OASIS: Why Noel Hates 'Be Here Now' For All The Wrong Reasons 

Had my wedding reception at stocks due to the photo shoot for the album being shot there! Bit like oasis that marriage is dead and buried now!😂

Noel hates it because it was their one chance to become even more massive and they blew it, and he feels responsible for it. It's a good record, flawed and the fanbase loves it for what it is, but if we're talking quality and mass appeal it's nowhere near the first two. For someone who mastered the pop record with Morning Glory it's definitely a step-back, and it came at a time when Noel knew if he took more time and made nore conscious decisions it could've been much better. He's not as harsh with some of the latter Oasis records because their legacy was already set in a way and also he wasn't having his best time as a songwriter, it's all a matter of perception.

“It’s getting better (man)” deserves a proper mix like the way they did it live at air studios on that bbc documentary. Absolute rocker

Always loved Be Here Now and I've never been ashamed of saying it out loud(man!!).

I enjoyed this. Your analysis gave some interesting food for thought. But while I think you're right about there being a certain resentment from Noel at how Be Here Now represented the 'start of the end' for them, I don't agree with your take on it being his main reason. Noel was, IMO, bang on about the songs being too long. "Stand By Me" is one ideal example of an Oasis song that would've been vastly improved by being trimmed down. There are way too many choruses and suffers for being nearly 6 minutes long. Noel was a great writer of melodies (and still is), but his weakness was in arranging songs. (Who am I to critique him, though, right? But it's just my take.) They would almost always follow a very traditional structure and rarely 'surprise' the listener after you heard the first chorus. He didn't seem to have anyone around him to tell him not to go back to a verse, to reduce the number of choruses, or to cut the outros down, etc. I know repetition was important to their music, but it was taken to the nth degree on Be Here Now. I loved Oasis and was right in the thick of that whole era, but I still think they would've benefitted from a George Martin type figure in the studio for that album. It would've taken them to the next level.

OK Computer killed them off. That was the 'zeitgeist' release that year. Noel was disappointed because culturally they could no longer make the same impact. It was more of the same, just a bit 'more' - not the towering artistic achievement he wanted. They couldn't expand like Radiohead could. They had a Rubber Soul and a Revolver but weren't capable of making a Sgt Pepper's. Radiohead very much were.

I always got the sense that Noel had already written the first 2 albums way before being signed. When BHN came about, the well had run dry and he had to start a fresh. There are some good songs on there but it always felt a bit thrown together in a panic and the mix was chaotic. I remember listening over and over and it not having quite the impact of WTSMG.

As an Oasis fan in the 90's, who also bought 'Be Here Now' on the day of release... I loved the release of 'Standing On The Shoulder of Giants'. Go Let It Out was a cracking first single from the album and Gas Panic is one of the best tunes ever written!

For me it was their Swan song. They were never the same band after this. It was everything I wanted from an oasis album, and their live performances on this tour were off the scale. The last great rock band bar none.

the music press missed the boat on Morning Glory, so they made tried to make amends by giving Be Here Now rave reviews.

Its incredibly overhated, however all the critiques are fairly placed. BUT! With songs like Dont Go Away and All Arround The World you cant deny its very good

i wish he would remix the whole album like he did with dyou know what i mean i mostly listen to the brickwallhater fan remixes for songs like my big mouth and all around the world already makes a huge difference i personally have no problem with the length of the album

I remember earlier in 1997 when OK Computer had been released, Yorke reckoned they had killed Britpop with their album. Noel didn't quite understand this, or he just put his efforts on doing the same thing than in the previos years, but bigger. Music was evolving but not in the way Noel expected. Blur's 97 album was underrated at the time but 25 years later, Beetlebum and Song Two are major classics. I believe they understood they needed to move forward - something that Oasis didn't.

Definitely Maybe will always be my favourite Oasis album and is their best in my opinion. Be Here Now is underrated and a good album. I think a lot of people were expecting Morning Glory part 2 though and that was the problem. Imagine how much more Be Here Now would have sold in the first week if it had been released at the start of the week, instead of on the Thursday. The reason all the critics loved it was due to the fact that they got it so wrong with Morning Glory. Morning Glory got panned by the critics and they ended up looking stupid so they thought we aren’t doing that again!!

