Today is gonna be the day that we look at the album that killed Britpop and made Oasis has-beens overnight! (Support Todd on Patreon! / toddintheshadows )
On the radio yesterday the DJ was like "Hey everyone it's the 25th anniversary of Be Here Now! Definitely gotta be one of my favorite Oasis albums for sure" and then instead of playing a song from it he put on Champagne Supernova.
I was 18 when I bought this in 1997. I remember when I put it on for the first time. Life was good. At 20 I left the UK for the States to better myself. I became a citizen and worked hard. It was 5 whole years before I returned to the UK and when I finally got home the album was only on track nine.
@@CasperLD it was the first album I bought with pocket money, I was 13, I loved it and now everyone is telling me it's shit and now I don't know what to do with myself
..when on earth did that happen? For some reason I always thought that Trainwreckords was the least watched series on here, even though I always loved it
@@TetraDaxall of his content is pretty much on a level playing field at this point. Hell id argue his pop song reviews are his least popular videos which is kind of funny.
You know those times as a kid or teenager when your parents forced you to come with them to visit some relative or friend of theirs, and after an evening of excruciating boredom, it's FINALLY time to go? But then your mother starts talking as she's putting on her coat in the foyer, and they blather on for ANOTHER 40 minutes? That's what listening to this album feels like...
Those longer Daft Punk songs also have great placement on the albums they’re on as well. Or in the case of “Too Long” in the Alive set list, in a concert setting.
*I can appreciate that when Daft Punk makes a 10 minute song, they have the decency to make it an amazing track that closes an already amazing album fixed it
I saw an interview from Noel once, who said that his creativity came from being unemployed in an economically depressed North of England. And once he had rose to international stardom, he found it harder and harder to find inspiration.
Rod Stewart said the same thing after those classic early solo albums and the stuff he did with the faces, he lost his mojo. When he became a megastar he stopped writing as he said, "What do I write about, my Champagne is cold and the Nanny is late picking up the kids.....?" Songs about personal jets and mansions don't resonate with ordinary people.
matthew coombs I guess you write about your views and past personal experiences. A musician needs to learn to channel creativity, not wait for it and base it on what's in front of you.
Four years after this review was originally posted, the idea of Noel and Liam going to every single individual person in the world singing the chorus to "All Around the World" at them still makes me chuckle.
What makes it even funnier is that it’s Noel and Liam Gallagher, who are most famous for fighting constantly with each other, and still trade barbs at each other even after OASIS broke up, trying to get that kind of song out there. Let’s just say, of Todd’s hypothetical song titles for them, “Oy Liam You Wanker” sounds like one Noel would actually write, if he hasn’t already!
@@bobthearm47 Maybe it's painful, (especially "All Around The World"), but at least it gave us "Don't Go Away", which can arguably, in my personal opinion, can be compared with "Wonderwall", and is as good ad that song. But with "All Around The World", like what Todd said, "they went from being inspired by The Beatles, to remotely copying them". They're basically just being a Beatles cover band by that point. Still, "All Around The World" is probably the biggest reason why the album's as painful as it is to listen to, being a NINE minute song! 9 minutes, of weird shit, while they're flying around the world, in what looks like a yellow submarine, yet ANOTHER Beatles reference... it never ends. The song's still going, in fact. If you listen hard enough, you can, in fact, STILL hear Liam and his nasally, sarcastic sounding na, na, na's, going on, to this day! You know what, let's just go back to "Don't Go Away". That song's only 4:48. Nearly 5 minutes, but only 4 minutes, 48 seconds. Sounds like a perfectly fine song length. Geez, you could start and raise a family by the time "All Around The World" is supposedly finished! What in the bloody hell were they thinking?
@@shawnfields2369 What's worse is that, even though they're trying to sell themselves as a Beatles cover band, they're not even succeeding at that. All Around the World is a rip-off *not* of the Beatles, but of "Sowing the Seeds of Love", by Tears for Fears. Listen to the two back to back.
@@FernieCanto What, really? I thought "All Around The World", sounded familiar, but I was thinking they were just trying to copy The Beatles, but they were inadvertently copying ANOTHER band? How do you even do that? Trying to copy one band, but then, you end up sounding like a different, 3rd band? What a bunch of wankers... and I'm not even British. I still enjoy "Don't Go Away", but they tried to be The Beatles, but they couldn't do that right? Well, at least if they wanted to be a successful band, choosing to copy The Beatles, isn't a bad idea, but if you're going to try and do what they did, you can't slouch. It has to be your best, otherwise, you're just ripping off their sound, and ripping off the Beatles worst albums, and worst songs, and it's definitely NOT Oasis's best. This is their worst album for a huge number of reasons. Which is a shame, but I could listen to "Don't Go Away", all day. Thanks for the info, dude.
