In 1996, at the height of "Oasis-mania," I opined to anyone that would listen (and most everyone else) that if guitarist and main songwriter Noel Gallagher put out a solo album, I'd buy it. He finally obliged me in 2011, with "Noel Gallagher's High-Flying Birds." I have yet to buy said album.
Whose fault this is, is debatable; clearly, sixteen-year-old me is no longer the same guy as thirty-something-year-old me. But Noel took so damn long to leave Oasis behind (by my reckoning, 1997's Be Here Now was the last listenable Oasis album, and not by much at that). Sure, you could say that the band *was* his band anyway, and that letting nasal-voiced little bro Liam be the main vocalist for the group was his way of heading off blame for when the group's music declined. Perhaps Noel's voice, used sparingly on lead vocals for such songs as "Don't Look Back In Anger," was better in small doses anyway, and a solo album by him might have ruined it.
Perhaps I need to get out more, talking about a band that hasn't meant anything to anyone over the age of twenty since about 1999...
Anyway, "Don't Look Back" came on the radio today, either before or after a gigantic bird almost collided with my windshield while in mid-flight (I'm not sure what the damage would've been, but I'm just glad I had my wits about me to slow down and let the vulture or whatever it was continue on its low-level buzzing of the highway), and it put me to mind of my adolescent interest in a band that, honestly, time has not been kind to. When they first came to my attention, on the crest of "Wonderwall," I was just getting into the Beatles, and it seemed like Oasis were like the Beatles (they were from England, they had accents, and Beatles hairdos). Of course, hindsight proves that Oasis weren't the Beatles; they weren't even Gerry and the Pacemakers. But it was a good run while it lasted, wasn't it?
Noel took over the band that was essentially Liam's, on the condition that he'd write all the songs. I can only imagine how bad Oasis' songs were before the regime change, but listening to the actual lyrics of "Don't Look Back," I'm struck at how much they suck. The song is fantastic, musically; but the combination of the music and lyrics is a bit like a really awful hangover mess: you go to bed with the beautiful guitar work, only to wake up to the ugly-as-sin lyrics in the cold light of day.
Man, that near-bird collision really shook me up...
But Oasis were part of my childhood, of feeling left out of the social norm (though that was a blessing in disguise) and needing something to cling to pop-culture-wise that spoke to me, or seemed to. I guess it's why tween girls like Justin Bieber, he of the ever-changing-haircuts and burgeoning career as a rehab patient in countless downward spirals and comebacks. When those girls get older, they'll look back at the amount of time they spent looking up to Bieber and wonder what the hell they were thinking. For me, Oasis is the albatross of my musical education, a group that I can't really believe I ever liked, but that I like all the same for the few fleeting good things that they did (terrible lyrics and all). In terms of artistic relevance, they're just a shade beyond fellow Mancunians the Hollies (Manchester really has produced much, much better bands). But in terms of taking me back to my childhood, they're tops.
Perhaps if that bird today had been a high-flying one, I wouldn't have been prompted to write all this...
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