Yes, finally we got onto this topic, thanks mate! I am so sick of Noel's opinion on it being heard before people could think for themselves. They''ve got obsessed with his answer to a point where they think it's their opinion.

Great video. I take a bit of a different view on it though. The Britpop bubble burst because it was unsustainable. Nothing as huge and all consuming as Oasis were in 95-97 could possibly last, regardless of what album Oasis put out next, or how long they left it until the follow up after Be Here Now. Culture must evolve and move on. It was a moment in time and I think that third album would have been the apex before the inevitable decline whatever happened. Taking the album on its merits, which is a slightly different conversation to my mind, I think it's very good, perhaps great in some ways, but also deeply flawed. It's sugar rush of an album, all surface thrill but not a great deal of depth. The five star reviews it got at the time can't be taken too seriously. They were in part a reaction to the critics having misjudged WTSMG so badly, so they overcompensated in the other direction. The industry as a whole had a LOT invested in that album being a success. And yes, the songs are ridiculously long, and the production is very abrasive and one note in my opinion. WTSMG had promised genius levels of songwriting. Be Here Now could not match it, or move it on, and ultimately, it marked the steady decline of Oasis' cultural relevance. Great bands must evolve, and for as much as I love and appreciate Oasis from 95-97, this was the moment where it became apparent that creatively they were running out of ideas. Still, it is a very good album, there are some genius moments on it, and I agree that it gets unfairly maligned. I think you're probably right that part of the reason Noel doesn't like it because he associates it with the beginning of the end of the phenomenon. However, if I was going to play pop psychologist, I reckon his stance on it is also an overreaction to the subsequent critical savaging it got. Almost like saying 'you can't hurt me by criticising this album, because I myself have disowned it.'

Noel Gallagher sometimes needs to be quiet where he often speaks his mind. I think he thinks he's being edgy, but he is damaging his legacy by saying things where silence would best serve him well. Oasis was, is, and always will be a magical force to be reckoned with.

I don't care what anyone says be here now is an awesome album

Stood in line and bought on day 1 in the U.S. Blown away by it then and still love it now. Hoping somebody will eventually give it a 5.1 / Dolby Atmos mix to really flesh out all of the layers and tracks/guitars/sound effects. It's such an immersive album to begin with.

They should release a shorter acoustic version called Be Here Now: Naked

About halfway through 'Magic Pie' there is a clicking sound. I always thought it was just on my CD, but then one day I was listening to it on youtube and there it was again. Basically it's where they've taken out an overdub and then not bothered to clean up the recording. That's how little they cared at that point. In fact, 'Magic Pie' pretty much sums up everything wrong with that album. It's approximately the same length as 'Champagne Supernova', but it has none of the peaks and troughs, the feeling like you've been on a rollercoaster. There's footage of them playing 'Magic Pie' on the Be Here Now tour, and even at that stage it looks tired, bloated and boring. I loathe that song. Terrible stuff. Other tracks... The NG remix of D'You Know What I Mean? is much better than the album version, My Big Mouth is pretty average, I Hope I Think I Know is alright I guess... I know Stand By Me has its fans, but for me it's boring... and so on. The Girl in the Dirty Shirt is the only song I really enjoy, but even that's two minutes too long. It's Gettin' Better (Man!!) would be a decent rock tune if it didn't go on and on and on and on and on and on. It's a 3 1/2 minute rocker stretched to over seven minutes. Don't Believe the Truth is the unsung classic.