Weird trivia but the Phantom Menace comparison is hilarious because Ewan McGregor was Noel’s next door neighbor when he was cast in Phantom Menace and when this album came out.
I’m listening to all around the world, and Jesus Christ man you only covered half of it. I wasn’t ready for the La La section after the Na Na section, then an “and I know and I know” section, then more trumpets and a “please don’t cry I won’t say die”section. IT JUST KEEPS GOING. THERES ANOTHER NA NA SECTION AS IM TYPING THIS WTF IS HAPPENING???
this comment inspired me to take a listen for myself. at a point where i was like "oh god it's awful how long until it ends" IT WAS THREE ENTIRE MINUTES AWAY FROM THE ENDING also the genius page for this song includes a snippet of an interview with noel gallagher where he said the song was originally even fucking longer than that
The first time I heard "All Around the World" I didnt know it was 9 minutes long and at like 3 and a half minutes when the key change happened I thought it was the last chorus (foolishly) and thought it was a FANTASTIC song... Then it goes on for another SIX MINUTES. I was laughing my ass off by the end at how absurd it was. Why didnt anyone stop them? Not one person in the recording process said anything to dissuade a catchy single from being nine and a half minutes long... Crazy..
It's so completely absurd and decadent, I actually love it. Plus it's really fun to play live. Without studio magic, you can only make it so big before reaching your limitations, so after a certain point you can just stop giving a shit and make a jam out of it. It's what Oasis did live aswell.
@@torgejh9189 Yeah I agree, as a musician, and music nerd I love it. The double key change, so many layers that my 700 dollar headphones can't even separate them, the 5 minute long jam, it's fun stuff... But they probably lost a lot of money. They could have made the single 3-4 minutes, then when they played live jammed out like this, or released the 3 minute single, then had a redux version later in the album or something. Gotta respect the dedication though
Apparently, Alan McGee (the CEO of their record company) and various other A&R people were concerned about the whole record but decided to keep their comments to themselves thinking that they're gonna sell 7 million copies of the album anyway.
Thank you for your service. I would say you've done the Lord's work, but the existence of Oasis is proof that there is no god. Not a just and merciful one, anyway.
I showed this to mom, and she said "oh I had this on CD!" and for the whole video she went "don't remember this track, don't remember this track, don't remember this track, don't remember this track, Oh, I like 'Don't go away' don't remember this track."
Oasis idolised the Beatles, there's nothing wrote in taking inspiration from a band you adore and admire. Oasis never sounded like the Beatles atall when you don't know anything about them or music in general just throw the Beatles in, yh they took words and phrases if anything they were more similar to Stone Roses especially their early music and Rolling stones and the Sex Pistola
@@davidl570 Yep. _Morning Glory_ was by far Oasis's best-selling album and still one of the best-selling British albums of all time, but _Be Here Now_ by no means sold poorly. It's their third to best-selling album at roughly 9 million copies, behind _Definitely Maybe_ at 15 million and _Morning Glory_ at 22.5 million but ahead of _Don't Believe the Truth_ (their best-selling post-1999 album) at 7 million.
I went to listen to the album for the first time after watching this review, and I can absolutely confirm that it is 35 minutes' worth of music jam-packed into 75 minutes.
Also: oh my God, the sheer amount of *sound* drenched over everything just makes it such a hard slog of an album. Some tracks have great ideas buried in there, but they are so, so, so buried.
@@Beamboy555 I have a feeling that if someone edited together a version of this album where every song just fades out at the moment where you should skip it, that’d make it a lot better. I actually went and listened to It’s Getting Better (Man!!), and aside from the production still being ridiculous, I actually really liked it for the first half. Tone down the guitar overdubs and cut the song in half, I could jam to that shit all day
@@TheAdrift It's getting better man is the only song I have a problem with the production with. It's so loud and as Noel said, "It's all chhhhhhh" but that's the one song on the album that should be that long. It uses that time to build up with solos and then throws the chorus back at you in the middle of the song. One of the best moments on the record.
