photo of Liam from the beady eye thread for each entry

almost made it to the deadline but going to bed.

VOTING is closed.

everyone now should have a confirmation email. if you didn't get one let me know.

we ended up getting a fair number of ballots, roll-out should be a blast.

Fookin stoked (Man!!)

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/9uOXTNu1UpwxtgZzZOhPQhkShNMP4_mMDp7M2NfNydOLnBjEVxfQK6f52vrcubxyPs3Kp1iWbXwZ5kgLHK7_gbeJquHq1AtPVLk-E7DMlHA0FfKDTLCBiOxlxcxLTBoCG9K2kkAFch0EzM83mtEGBfsVgQvus7oUOZ2g5qyWimX1TPS3medEq4L_Ntb_htbPCLT1MHj8P0UDBoU3mHIPqV2Zqbab7QnV9Pw9eD3eT8WNFLJZDRuW_av-mSA6WKOoLqVNnafGWpIS4LSRta_ezESRJL5bGf_ci-ENb7RIzQej2P0UdLlUL25XF_AAjorj19a2pynSZCcl1dNkvSRxAf-KdhSvDYxIkZmvoRUAexV_hvcGRm1vOzFZX3dQhe_owUR7PXYtKepvPQHzqgonaW1OLzQek3Bsqe4OcMQD9YXAHlk7SLuJZx6Ixw2np2CKNj5RlL4iKlpw93bGcCK7ofJqDax3RLdZKKNGMbA_jS-KyclrUqfAzEwKdYWF0itvHhepDsRpTcbngraD9U5VMnO26-T3AaL5fsD7Hf2rf_tP_YI_Vgm2hLmer-WKS4OqxipFf2VdnDLQgt5TUqnFDMnbdUzutFvqwPy33y_b8L7HxWk=w1200-h554-no

POLL With It - OASIS (ILM artist poll #78) --- The results thread