WTSMG represents such a dramatic era in my life and so many other people’s lives. In 1995, my employer closed its U.K. head office after being acquired by a rival. I lost my job. Bloody upsetting. I was sole breadwinner and everything depended upon my ability to make enough money to pay our mortgage and look after the four of us. The fourth member of the family was born in 1995. Imagine how stunned my wife and I were, a new baby on the way, no job soon, everything was going to change. At best, we would have to sell the dream home we’d just bought (a 1930s three bed semi in leafy Bromley / Beckenham suburbs, big garden, drive for two cars off road, extended kitchen overlooking a mature, large, south facing garden. We’d decorated only a couple of rooms, our bedroom first, and it was a beautiful place to be. The move to deepest rural Kent for my next job was such a dispiriting change especially for my wife, much more a city girl than the rural person I was. We didn’t recover for about five years, when we got a fantastic house which we stayed in for 21 years. The 1995 move was undertaken to the sound track of WTSMG. It played all the time, in the car (remember CD autochangers?), at home (remember HiFi separates?) and any pub we went into (remember juke boxes?) when we got a baby sitter. It was on the radio all the time (remember when Radio 1 was a real force in music?). A clutch of other albums followed, like Urban Hymns, Comfort in Sound, Free all Angels, but WTSMG was “the daddy”, I felt. A major moment in British music, Britpop, which felt like it would last forever, but was over before we realised the special time we’d just had. Who remembers Tony Blair “A new day has dawned, has it not?” (Complete with faked glottal stop)? Looking back, one reason why the Britpop era felt so good was that for a short while, Brits felt like we had got our power back. We held our heads high. We strode around like Ian Brown, with a swagger. (Remember “Cool Britannia”?) No sooner did they crest, they began to subside. Pop took over, and men started to become downplayed in favour of effeminate boy bands, girl bands, female mega stars. Bands which may have had guitars but weren’t “guitar bands”, and the guitar solo started its last movement. It’s all but gone now. 1995 was perhaps the high water mark & if not, it was the last flood tide. Never forgotten, it now pulls at my heartstrings badly to hear that & to my memory, the associated mid to late 1990s musical cannon. Thank you, Noel & Liam.

Be Here Now will always be a classic to me and I wasn’t even alive when it came out. I love every single second of it to bits.

James talks about Oasis like it's his doctoral work. I'm convinced he is the man of my life and there's nothing I can do about it ❤️❤️❤️

i think you are forgetting the band had been working non stop from 1990 or 91, by the time be here now came out, they were all hooked on coke the be here now tour lasted about a year, noel was having panic attacks. The band needed to take a break. i mean the guy who wrote the album is allowed to not like it. Imagine getting off coke being sober and then listening to be here now, imagine listing to all around the world (one of the first songs noel wrote and seeing what they had done to it). cant blame him for hating it. Although i will say i saw noel gallaghers high flying birds and he actually played stand by me live. Totally stripped back and if that was released itvwould have been massive.

Slade were massive in the early to mid 70s. Then they went on a massive extensive tour of the US which lasted 2 years. When they came back, punk had hit the UK and Slade were irrelevant.

1994-98 and oasis. The last cultural music touchstone that mattered. Pre internet. The internet devalued everything and streaming by five year olds with phones has left the charts looking like a Simon cowell playlist

Be here now was very much of its time..it sounds like a band on the crest of a wave,having it large.I was 17/18 when it came out and it reminds me of long summer nights with it blasting out the jukebox as you walked in the pub,all your mates singing to it with their bucket hats on having a laugh without a care in the world..to me that’s what Oasis was all about..it was the spirit of youth & excitement..It’s an album that you turn up to max,get on the beers and let your hair down..if you want introspective deep chin stroking music then listen to Dark Side Of The Moon or Pink Moon by Nick Drake (both great albums by the way) ✌🏾✌🏾

I absolutely love the Be Here Now album

Be here now is a album of bangers! Dont listen to the negativity.