Oasis are like the soccer of rock music. Made in the UK, huge in Europe, a religion in South America, big in Japan, but only moderately big in North America.
my parents were blur fans in the 90s, to the point that they saw blur and oasis as direct rivals. i ended up a blur fan too, and when my parents brought up oasis i wanted to see what they were about. my parents showed me all around the world. i made it through the first fifty seconds.
I was the perfect age at the rivalry in the right place. I bought all their albums when they came out... in fact my first cd ever was Blur Parklife. I actually bought be here now (and the singles from it too). I knew what was up right away
Something not a lot of people realize about how this record was the death knell for Britpop is that it came out after both Blur's self titled and Radiohead's OK Computer, and afterwards, The Verve released Urban Hymns, so even if Oasis had made a better record, there was no way they would still be as big as they had been after 1997 since in the same year they were out-Britpop-ed by The Verve, their rivals radically changed their sound and achieved success in the US, and Radiohead completely redefined rock music to the point it exposed how Oasis, even at their best, were just big and loud.
You also had albums like Radiator by Super Furry Animals, Vanishing Point by Primal Scream, Songs From Northern Britain by Teenage Fanclub and Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space by Spiritualized, all emphasising the lack of quality and imagination in Oasis.
@@TerribleResultsNirvana being dead is what MADE British rock any success in the States. Checkout the documentary Be Here Now, great doc about all those bands from Massive Attack to Pulp to Blur so on…
@@paulanthony5274 "Alot of people would disagree with you there!!" "Alot of people" is no argument. "Alot of people" thought the world was flat. And "A lot of people" still think it is. "A lot of people smoke" - and it's *still* not good for you. "A lot of people". An idiot's argument. Argument ad populum is a fallacy.
@@FischerFilmStudio no that's the American meaning. In the UK to toss someone off means to give them a hand job. I remember when watching Lord of the rings the two towers in the cinema, everyone laughed when the dwarf bloke said to his elf friend "you'll have to toss me". I don't know how intentional a joke that was, I don't know if it has the same meaning in new Zealand, but yeah, it was hilarious at the time. Similar situations happened apparently when the avatar last airbender film was in UK cinemas, with the constant calling people a "bender" making everyone there crack up and turned the film into even more of a comedy than it already was.
I think "All Around the World" could have been a decent song, if it were half the length and actually had a beginning, middle, and end. Instead, it's one long, long, LONG beginning... and it then mercifully ends.
If they faded the song out at the 5:55 mark, or just after seven minutes (like the video), and then put the rest later, it might have been more palatable.
That's the main issue such with you whole album. Most of the songs, at their core, have brilliant elements. But, for some reason... *cough* cocaine *cough*... They were stretched well beyond what they should have been. Plus, the production and mixing bury and distort the melodies and hooks, by layering and layering overdubs. The vocal and guitar overdubs smother the songs themselves and make it so hard to hear that the hell is going on. If the songs had just been structured instead of allowing them to just repeat over and over, and if the mix had been stripped back to allow the songs to breath, I truly believe that this record could have been just as brilliant as their first two.
"D'ya know what I mean?" looks solely intended to be played at concerts like a big warm up opener. Like singing it to everybody there, right there right then; and they would surely know what it means. Like an anthem. If it sings alone, it's weird. On a record, it's weird. And as the rest of the album that keeps putting things over the other and getting bigger and bigger and messier and messier, it reaches out like a scary, schizoid experience. That remembered the best description this album has ever had: "Yes, we made a concept album. The concept is "we did cocaine" "
I think Do You Know What I Mean is the perfect example of what Todd calls an "I'm back, bitch" single: A big meaningless song reaffirming how big the performers are.
"I think I've said something like this before, but if I were making the Oasis biopic, it would begin with a scene of Noel and Liam as kids, Liam feeling sad for being beaten up just because he acted like an asshole, Noel cheering him up by playing a new song he just wrote 'All around the world / gotta spread the word / you know it's gonna be okay.' 'You know Liam, one day we are going to be Rock and Roll stars, and we're going to turn this song into the biggest song ever. At several of the early shows they play stripped down versions of the song, at the recording of both Definitely Maybe and Morning Glory they're asked if they want to include the anthem. 'Not yet' says Noel. 'Not until we have the budget to make it fucking right.' The film culminates with a painstaking reconstruction of the recording process of All Around the World, done in black and white, cinema verité style, but also imitating the famous bell-making scene from Andrei Rublev (it goes without saying that my biopic is a 3 hour monster like Nixon or something). Final scene of film is a one-take of Noel, dejected, angry at Liam, coked out of his mind, feeling the dream has gone to shit, putting on the song, the masterpiece he dreamt about since he was a kid, and over 9 painfull [sic] minutes realizing just how bad it is, just how much he fucked it up. For the last couple of minutes he is bawling his eyes out, lying on the floor, snot coming out of his nose. Roll credits, soundtracked by Country House." - Frederik B, on an ILX forum
It’s hard to imagine how big this album was in the UK. It was released on a Thursday for some reason, but from that Thursday to Sunday it had sold 700,000 copies. To put that in perspective, the closest to this was Michael Jackson’s Bad album that sold 350,000 copies in 7 days. Unreal.
