What’s the story, evening glory?
June 10, 2005 | 12:00am
Fact is, the brothers Gallagher (Noel and Liam) no longer look back in anger. Well, at least not on the latest album "Don’t Believe the Truth."
A digression: A long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away), I wrote an obituary of Britpop, which came out in Pulp. I know that sounds silly today, but at that time it felt as if I were a man on a mission, or at least a mason on commission. (Regret is like a bad hangover.) It went something like this:
"Art is dead. Honesty is dead. Humanity is dead. William Burroughs is dead. Allen Ginsberg is dead. Joe Strummer is dead. The devil is dead – or, worse, terribly out of fashion. Rock is dead. Jazz is dead. Literature is dead. Painting is a dead end. Good taste is dead. Compassion is dead. All that remains living are the sellers of dead items and even deader ideas. Hope is dead. Freedom is dead. Life, as we know it, is dead. Britpop is dead."
Britpop died the day the guys of Oasis (architects of British pop music classics such as "Definitely Maybe" and "What’s The Story Morning Glory?") churned out album after identical album taken from the same staid template: Beatles/Stones/Kinks/Who/Slade riffs and harmonies framing the concerns of working-class lads. "Laddishness," critics defined it. The succeeding albums ("Be Here Now," "Standing On The Shoulder of Giants," "The Masterplan," and "Heathen Chemistry") brimmed with music that was like the sound of photocopiers copying themselves. Britpop became a commodity, or something that comes with a patent and an expiration date. Something you store in a cabinet with medicine and milk and forgotten totally about.
Other leading Britpop bands chose to reinvent themselves. Radiohead dabbled in electronica and existentialism. Damon Albarn and Blur delved into world music and cute cartoon pop via Gorillaz. The Verve disbanded without fanfare. Others simply got sidetracked and never heard from again, at least in our shores. Oasis slugged on, rehashing their more glorious mornings. Britpop was, at that point, as healthy as a dead horse.
A shame, indeed, since Oasis – composed of chief songwriter-guitarist Noel Gallagher, vocalist Liam "Our Kid" Gallagher, and a constantly changing supporting cast including "Bonehead" and "Guigsy" – spoke for a generation in "Definitely Maybe" which was released in ’94, just like what sneering Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols did in the late ‘70s. Specifically for youths who peered into a future of dole-outs, queues, conservative politics, and assembly-line jobs – what Liam unashamedly enunciates with a thick Brit accent in Cigarettes and Alcohol. "Is it worth the aggravation/To find yourself a job when there’s nothing worth working for?/It’s a crazy situation/But all I need are cigarettes and alcohol!" Bravo.
He also sang as a wide-eyed Mancunian kid contemplating a life of stardom in Rock N’ Roll Star: "I live my life for the stars that shyyyiiiiine/People say it’s just a waste of time…. Tonight, I’m a rock n’ roll." While dirty guitars strutted, swaggered and spat.
And unlike rebel yellers who proclaim how they hate the world and want to die, lean-and-hungry Liam declared how he wants to live forever in song, a sentiment that’s positive and kaleidoscopic in a grungy, dreary, and terribly aimless epoch (ruled by cheerful blokes Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, and Alice in Chains). Live Forever is the musical equivalent of a yellow submarine floating on the murky Thames. You could hear an era being defined in that song, ground being gently broken.
"I need to be myself, I can’t be no one else," wrote Noel in Supersonic as a testament of independence and individuality. With big and brash words such as "No one’s gonna tell you what I’m on about," the guys from Oasis deftly mined the past (some wise-ass scribes would say "pilfered" The Beatles’ old glories) and chronicled the present, while forging the sound of the future. Ultimately paving the way for bands like Coldplay, The Libertines, Travis, and The Stands, etc.
"What’s The Story Morning Glory?," a big and sweet rock n’ tootsie roll of a record released in ‘95, put the spotlight on Noel Gallagher’s songwriting prowess, especially on Wonderwall, Don’t Look Back In Anger, and Champagne Supernova. (These songs have been discussed to death already, so no need for superfluous comments.)