My year 11 soundtrack at school. Loved it - yes it wasn’t recorded perfectly but it encapsulated the spirit of a band who had made it to the top of the music industry and had entered the publics hearts. Who cares what Noel thinks all That matters is what the person listening to the record thinks of it. Critics are not to be listened to at all. Who are they anyway ? It was the end of the bands first phase - the proper lad phase before they went alittle well grown up, kids and responsibilities. The hype was great because it had an air of mystery as opposed to now where bands record and document everything on social media . There are a few ok songs but most of it is great - if you can play the songs on an acoustic guitar and it stands up it’s a good song ! It was all part of the journey and we were all lucky to experience it in our lifetime because now there is no group like them …

In my opinion to be honest, Be Here Now works really well as a weird mix of Britpop and Psychedelic Rock, I've always love that album as much as the first two

the reason why the press turned on Oasis was because a better album came out that year: OK Computer. by the time of Kid A in 2000, Oasis were yesterdays news

Just to remind folks how hyped this album was... It debuted at #2 IN AMERICA(!), & that was considered a "let-down." It also went platinum here, meaning a million+ copies sold, as well. But was still considered to be a failure. It also received 4/5 stars by American Rolling Stone, along w/a rave review, calling it "the wonderwall of sound." And at the end of '97, Rolling Stone readers, in the Readers' Poll, voted Be Here Now the #1 album of '97 over the #2 OK Computer. So yeah.... Mull that over for a bit. It was a good album. It just wasn't an instant classic the way the first two albums were.

One of my favourite albums of all time. D’You Know What I Mean, I Hope I Think I Know, Stand By Me, Be Here Now, Girl in the Dirty Shirt. I mean, it’s fantastic.

Oasis has been my favorite band since 1994 when I saw the Live Forever video on MTV here in the US. I have everything this band has ever released and Be Here Now is still my favorite album. I bought it the day it came out as soon as the record store opened. I live in the US so there weren't any waiting lines or anything like in the UK. I was 19 at the time and played that CD every day in my dorm room at college and bought another one that I could keep in my car. I never once remember myself thinking 'hmm these songs are too long'. All Around the World is one of those songs like Hey Jude where I wish it would just keep going forever. I think you're totally on point about them taking so long before they followed it with SOTSOG. If you disappear for 3 years you get forgotten. The Beatles made ALL of their records in like 8 years which seems ridiculous by today's standards.

The problem for Be here now is that it was released within a few months of Ok Computer and Urban Hymns. It would be one thing if it wasn't as good as the first two Oasis albums.. but it wasn't even as good as the other British albums released at the same time.

You have nailed it once again. You really do know Oasis inside out. This is human psychology right here. It has far too many bad memories attached to it. I loved Be Here Now, I love the depth of it. The B-sides on that followed it was ace. I'm kind of glad they never went to the U2 level, it would have ruined something truly amazing. Great video.

To me BHN is the best rock album for the 90s, supreme work. Superb. I wish Noel could hear it like I do. Idk what Noel was expecting to happen. He wanted to be "big like U2"? Oasis had the music to do it and they did. What they didn't have was the personality for that. And honestly, they didn't need to. We didn't need a other fake a** Bono. We need the rawness of Liam and Noel. The movement died for so many reasons. Are we really not gonna talk about how most teens are absolutely unloyal to music? They like what's on the radio. If it's not on the radio anymore it's not valuable anymore. Noel is such a big fan of music that he fails to see it. Also, Noel had such a bad experience with coc*ine right after that period that he probably remembers the period of recording BHN with certain regret.

But, for what it's worth, I largely disagree with you, here. It was a flop. Because, simply, the songs weren't as good. But how the hell do you top Morning Glory? You can't. No one can.

Love this video mate!!! X I love it when I see/hear stuff about how “BE HERE NOW” is a brilliant album - I love this album more than any other oasis album - means so much to me, such an amazing time to be alive!!! X BE HERE NOW is one of my favourite albums of all time by ANY BAND = amazing amazing amazing from start to finish - Noel is a bell end for hating it so much - never seen anything like it since!!! 😍🙌🎶

Be here now is my favorite album while exercising,it gives you that adrenaline rush.

This is a genius assessment man, one I never considered.

I am a huge oasis fan and this is actually my favourite album.