I just listened to the 2016 re-mixed version of "D'yknow What I Mean" and HOLY SHIT can you hear the difference!! The original has virtually NO bass, it's just this wall of high-pitched white noise that reminds me of trying to listen to Slipknot on crappy computer speakers. The 2016 version levels everything out perfectly so it sounds like an honest-to-god song.
Yeah, it’s a pretty good re-mix, I had never heard the strings on the chorus until I heard the remix. That said, I still prefer the original, it’s not a great song, but to my mind its “Peak Oasis”, loud, brash and absolutely fucking mental. 10/10 from me.
@@rossgardner9412 I actually like that song a lot. I just love the scope of it, even if it's not really "about" anything. It reminds me of how much bigger the world seemed to me in 1997 (granted I was 6).
Gabriel Schleifer yeah, it was released just after I turned 18, I remember it being a blinding hot summer and I had just finished my schooling and was about to head into proper work. Life definitely seemed full of possibilities and almost infinite in scope and Britain seemed like the world’s cultural epicentre. Oasis was a massive part of that, it’s difficult to really relay to a person who didn’t see it for themselves just how massive and important Oasis actually were. Even now I’m getting a big nostalgic feeling thinking about those days!
@@rossgardner9412 You're right, you'll probably never be able to convey ti me how important Oasis were because I attempted listening to their first album a few weeks ago and had to shut it off halfway through. Everything is too loud, I can't stand Liam's voice and all of the songs are generic 60s-style rock. I legitimately can't understand how THAT was one of the best albums of the 90s.
“The lyrics are teeny-poppy. But there are three key changes towards the end. Imagine how much better ‘Hey Jude’ would have been with three key changes towards the end.” - Noel Gallagher, giving my favorite quote in music history, about “All Around The World”
Key changes is the hack way of ending a song/making a song sound bigger than it is when you don’t know how to. Paul would have never made a song as important to him as “Hey Jude” include three key changes, because Paul knows that’s lazy writing
Paul was smart with his key changes. Listen to "Penny Lane" and tell me if you noticed that the verse was in B and the chorus in A before the chorus shifted back to B.
Here in the UK, Oasis were very much hailed as The Beatles for a new generation. After all, both wrote huge anthemic rock songs and had equally huge personalities to match. The difference is that The Beatles had so many more strings to their bow when it came to songwriting: they could go on proggy tangents and fully embrace the esoteric. Oasis were exceptional at writing big no-nonsense rock songs but Be Here Now definitely exposed their shortcomings. Blur and Pulp were the other big Britpop bands and they've both shown themselves to be more varied in musicality than Oasis. That doesn't mean that Oasis are bad. Even in 2023, they're still a British institution and literal millions of people would be trying to get tickets if they reformed tomorrow. The real problem was that Oasis spawned an entire generation of British guitar bands who just... weren't very good. That probably contributed to rock's slide into irrelevance in modern mainstream music.
I really feel Oasis could've done what Radiohead and Damon Albarn (creating the Gorillaz) did, and completely scrub their canvas. Damon Albarn and Radiohead both left the britpop era behind and became famous even more. And even though you can change location, worth dynamic, budgeting, you still can't change people, and the Gallagher brothers were coked up, completely done with each other and couldn't stand making music anymore. What they personally should've done was take a break, cool off, count their winnings, SPEND TIME APART, and decide if they wanted to keep doing this. And if they did, come back either together or separately with broader horizons to share with the world.
couldnt agree more. i like Oasis but man Bloc Party was right, they really did create a generation of idiots who thought they could play guitar. makes me wish thet had a post-britpop album like Blur's Self Titled or Pulp's This is Hardcore that showed them branching out from their typical formula
I kind of want somebody to make an animation for All Around The World where at first they're marching and all happy, and as it goes on, the more tired and insane they get, the trip just getting to be too much to take.
