Midpoint on the Oasis

So people still like Oasis, then.

I, myself, would not pay several hundred pounds to see them now. In fact, I don't think I would go if you covered my travel expenses and gave me a t-shirt. I saw them once, at a festival, in 2005, and that was enough. They were ok. My friends didn't stick around, they went to see LCD Soundsystem, the right choice. I did. It was fine. They played some of their good songs, some of their less good songs. There was no drama, no glory.

At the same time, I can't say, though I might like to, I belong to very vocal the "I never liked them anyway, they were entirely boorish and meritless, they caused Brexit" camp.

I did like Oasis, and, in fact, I still like the Oasis songs I like. The Oasis songs I like are the ones which are romantic and vulnerable, which have a hint of desperation and/or innocence. They are also, nearly always, ones that Liam Gallagher, a very distinct and memorable rock singer at his best, sings, rather than Noel Gallagher, who has unquestionably the least pleasant voice ever to grace two Number 1 hits (though, in fact, I realised, it's not even that Noel's voice is horrible in and of itself. When he sings gently, as on Half the World Away, or Talk Tonight, it's really not so bad, it's his loud voice which is the genuine horror)..

So, five Oasis songs I like are ...

Slide Away, the best Oasis song. 

Wonderwall. I'm afraid so. Wonderwall remains a massively popular song. It has over 2 billion Spotify streams. That's really top range - top 100 songs ever, worldwide. And that's only going to go up again now. And, with all that, I still have an affection for it when I hear it like the first time i heard it in the autumn of 95 in Greece and St Andrews.

I'm Outta Time (this is a late single, written by Liam, and genuinely rather lovely, the closest he ever got to a good John Lennon impression).

Round Are Way - just joyful and silly.

and, the one that has always been most interesting and particular to me,

Stay Young. The b-side to one of the worst singles by anyone ever, D'You Know What I Mean, the song that killed a decade. Noel Gallagher didn't/doesn't like Stay Young, so it stayed a b-side. It's better than everything on Be Here Now,

But the reason it's a little interesting to me now is that, when people see no merit in Oasis, they do overlook the merit of shared experience. of how powerful it is to feel something and feel there is meaning in a song, with other people. That didn't really happen much with me for Oasis. Certainly not when I saw them live. There was the communal feeling on Wonderwall being everywhere, of everyone on every street liking it.

Apart from that, the Oasis songs that have ever made me feel something are, I guess, Live Forever, and, oddly, Hey Now, one of the least notable tracks on What's the Story ... which I remember listening to on my Walkman in the snow when i went for a walk near a relative's house in southern Scotland, just after I'd been given What's the Story and Pet Sounds for Christmas in 95, secretly preferring the Oasis to the Beach Boys (though that didn't last for long)

And Stay Young, which, banal as it sounds now, I remember listening to in a car with my friends after we'd lost our first football match of the team we'd started in the second year of university, feeling really down about it because wer'd hoped we'd be good, all of us singing along to this and cheering up to the words "My faith's unshakeable" and then that football team didn't lose again all season, won nearly every game we played for three years, and was probably my favourite, most joyful sporting experience, just to be playing football well with my actual friends, rather than all the others i had to play with the rest of the time.

So that's Stay Young. It means something to me, man. Like I imagine a lot of Oasis songs mean a lot to other people. Clearly.

So I'm sympathetic to that. 

Saying all that, and for balance, I hate a lot of Oasis songs.

D'You Know What I Mean, the worst single ever

Roll With It, perhaps the 4th worst single ever.

Little By Little - bottom 10 of all time.

Shakermaker - abysmal. (indeed Shakermaker was the first Oasis song I heard, when all the hype was beginning, and I was entirely nonplussed, and didn't get into them for another 18 months or so).

All Around the World. A disgrace.

Who Feels Love. Yuk,

And I've no time for the big anthemic "aren't we great, we're having a great time" ones (i think Stay Yoing is different than that, i think it's insecurity and hope).

Champagne Supernova

Some Might Say

The Masterplan

even Rock'n'Roll Star.

Don't like What's the Story. 

Don't like Sunday Morning Call and most of the other ones sung by Noel Gallagher.

Also, Noel Gallagher has become awful. Just says lot of horrible, depressing, kids today don't know they were born. what's this woke all about, things (whereas Liam is, mostly, a little more of a good-natured, live and let live, ray of light in middle age than might have been expected).

So, no, I won't be seeing Oasis. But I don't hate them quite as much as I'd like to.