I always said when I was listening to (and buying every single) from definitely maybe and Morning Glory that I couldn’t believe Noel was wasting those songs on B-sides. Masterplan should’ve been their 3rd album. I personally thought Be Here Now was a load of shite (it was released on the day I got my GCSE results and they were shite too 😉) D’you know what I mean and Fade in out were the only stand out tracks for me. Didn’t like the sound of the record at all. I thought standing on the shoulders of giants was a better record. Gas Panic… now that’s a track!!!!

Be here now 1# oasis album to me. The larger than life, no fucks given, wall of noise production makes for a fantastic rock attitude And theres some amazing writing on here

The album closing with the footsteps and a door closing made a statement to me, even if they weren't aware. I don't think they could've followed it up in late 98 with anything as big, not their fault, the landscape was changing around them. A 25 year hiatus and return couldv'e been incredible.

It's one of the worst produced albums ever: you can't differentiate between lead and rhythm guitar, the bass is non-existent, and it's just headache inducing to listen to. As far as the contents of the album are concerned it's really medicore for the standards they set earlier and after BHN the Oasis machine continued to plummet downhill. With that being said, 'My Big Mouth' is a great tune.

Brilliant video. You are a fab documentary maker Richard xxx

I loved BHN as a 17 year old but I always thought there was something not quite right with it. As a producer and engineer of 27 years, I now know the songs simply aren’t up to scratch and the production, mixing and mastering are god awful. There’s simply no room for anything to breathe. Still, great memories!

Be Here Now is The Phantom Menace of Brit Pop: overcooked, overhyped and lacking the magic of earlier work. Instead of CGI filling up every second of screen time it's Noel's basic hammer ons and pull offs "in a Wayne's World stylee"

I don't recall it being universally loved at the time. I was hugely disappointed with it, as were most of my mates. I've grown to "quite like" it, but too many poor songs on there for it to ever hold anywhere near the same status as its 2 predecessors.

Great album but context of the situation is important, BHN was huge but yet an overshadowed record that year by HH by The Verve and Ok Computer by Radiohead, I don't like Ok Computer but I grant it the fact that most people saw that album as the winner for "coolness" and Hurban Hyms was a massive comercial success. I agree with you that the absence of 3 years of Oasis was critical for the decline of britpop but just like in the 60's with The Beatles, it was not only them who retired definitely or for a while, The Verve, Radiohead, Pulp or Blur didn't do anything or what they did was just mediocre. SITSOG also a great album but teenagers at that time were not into quality music, actually they have not been into quality music since.

Interesting thesis, but I think you're wrong. Noel is being truthful about the album. From a musician's point of view, separated from the cultural hype & fan expectation, Be Here Now is very clearly overproduced, underwritten, bloated, poorly conceived and fundamentally past it. Noel, the musician, sees (and hears) that.

The problem was that BHN should have been the second album. WTSMG was a much more mature sounding album and was so different sounding than DM, it would have made a perfect #3. Imagine if Radiohead had put out OK Computer second and the Bends third.

This chap presents very well. Very articulate. Credit where it's due.👍 Be here now sums up the 90s for me. Most important album for me of that decade.

To be fair, a lot of the initial critical reviews were positive from press as they’d been harsh on the previous x2 albums and had to sway with public opinion because of demand.

I think this video is an example of blind fanboy-ism. There are obvious flaws on this album. And it's definitely long! 71 minutes! And did a 9 minute long "All Around the World" really need a 2 minute reprise?

This was released when I was 20 years old... a week off work, sat in the back of my old fave boozer, The Zodiac. Pool table, pints and my best mate Karl... Whole album on loop through the jukebox and the sound turned right up... Sometimes only two of us in the back room for hours that week... This was our private listening party... and it was the best thing I'd ever heard. Moreso with the volume cranked up.. This was made for volume... not played in the background. The guitar solo in Its Getting Better Man... F#@king WOW... Great video... really enjoyed how this was put together.