Don't know if this album singlehandedly killed Britpop but 1997 was definitely the year Britpop became unfashionable. Blur and Radiohead went in very different directions and the only other notable Britpop record that year was Verve's Urban Hymns.
Yeah, 1997/8 was when all the coke and misery really piled on. Blur brought out their self-titled and opened it with Beetlebum, The Verve peaked and then left for almost a decade, Suede didn't come back until 1999 and were never quite the same.
The songs on Be Here Now aren’t bad songs at their core. Had they stripped some of the guitars back, made the songs reasonable lengths and swapped Magic Pie and Fade In-Out for Acquiesce and The Masterplan (and maybe also swapped something else for Stay Young) it would have been a killer album
I remember rushing to pick up the CD the day it came out. Rushed home, tossed it in the old tower stereo system with gigantic stack speakers expecting a rapturous listening experience. By track 3 I was like Ralphie and “Be Sure To Drink Your Ovaltine.” I stopped it playing, looked up, and uttered “son of a bitch…”
PuppetMaster9 you know nothing about oasis. This album isn't their best and it's not that good but they did better over time and made some good records (not as good as dm and wtsmg)
harry drewitt So someone comments on this album being bad... in the comments section for a video ABOUT how this album is bad... and your response is “you know nothing about Oasis”? What does that even mean? Did you expect people to be praising fucking Be Here Now? Because I *do* know Oasis, I know their discography inside and out, and let me state, for the record: Despite 2-3 great songs, Be Here Now is a fucking atrocious album.
@@clintbeast-bud8119you are delusional, the only good record better than this one is the last one, which it can be a 7. Then, none of the post Be Here Now records are higher than 6
The big thing that wasn’t mentioned was The Masterplan, as it’s kinda the other half of the story. There was this great follow up to Morning Glory that was falling into place piece by piece but Noel just didn’t listen to anyone’s advice and insisted on using the material for B-Sides and as filler songs. That record is the follow up that could’ve been, and it’s tantalising to think of how it might have turned out had they stowed the tunes, taken a break and spent some time recording and polishing them. Instead we got All Around The Fucking World repeated 6,000 times!
That's interesting. I always thought The Masterplan was the closest they came to matching the quality of the first two records. Fade Away is probably my favorite Oasis song.
Oasis was a band that always were on the wrong side of the Loudness War, but if you’re gonna write boring songs, and THEN compress all the dynamic range out of them, it’s just gonna be boring, or end up overwhelming the audience to the point of shutting the record off. Edit: I had mostly missed this record myself, so I wasn’t expecting that last track. I laughed out loud. How on the fucking nose.
When Todd introduces “D’ya Know What I Mean?” And says it sounds like Oasis I’m surprised he didn’t say it sounds too much like Oasis since it uses the exact same chords as “Wonderwall.”
Nirvana’s “Dumb” uses the same chords in the verse as Smells Like Teen Spirit. Could be considered hacky but I personally find it brilliant that Kurt found a way to recycle his most famous chord progression into a new song and not only make it good enough to chart but also call it “Dumb”.
Yep, this album was 2 kilo bag of cocaine that gained sentience and recorded an album produced by another 2 kilo bag of cocaine. Brilliant, I tell ya. Brillant!
@@tgletgle9980 Fleetwood Mac done their fair share of opiates, but I'm not saying you can't make good music while on cocaine. Some obviously can, mostly those who could while sober, if they got out of their own way. I do agree that Oasis were more cocaine users than heroin, chained to a mirror and a razor blade. I'm not sure if they used heroin at all. I don't think they did. But heroin's impact on the music business is legendary. Everyone from the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and James Taylor, through Guns 'n' Roses, T-Rex, Aerosmith, and the RHCP, into Alice in Chains, Nirvana, and Sound Garden, past Megadeth, Slipknot, and Pantera, had members who were addicted to heroin at one point. So many bands actually, I don't want to stop listing great bands, so I'm just going to stop, knowing there is plenty more. Also, Grateful Dead and Phish. And these are just rock based bands. The message would max out before I was 1/16 done, if I mentioned other genres like jazz. Although, remember kids, drugs aren't cool! I spent ten years of my life on that shit, so I'm in no way glorifying their use. As I say, I think there's guys could have done just as well, or even better, while sober if they had the confidence.
