Ten years ago, Oasis were the biggest band in the world. They were compared to the Beatles, to Led Zeppelin, to the Who – to basically every big, dumb, classic rock band there ever was – and they spear-headed a long-delayed second British Invasion, alongside bands like Blur and Radiohead. But where Blur and Radiohead were critics’ darlings, “cerebral” and “challenging,” Oasis were anything but, always pandering to the lowest common denominator.
Now, that may sound like an insult, but at their prime, Oasis’ music was stupid in the best way: stupid like Led Zeppelin’s hairstyles, stupid like Pink Floyd’s concept albums, stupid like Ozzy Osbourne eating a dove or Jimi Hendrix playing a guitar with his teeth. That’s what made Oasis such a sensation. After the artifice and make-believe that defined eighties pop and rock, Oasis represented a return to everything that people loved classic rock for: huge egos, massive riffs, brash machismo, and, of course, that crucial ingredient of British-ness. When people heard “Champagne Supernova” they really heard the Beatles reincarnated; when they blasted “Wonderwall” it was Liam Gallagher’s seventies rock star-sneer that really got them going.
That was ten years ago, though, and imitation can only get you so far. In the long, painful time that has passed since then, Oasis have gone from truly being the “biggest band in the world” to being the world’s biggest has-beens, as out-moded and desperately unfashionable in this world of indie rock domination as Led Zepp or the Rolling Stones were at the apex of punk. In the British media, songwriter Noel Gallagher is the go-to guy for grouchy dismissals of contemporary music; his widely scorned condemnation of hip hop as “totally wrong” for the British music festival Glastonbury only solidified his status as an old, behind-the-times crank. But forget Britain, where Oasis’ reputation as the ultimate ‘lads down at the pub’ band is inextricably tied up with issues of class. Just go ask any American on the street what they think of Oasis and I can guarantee you the answer will be simple: “didn’t they break up?”
Well the answer is no: they did not break up. Even after releasing three critically-mauled albums in a row. But then again, Noel and Liam Gallagher aren’t known for their humility, that much is clear from their music: and here they are again in 2008, horrendously uncool, horrendously dated, and dropping their latest album “Dig Out Your Soul.”
And you know what? If you divorce it from all your expectations – from the karaoke-dirge of “Wonderwall,” or the memory of the time when “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory” was the biggest album in the world, or everything that’s happened in popular music since 1998 – it’s actually a decent rock album, short, catchy, and undemanding. But as with every album released by a has-been band, it’s impossible to forget how good they used to be; and while it may be the job of a critic to try to detach oneself from preconceptions and judge music on its own terms, sometimes that’s just not going to happen.
As usual Oasis are ruled by their influences, and many songs here can be traced to other, better bands, from the bluesy Zeppelin stomp of “Waiting for the Rapture,” to the soft, Stone Roses-like shuffle of “Falling Down.”
Still it’s the Beatles who overshadow the album, and on “Dig Out Your Soul” the Gallagher brothers take their well-documented Beatles obsession to new heights, ripping off George Harrison on the distorted, zither-laden “To Be Where There’s Life,” and effectively reproducing the ending of “Sgt Peppers” on the album’s psychedelic closer, “Soldier On.” There’s also the gloopy, cringe-inducing “I’m Outta Time,” Liam Gallagher’s attempt at writing a Lennon ballad that ends up sounding more like a Celine ballad.
In one way however, “Dig Out Your Soul” is a distinctly different record from the rest of Oasis’ discography. Within the first few seconds of the opening track, anyone who’s faintly acquainted with the band will no doubt be struck by how tight and stripped down the sound is, and it’s a restraint that characterises much of the album. Gone are the deafening wall of sound productions that made the band’s name, gone the choruses seemingly designed to be sung by drunken football hooligans. It’s a major change, one of the first signs that Oasis have stumbled out of their classic rock time machine into an awareness of what’s going on in contemporary music.
Now, when I say “stripped down” of course it’s not Leonard Cohen or Elliott Smith or anything; Oasis churn out loud, commercial rock, and they always will. But there is a sense of self-control here that has certainly never before been heard before on an Oasis album, from the gritty, strutting “Bag It Up,” to the terse blues of “(Get Off Your) High Horse Lady.” Even more standard Oasis rockers, like the blazing, horrendously catchy single “Shock of the Lightning,” are surprisingly stream-lined.
And on the whole, it’s a change for the worse. Sure, it may finally show Oasis moving on from trying to recapture the heady excess of their glory days, but in going for this more ‘tasteful’ approach, Oasis have decisively abandoned what made them great in the first place. Listening to “Dig Out Your Soul” made me nostalgic for the time when Liam Gallagher would sneer away over a gloriously uncontrolled mess of smashing drums and chaotic guitars – and that’s the last thing I expected to feel when I bought the disc, because it’s also that un-ironic sense of excess that made Oasis seem like such relics among the relentlessly hip posturing of contemporary rock.
But hey, if ridiculously uncool genres like eighties pop and disco can be appropriated and reconfigured into the height of cool, who’s to say that one day Oasis won’t be looked back on as the hipsters of their time? Okay: it’s unlikely, but I’d rather see Oasis being themselves than thinning out their sound like they have on “Dig Out Your Soul,” an appropriate title perhaps for their most breezily enjoyable album in a long time, but also for their most easily forgettable.
After all, if I’m being honest with myself, it was always Oasis’ obnoxious arrogance that made their music so darn fun to listen to, and hearing them in 2008, watered down and polite, really sounding like 40 year olds for the first time in their career, is more dispiriting than the fact that the music itself is actually quite listenable.
"Dig Out Your Soul" released 6 October, 2008 by Reprise Records.
Images courtesy of Reprise Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.
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