As someone who lived thru the era, I disagree with the idea Noel that hates the BHN period as it killed britpop. Noel hates the britpop label anyway and as he said many times in this video, he wanted to destroy the other bands anyway. Oasis at that stage didn't need britpop to maintain success, just like the beatles didn't need merseybeat or the brit invasion post 1963, in order to maintain success. With good enough music on be here now, oasis would have made it to the mount rushmore of rock music. I think you are steering away from this answer as you like the record and are looking for other reasons , why the party ended. U2 had 3 years between rattle and hum and actung baby and still maintained success because Achtung baby was good enough, be here now wasn't quite and that's why it is worthy of scorn, IMO

Also this album has so many instruments/riffs in there that every time you listen to it seems like it's always a different story (morning glory)

I always loved Be Here Now. Never understood the hate it got.

I remember lads at my school going to buy the album before picking up their GCSE results. Whereas I wasn’t interested in doing either! 😂

The album is as unlistenable now as the day I bought it in 1997. Phoned in songs, awful production and sound. Noel agrees.

This album changed my life as a lost teenager and got me to teach myself guitar.. it got alot of stick back in the day, I remember chris evans on TFI on national TV saying the album is dead on the week of its release I think its very underrated album.

Listening to Be Here Now is like being cornered at a party - at 3am - by a gang of babbling cokeheads, and wishing you'd gone home two hours ago.

It might just be becuse the album is a loud of shite.

Loved it at the time and still do but it does feel like the end of the golden age. After Guigsy and Bonehead left they lost their heart and soul and it became it a bit like Oasis By Numbers. I love all of their albums but those first three are sold gold classics.

Musically they were pretty derivative and a lot less talented than the stone roses. A lot of the melodies and riffs were strongly borrowed from others. Noel was a master at that. Sometimes it bordered on obvious plagiarism. Hence the lawsuits. Oasis also couldn’t really progress musically or creatively. Be here now is another rock album, with no progression or attempt to explore new areas. It’s rock by numbers to some extent for the kind of people who like oasis.

I would have swapped out; -Magic Pie for The Fame. -Stand By Me for Stay Young. -Don’t Go Away for ( I Got ) The Fever. And I’d have added Flashbax or Going Nowhere in there somewhere.

Say what you like, this was the final, definitive album. I fucking love it.

Personally, I think the death of Princess Diana pretty much signified the end of the ‘feel good’ vibe that was sweeping Britain. Not so much ‘Britpop’, but the Cool Britannia movements. Think of what she meant to the people, what she stood for and what she believed. Urban Hymns sort of kept it going, then the Haigh Hall gig. But, by mid 1998, it was over.

I still remember the day when BHN was released. I was 16 at the time. I couldn't wait to finish school that day, and I rushed into my local records store immediately afterwards, the windows of the store were covered in BHN posters and the record was visible everywhere in the store. I bought a CD and cycled quickly back home and gave it a listen while going through the album sleeve artwork and lyrics. I remember after a couple of times hearing the entire album thinking that "this sounds good but damn it's long". Over the next few months, it started to become obvious to me that this is not MG or DM. I still enjoyed some of the songs but it became tiring to listen to the whole album. It was just too long and overproduced. Also, during that time I purchased Urban Hymns and OK Computer, which were something a bit different and both were absolutely amazing albums. I wish they would remix the whole album again in the future like they did with DYKWIM? I still listen to BHN, but with a modified version: D' You Know What I Mean? (NG Rethink 2016), My Big Mouth, Angel Child (demo) Fade In-Out, Don't Go Away, Trip Inside (demo), Stay Young, I Hope I Think I Know, Stand By Me, Be Here Now. This track list gives the album some structure and makes it shorter. It was a colossal moment in the music history, and I always remember that release day as a great day in my life. Nostalgia...

It got 5star reviews in most part because no publication had the balls to tell the truth about it. It's a solid album, but way off being anything close to a classic.

Diana's death killed brit pop and the hype for Be Here Now. The party hardly done.

Be here now brilliant album and one of my favourite songs

Got to disagree about AATW b-sides, thought they were decent!