@@gab_v250 May also have been edited down for single release. I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That) by Meat Loaf was a UK number one in 1993, and its album version is 12 minutes; it doesn't hold this record because the single edit is barely five and a half. Oasis would probably tell the producers to piss off if they tried to edit All Around The World down. That said, George Michael's Jesus To A Child and Queen's Innuendo, number ones in 1996 and 1991, are 6:49 and 6:33 on their Now That's What I Call Music! albums (which mostly went with single edits, American Pie on Now! 20 being a notable exception), so they might be up there.
As a songwriter myself, D'ya What I Mean is the kind of song you can write in three minutes, which is so fast you can convince yourself you must be a genius for the feat lol
@@-.-.11 Oh well, at least you gave it a shot. Sorry to tear you away from the -loserdom- zero stakes work of casting aspersions on strangers online. Please resume your cowardice.
This whole album feels like a group of musicians trying to make a prog rock album, without the skills to make it, while also using Thunder by Imagine Dragons as lyrical inspiration
Don’t forget The Masterplan (The B-sides) was as good as their first two albums The 20th Anniversary release of this album contains the stripped down demos which sound a lot better.
GergelAni my apologies. It’s the 20th Anniversary Deluxe album. You can find the demos on RU-vid. You can find them on RU-vid under “Be Here Now Mustique Demo”
Melodically the album is actually very strong. It has more hooks than most bands manage to muster in a career. But it's massively overlong, overproduced and generally obnoxious. Oasis songs always had a fair bit of gibberish in them prior to this, but they managed to sell it artistically. Not here, the balance is off by too much. It's a shame, because there's a very good album in there with a different edit.
“...It’s more like the last hour of a party that’s raging long after the fun stopped, and everyone should’ve gone home...” As much I love Oasis and actually enjoyed BHN, Todd knocked it out of the ball park with his assessment on the album’s sound. Best episode of Trainwreckords, by far ♥️
Travis and Coldplay happend stereophonics got bigger verve hit big. Blur moved on into some of their best tunes beatlebum song 2. Suede never even noticed what they was doing. R&B hip hop started taking over.
Everyone else had moved on. Ok Computer, Blur and Urban Hymns all came out in 97, Coming Up by Suede and Everything Must Go by the Manics came out the year before. Oasis ended up left behind and sounding like a parody
@@richardturpin3665 Around 97 both in the US and the UK music turned more pop in general. In the US you had boybands and pop divas like Britney and Christina Aguilera and even Will Smith came back while in the UK you had the Spice Girls. As far as rock in the US it went very bad with post-grunge crap like Creed, terrible Nu metal (Limp Biskit) and pop punk. In the UK so called post-britpop was good but much less exciting that britpop had been unless you were melancolic (coldplay) or intelectual existentialist (Radiohead) while Blur first got inspired by US indie (selftitled album) and later made an awesome melancolic psychedelic album (13). In general I think i like the early 90s over the late 90s.
I think one problem Oasis always had was you take that chorus and the end of the song is just that over and over and over. sometimes it works like Live Forever but then other times it's like "I get it!"
Yeah that makes sense...I can't help but notice that the people in the comments defending this album consistently defend the quality of the melodies and describe how they like to "just put the songs on" - aka, as background music. I mean...I do get easily obsessed with melodies I like. In the past when choosing to play music from one of my devices, I've put on the same ~40 seconds of music on a loop, over and over, for hours...but, if the artist released a 5 minute single that was literally just that same melody looped 7 times...it would deserve all the criticism and be a shit song! The brain is stupid - and the standards for background music are also on a completely different level. I do empathize with the people in the comments just sharing that they personally enjoy playing the album...I find their reasons interesting, as long as their comments include a disclaimer that they acknowledge the music's faults. Especially when they ultimately end up describing how they just don't actively HATE the album and don't mind it playing in the background while they're doing something else - or just lost in thought, which still counts as background music in my opinion. _(And ironically, a melody bite I love can be put into/from a song that I don't like listening to, that's too long and repetitive, (even if I don't hate any one part in particular)...yet, I'll cut out that bit of main melody I like, loop it, and for some reason, I can enjoy listening to it over and over...played on a loop for a period of time that is muuuch longer than the OG song I took it from and prefer over. The brain is weird.)_ Sorry, that's my rant. 😅✌️
"You have to go back to the Beatles' 'Revolver' for a set whose every constituent could be spun off into the singles chart." "Boston" by Boston: "Am I a fucking joke to you?"