Evocative, yes. Derivative, yes. But Noel once said he’d rather leave the experimenting to his peers (alas, poor Yorke), and concentrate on music that could raise roofs off arenas. Beautiful punch-drunk lovesick sing-a-longs and epic love odes are what Oasis is all about. (My girlfriend Becca Rodriguez, who’s actually the Oasis expert, finds herself caught between landslides and supernovas in the sky whenever she hears these songs. That’s how hallucinogenic music can be. Like magic pie.)
After proclaiming themselves bigger than God and earning tabloid notoriety (from paparazzi attacks to sticky bird entanglements to sibling punch-ups), the brothers Gallagher somehow lost the plot.
But…
I recently got a pre-release CD of Oasis’ sixth platter "Don’t Believe The Truth," listened to it, and started looking for the magazine where I wrote my Britpop obituary in order to eat it. I wrote the band off in that article, dismissing Oasis as a slow, lumbering, and arthritic Britpop colossus. A jukebox with the Union Jack. I think with "Don’t Believe The Truth," the Gallaghers prove they can still make good music together, despite the aborted sessions with Death In Vegas and a lukewarm Glastonbury gig. Although listeners will still get musical flashbacks and déjà vu with the new songs penned by Noel (five tracks), Liam (a surprising three) and a couple by new guns Gem Archer and Andy Bell, who sport matching Oasis haircuts.
"I carry madness everywhere I go," sings Liam in Turn Up The Sun, which reminds me of the mood of the Stones’ Jumpin’ Jack Flash with its opening line "I was born in a crossfire hurricane." Mucky Fingers has a persistent riff that recalls the Velvet Underground’s I’m Waiting For The Man.
Things get better with the bombastic carrier single Lyla, where Liam sings with patented swagger, sneer and braggadocio. Genetic Beatle Zak Starkey handles the sticks on this one while Liam sings in supernova fashion: "Calling all the stars to fall/And catch the silver sunlight in your hands."
Love Like A Bomb sounds like a refugee off "Revolver" or "Rubber Soul." Good Liam tune with its jangly acoustic and Middle Eastern electric guitars.
The Importance of Being Idle, which has a Kinks groove going on, underscores the Brit tramp life, which is shitty but tolerable "as long as there’s a bed beneath the stars that shine."
Liam’s The Meaning of Soul is one of my favorites, with its insistent jerky rhythms and an overall mood describe by Noel as "Elvis on Red Bull." A scary thought. While God Thinks I’m Abel is Our Kid’s ode to the older Gallagher. Let’s go along/There’s nothing here to do/Let’s go find a rainbow…
Noel’s Part Of The Queue has a percussive rhythm reminiscent of the Red Hot Chili Peppers Breaking The Girl. Listen to the piano bits that sound like the mellotron in the Rick Rubin-produced breakthrough RHCP album. Reportedly inspired by lining up in a grocery store. Imagine a rock n’ roll star buying crisps or whatever.
Keep The Dream Alive is a sentimental ballad penned by Bell. (Here, Liam sounds unusually like the Stereophonics’ Kelly Jones.) Archer’s A Bell Will Ring fares much better, although it is aurally related to Tomorrow Never Knows.
The album ends with the cosmic karaoke duet between the Gallaghers titled Let There Be Love. This is Oasis’ stab at rewriting All You Need Is Love with sensitive yet never syrupy lines like Liam’s "Who kicked a hole in the sky?/So the heavens will cry over me/Who stole the soul from the sun?/And the world come undone at the seam…" and Noel’s lilting "Come on, baby blue" bit.
Hey, the cigarettes and alcohol may have taken a backseat to PTA meetings and SpongeBob premieres, but that doesn’t mean Our Kid is going to put on a tux on and do a Rod Stewart, or try to sing like a 19-year-old hooligan again with mono-brows, bad posture, and anarchy of the spirit. Those days have passed, now that evening glory is setting in. But certain cuts on the new album could still make listeners believe the truth: The Gallaghers are still rock n’ roll stars.
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