I actually agree with Noel (it's fine to have differing opinions all the same) I was there too, in fact I was into Oasis since I first heard Shakeamaker, I was there for the Country House vs Roll With It singles battle and that album Be Here Now was of course eagerly awaited. When I heard it, it was so terrible, forgettable and throw away it instantly put me off oasis there after . I loved everything up to that point and still regard the first two albums and The Masrerplan b sides collection as classics. All of the B sides of Wonderwall for instance were classics too in my mind. I remember fondly playing the b sides of Wonderwall over and over. Be Here Now was the worse thing I heard during britpop and that's saying something. It's the pinnacle of excess and cocaine fuelled hyperbole. Many magazines regret putting out overtly positive reviews of it since. It's dreadful It's odd how you decide it was an absence and loss of momentum rather than this terrible album that doesn't even compare to their previous work. Take that song All Around The World - can you honestly say that's good? It's long! Too long. Doesn't go anywhere. Oasis aren't comparable to the Beatles who had 17 UK number ones, took over America, every member bar perhaps Ringo went onto the successful solo projects. There's no comparison at all.

The man is a genius, I love “Be Here Now”, it’s essentially Oasis ‘Pet Sounds’/ ‘Sgt Pepper’ record. I don’t think the record company did a good job at promoting the album in North America. In any case, ‘D’you Know What I mean’ blew my mind when I first heard it. Still does…. Has that ‘When the Levee Breaks’ thickness to the sound.

In 1995 and 96......I remember getting so jazzed about going to Best Buy every week to see what new Oasis singles I could buy. One day, I bought the Roll With It single..and listened to "Rockin' Chair" the first time. I remember asking myself..."how is every song I hear from this band so damn good??" Eventually, I had all of the single CD's, I even bought the "Sibbling Rivalry" disc that was just them arguing..which even that was fun to listen too. Their music always has and always will put me in such a great mood. Love your channel James!

It's also relative to what your next work is. Arctic Monkeys got huge international success with AM, although, to many fans, they already reached their peak with Hambug, 4 yrs before. But they smashed it anyway, because AM was commercially amazing. If Oasis would have done the same in 2000, meaning pulling out a masterpiece, nobody would have cared about 1997 or britpop, they would have returned the kings of English rock-pop. But that wasn't the case, since SOTSOG wasn't a masterpiece at all.

I know Noel often contradicts himself but what I don't get is when he says that all the songs were rubbish and the lyrics were rubbish. He's been quoted as saying that what ever it was that he had that made every pre Be Here Now song great was beginning to leave him and of course then there's the drugs and stuff, but most of the songs were written either before they had a record deal or during their pomp when he was in his prime, so he can't really say that by 96/97 he was losing his touch because the songs were written before that. Proper baffles me :-)

Definitely Maybe didn’t “kickstart the Brit pop movement”. In saying that you are blind to the rise of Suede, St Etienne, Elastica and early Pulp.

Nah the Britpop movement would have died anyway, like every other musical movement before it. Radiohead killed it off with OK Computer, and a vast swath of sub-par Radiohead-lite bands - Coldplay, Keane, Elbow, Turin Brakes, Travis etc etc - followed from 1998 onwards. British rock music would never be the same again and the amazing run from 1977 to 1997 was over. Sure there were good British bands and records here and there but nowhere near the breadth and peaks of that previous period. Be Here Now would have been an excellent record if they had trimmed all the fat from it, up there with the two previous ones. If they had done that and then quit they would be absolutely legendary now. Every album that followed BHN is crap imo.

Brilliant synopsis. I agree. If I recall by 1998, the charts became overwhelmed in digital synthetic music (Vengaboys, Blue, Aqua) And of course Robbie Williams became the untouchable pop artist for a couple of years. I would say that Oasis did have a good year in 2005/06 with Dont Believe the Truth. I’ve great memories of that time too

I hope I think I know is one of the best oasis tunes and never heard any of them speak about it

I loved Oasis especially the first two albums and still think Be Here Now is a pretty decent album. Didn't enjoy the subsequent albums quite so much apart from Don't Believe the Truth. Was fortunate to see them at Wembley in the summer of 2009 about a month before they split. Brilliant gig. Loved the Brit Pop era.