I think the record label was leaning hard on the music mags like... "Oh, your reviewing Be Here Now? Well you best not say anything negative about it or your never getting any interview time with the Gallagher's ever again"
The thing is, this video encouraged me to listen to Oasis properly. I found myself liking these songs all the while Todd is just ranting about how terrible they are. So I figured "If THIS is their low, what the hell do their highs sound like?" So I listened to both of the other albums, and I was floored. Then I listened to this one, and I still like it. I guess it's not as good as the other ones, but I've always been a sucker for big, long, cocaine sounding songs that just keep getting bigger, and this album is nothing but that. I can't listen to it in one sitting, but I find myself listening to maybe a quarter of it when I'm feeling kinda down, and it tends to perk me up again. It's like Noel dropped some of the coke he was on into the jewel case and it gets shot into my eardrums every time I put the CD in. So basically, thank you for encouraging me to take digital cocaine, Todd.
I checked out What's the Story Morning Glory in large part because of this video, and I found it excessively mediocre. I might give Definitely Maybe a chance but after WtSMG I don't feel a strong desire to do so at all.
@@joelww2501 I understand that completely, I was just messing around with the guy who pointed out that Todd didn't know the difference between British accents as an American, so probably wouldn't know the regional dialects of Britain
I'm a huge Oasis fan (from the UK). You got this mostly spot on - the fact that they didnt really want to do an album, the lazy song writing, the cocaine fuelled excess, all correct. I'd never noticed about DYKWIM being a throw away line but, yep, it is. My only input would be that Stand By Me is a quality tune, you skipped over how good that is, plus the album could have been sooo much better with some of the single B sides swapped in - have you ever heard Stay Young for example? Why they thought Magic Pie was better than that I have no idea. BTW, fun fact - Noel was lazy songwriting and looking for a rhyme for "passer by" in a rhyming dictionary but his coked up brain misread "magpie" as "magic pie".
I personally think “It’s Getting Better (Man!!)” would have been right up there with their classic tracks if they toned down the ridiculous guitar production that runs rampant through the whole album, and ended it after 5 minutes instead of 7.
I’m realizing that both Todd and several of the commenters were teenagers when Oasis came out, which definitely explains a lot of the nostalgia for them. I would have lost my mind if the twin slabs of Definitely Maybe and Morning Glory defined my teenage definition of Big Huge Rock Band. When I started thinking about what my Gen X equivalent would be, I realized: Guns N Roses. A band that came from fucking nowhere to completely dominate the rock scene, bigger than anything you could imagine, massive hit album (Appetite for Destruction), and an absolute catastrophe of an ego-fueled bloated disaster follow-up (Use Your Illusion) that stopped them cold. In fact, why haven’t we seen the Trainwreckords about Use Your Illusion? That would be perfect fodder.
I agree that there are definitely parallels. Both bands arguably represent both the zenith and nadir of a music scene, which seems to be reflected in the quality of their releases over time, which is interesting isn't it? I wouldn't say they're generationally separated though, not for me anyway, speaking as a fellow Gen X. They each represent an important phase in my formative musical life. Our generation was musically as blessed as any can ever be, I know that much.
Really? Use Your Illusion, disasters? They're generally considered good-to-great records, successes of their time- plus, unlike Be Here Now, the big hits of this record were numerous and are still known and played and loved to this day. November Rain, Don't Cry, You Could Be Mine, The Knock on Heaven's Door & Live and Let Die covers.. GnR could totally quality for a Trainwreckords episode, but it'd best go to The Spaghetti Incident (GnR not knowing what the hell they were doing) or Chinese Democracy (Gnr, or more specifically Axl Rose, going off the rails).
Used your ilusion is bloated and all of that, but that album packs way too many hits to be a "trainwrecord". Don't cry, November Rain, Estranged, You could be mine...
Be Here Now is a frustrating album. If Noel trimmed 20-25 minutes from it and ditched Magic Pie I think there's a very good 45-50 minute album hiding in there.
It's incredible how many Oasis b-sides are better than their album tracks, and even singles. I don't think any band has a better collection of b-sides.
The Beatles, The Stones and The Smiths all have great B-sides too. Noel says he learned to understand the value and art of good b-sides from these guys. Oasis and Radiohead were the last big bands to honor that tradition. You could also say these bands were also making the same mistake of not making certain B-sides the singles or album tracks instead.
Adam Weishaupt "I don't think any band has a better collection of b-sides." Smashing Pumpkins easily especially considering a lot of their B-sides from both Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie are better than a lot of the songs from those albums, and those albums are both already fantastic (I'd go as far to say that Mellon Collie is one of the Top 5 best double albums of all time.) As far as The Beatles? Idk, their A-sides were definitely better in general.
