Oasis
Be Here Now
»
Oasis
Be Here Now
Epic, 1997
RiYL: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Jam, Stone Roses |
Oasis songwriter and guitarist Noel Gallagher knows this only too well, perhaps explaining why his band's third album Be Here Now is virtually interchangeable with 1994's Definitely Maybe or its blockbuster sequel, (What's The Story) Morning Glory. But the songs are even more epic, the arrangements even more layered and intricate. Gallagher's lyrics, which run the gamut from insightful to insipid, are again sung by his younger brother Liam in a compressed, acerbic wail that roars from his throat like a jet.
Be Here Now, like its predecessors, is all about the kinds of melodies that stick in your head for days and weeks. It's all about a rock and roll lifestyle that Oasis lauded on Definitely Maybe's first track. "D' You Know What I Mean" stomps out of the gate with the macho pronouncement of return "I met my maker / made him cry," while "My Big Mouth" is a riff-heavy, kick-ass rocker that swaggers into a trademark soaring chorus. The Noel-sung "Magic Pie" updates any number of Beatles classics and "The Girl In The Dirty Shirt" spills seventh chords, slide guitar overdubs and vintage organ noodling onto a canvas already decorated by Messrs. Lennon, McCartney, Jagger and Richards. The glammy romp "It's Gettin' Better (Man!!)" ends the album in no uncertain terms, souped up by one of the album's better guitar solos and beefy contributions from the rhythm section. "We're gettin' better, man," yelps Liam with bravado.
As if Noel's choruses weren't hooky enough already, the songs on Be Here Now are constructed with them even more in mind. An otherwise musically redundant track such as "I Hope, I Think, I Know" is rescued by a head-nodding, bombastic chorus that repeatedly proclaims "Baby, after all / you'll never forget my name." The chorus of the lighter-waving show-stopper "Stand By Me" is simply heart-melting, sinking its quick, E-bow-tinged chord changes into your chest like so many bittersweet memories. And "Don't Go Away," despite a shoddy middle-eight, will likely find a lovelorn soul wiping tears away by the time its tenderly plucked ending is complete. "Damn my situation / and the games I have to play" is one of Noel's most insightful couplets in recent memory.
But it's short-lived, and in the end, Be Here Now's ambiguous, hit-and-miss lyrics dull the classic-rock drenched power of Gallagher's textbook pop melodies. "Fade In-Out," with a slide guitar solo by Johnny Depp and a Stone Roses-riddled jam-out, is spoiled with patently inane phrases like "you've got to be bad enough to want to be" or "sit upside the highchair, the devil's refugee."
Later, the incredulous, 9-minute-plus pub carol "All Around The World" ambles through three key changes and skips away on an outtro of "la la la's." Likewise, Gallagher's penchant for reusing his own melodies and over-reliance on stock rhythmic devices taints more than a few of Be Here Now's 11 cuts, most evident on the lyrically inept title track (think a peppier turn on Definitely Maybe's "Columbia"). The chorus of "Stand By Me" sounds suspiciously like that of Definitely Maybe's "Slide Away," and the verse of that song makes an additional appearance at the beginning of "Don't Go Away."
Oasis' music seems content with its arrogance and occasional flashes of sincerity, woven into contagiously catchy rock that takes its text from all of the supergroups who've come before. No, it's not original, and this record effectively paints Oasis into a stylistic corner that may be hard to escape from on future albums. But the Gallagher brothers are right on more than they're way off, and Be Here Now proves that sometimes, great music can just Be.
JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as a senior editor for Billboard in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"