If? You were around to buy it in 97' the Hype was unreal! We All know it's overly Produced And Long! But for me it's there 4th Best after DM/WTSMG?/TM & Then Be Here Now! It Still has some Tunes, Especially Live n A Special Place in the Oasis Catalogue! Thanks James! edit I was never Embarrassed (94-09) or saw it when you mentioned it, but I did feel it around 05-09 when they started to sound/look/retro/older!

I think what you are missing is that the albums success was due to the greatness of the first 2 albums. People where gonna buy it either way and the press that had been so totally wrong on "What's the story" didn't want to be out of the loop again and so decided to load it no matter what. If the songs where really great people would still be singing them and remember them just like they do with Wonderwall, Don't look back, Supersonic etc. They don't. The album just isn't that good.

Great video! Be Here Now is my fave Oasis album. I remember feeling like they had run out of gas and I didn't even bother buying any more of their albums until I had a personal Oasis resurgence years later. It was amazing to hear all of the albums I'd not bothered with...now ALL Oasis albums get a regular spin. Be Here Now is the masterpiece and the crazy tour that supported that album was MAGIC!!

Listening to I hope I think I know for the first time in years right now - what a great tune!

Actually it was blur's fault in some part. In the same year 'Be here now' released, Blur brought their most successful album, but it was totally different of the britpop style which oasis was keeping, and blur was one of the main promoters of the britpop movement, with that and knowing that Oasis didn't do anything on that time and also Radiohead totally changed the path of music trend at the end of 90's. Those things made the britpop bubble collapse.

I love that fucking album. I blame one person for all that shit back then. NOEL. he started listening to all the London toffs instead of being the working class lad he started as. He had it’s my ball and I’m going home now moment. Control freak. I can’t even listen to the absolute shit he releases now. I couldn’t believe it when i seen a NGHFB compilation album. Substandard granddad Rock. The one thing Liam gets more than Noel ever will is that oasis became bigger than both of them. A separate entity from them. Oasis songs will be played forever. More than the Beatles. Trust me.

Also, remember Be Here Now was released in the shops on a thursday and still made number 1 the following Sunday.

To this day its still my favorite album of all time

Mate its not a masterpiece! It's just not as bad as it was made out to be at the time

I've got to say I remember being disappointed when I got it. Bought it early morning on the first day of release. I didn't like the production and whilst most of the songs are decent enough, there was nothing that blew me away like on DM and MG. By 1997 other bands had started produce some great albums. It was a fantastic year for British music - Urban Hymns, OK Computer, In It For The Money, Tellin Stories are all better than Be Here Now. Times were already changing and I wanted something more from Oasis - a change in direction, but I think musically they were pretty limited.

I will always love Be Here Now. It was part of the soundtrack to the greatest time of my life. DYKWIM My Big Mouth Stand By Me I Hope, I Think, I Know Fade In/Out Don't Go Away Be Here Now All Around the World I rest my case, your honour. And the tracks I didn't mention there are decent too!

I’m really glad you brought this up as I dug it out of my box of CDs in the loft a few months ago and have been playing it in the car ever since. I have realised it’s actually a great album with some amazing songs and Liam sounds brilliant throughout. Having had my sound engineer hat on trying to work out one of the reasons it got such a bad press, I’m convinced that the overwhelming culprit is the ridiculous amount of overdubbed guitars that not only make the timing dodgy, they obscure everything so much of the time. There is one track that I can’t recall the name of where Alan White may as well be drumming on cardboard boxes as the multiple guitars just kill any chance of hearing the tone of the drums or the room they were recorded in. Apparently Owen Morris was stripping back Gtr overdubs as far back as Definitely Maybe which is why it has such a cool punk sound. If Be Here Now was remixed with some top end and with 60% of the guitars taken off and about 3 minutes edited out of the outros of most of the songs it would be a monster!

At the end of the day, BHN is a misunderstood masterpiece which crumbled the Brit pop era, which ultimately led to the downfall of oasis