This was seriously the only Trainwreckords request on Patreon? I'm surprised no one wanted to hear your thoughts on albums like Chinese Democracy, Lulu, The Beginning, Scream, St. Anger, and so on. And who knows, maybe you'll be featuring America, the latest Thirty Seconds to Mars album, on this series. But, I guess we can save those for another day.
>Chinese Democracy Could've been the greatest album ever made and it still would've been seen as a disappointment with all the hype. The fact that it's a mediocre album just made it worse. The Duke Nukem Forever of music. >Lulu It's a Lou Reed album that just so happens to have Metallica on it. It's a vanity project. >The Beginning Agreed >Scream The Chris Cornell album? I'm not well-versed in Chris Cornell's discography, so no comment. >St. Anger Agreed. >The new 30STM album Oh god are they still a thing? I legit haven't heard a song of theirs since...2010ish. And OH MY GOD JARED FUCKING LETO IS THEIR LEAD SINGER WHAT THE FUCK HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS EARLIER?
Boy, thirty seconds to mars is still going? Even after Leto got shat on after suicide squad? I’d thought he’d go good on his promise and go live a cave after that embarrassment.
@Nathan Shlapobersky Could you elaborate please? Also, you have an annoying name to reply to.
Год назад
"Wibbling Rivalry" is honestly one of the funniest things ever recorded. They just go on and on about who was responsible about getting kicked off a ferry.
Don't Go Away makes this album worth it. Ah, the memories of crying over my ex-girlfriend when I was 14 as I burned with a fever while listening to this song will never go away.
@ElyC West i meant as in worthy of existing. If Be Here Now got erased from hisrory that song would be lost. That song to me made this album worthy of being made.
Your dissection of Oasis here is spot on. Every criticism you level is completely deserved. The thing is, I still love it. For all of its coke fueled self-indulgence, it's still a great album. In fact, some of the unplugged tracks really shine. The acoustic version of Stand By Me is stellar. Thanks again for another great post, it's always a treat to see you've uploaded something new.
D'Ya Know What I Mean is also literally the same chords as Wonderwall...exactly the same. Acoustic versions of this song start out exactly like Wonderwall.
And Noel had the balls to say Green Day ripped them off when Boulevard of Broken Dreams used the same chord changes. I think that's what pisses me off the most about this album, odd as that sounds.
"And Noel had the balls to say Green Day ripped them off when Boulevard of Broken Dreams used the same chord changes. I think that's what pisses me off the most about this album, odd as that sounds. " Well, Boulevard of Broken Dreams was a better song than D'You what I mean? Perhaps Noel was hurt that he didn't get all the royalties to that song the way The Rolling Stones got all the royalties to The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony (a fact that gets in the way of me loving and adoring the Rolling Stones)
GeoNeilUK To be fair, it literally is the same as the rolling stones song. Just slowed down and using the orchestral version as the backing track. Though it cut out the best bit, the chorus. The stones version of the song is way better, has way more energy. Maybe I'm just a bit sick of bittersweet symphony being way overplayed for the last two decades
"Maybe I'm just a bit sick of bittersweet symphony being way overplayed for the last two decades" Well, if the Stones are licensing the song, I remember Richard Ashcroft being less than pleased about the tune he was getting no royalties for being used to flog average cars (Don't buy Vauxhall cars, they're shite!)
Firstly, the idea of the Gallagher brothers having a charting *argument* is just hilarious! Secondly, I hadn't watched this episode in a couple years. However, I knew what the twist was thanks to reading about the show on TV Tropes. It had me dying from laughter again! 🤣
This album is like the Oasis version of St. Anger: songs that should've been 4 minutes long, stretched out to 7 or 8 minutes for no good reason, awful mixing, conflict between band members, etc.
I remember hearing "All Around the World" as a kid in a phone commercial or something, and I thought that it was a terrible Oasis impression. Now 20 years later, I come to find the song was actually BY Oasis. Well, how about that.
Watching Noel and Liam Gallagher, two of the most combative band members of all time, with various verbal and physical spats between them (seriously, that audio recording of them arguing that straight-up charted is just the tip of the iceberg), and who still trade barbs at each other to this day, sing a sweeping epic track about spreading the word of peace and love everywhere is almost the equivalent of Empire Strikes Back ending with Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader singing a cover of Cat Stevens' Father And Son.
