Britpop

Career Killers: “Be Here Now” by Oasis

I read several articles commemorating Oasis’ mammoth 1997 album, Be Here Now, which was recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. The consensus has long been that this bloated, overproduced, self-indulgent, chemically non-enhanced album is what ended Oasis as a major commercial force and may have even killed off the Britpop phenomenon. As Rolling Stone famously put it, Be Here Now is “a concept album about how long all the songs are.”

Then I saw this review. Fatherly called Be Here Now a “perfect album” but not in terms of quality. Instead, this critic argues that the album was a perfect encapsulation of where the band was at the time and a honest reflection of everything they stood for. To me, that sounds a bit like arguing that The Room is a perfect movie because it flawlessly captures Tommy Wiseau’s delusions of grandeur and limitations as a filmmaker.

I don’t know if I buy that argument. But this album was perfect in one sense — it was a perfect disaster.

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Career Killers: “Yes Please!” by The Happy Mondays

When it comes to movies, there are box office bombs and then there’s Heaven’s Gate.

The 1980 western epic went massively over-budget thanks to a disastrous and well-publicized troubled production and received infamously bad reviews upon release. The film ended up being such a box office bomb that it single-handedly killed director Michael Cimino’s Hollywood career and star Kris Kristofferson’s potential as a leading man (one particularly brutal review from Vincent Canby of The New York Times wondered if Cimino had made a deal with the devil to produce his last movie, Oscar-winning classic The Deer Hunter, and now the bill had come due).

And that was just the beginning. According to the documentary Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven’s Gate, the movie may have also killed off United Artists, the studio that produced it. Shortly after writing off the film’s entire $44 million budget (equivalent to nearly $140 million in today’s money), UA was sold to MGM and ceased being an independent studio. The movie may have even killed the era of the all-powerful director, as runaway disasters like Heaven’s Gate, Apocalypse Now, At Long Last Love and others caused studios to step in and start asserting control.

By those standards, Yes Please! by the Happy Mondays is the Heaven’s Gate of albums.

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Album Review: “Who Built the Moon?” by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

There is a school of thought that the feud between the Gallagher brothers is fake – a manufactured back-and-forth between two media savvy rock stars who know that, the more they “fight,” the more publicity they get and the more albums they sell.

Now they’re releasing albums within two months of each other (in fact, it worked out so that Noel’s lead single, “Holy Mountain” came out at around the same time that his brother released his album, As You Were). It’s not quite the same as the 1990s when Oasis and Blur would release records on the same day while the compliant media would fight amongst themselves to see who could make the most “Battle of Britain” puns. That feud may have been largely manufactured, but there were real feelings of resentment on both sides. Plus, the conventional wisdom that Oasis was the band that stuck to what worked while Blur was the band that was more willing to experiment had some element of truth to it.

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Album Review: “As You Were” by Liam Gallagher

Somehow, Liam Gallagher is cool again.

The ex-Oasis and Beady Eye frontman has been on a charm-offensive to promote his solo debut album, As You Were. Whereas the man who used to be notorious for showing up to interviews drunk, high, or both while muttering monosyllabic answers (when he wasn’t shouting obscenities) that necessitated a real-time chav-to-English translator and an ever vigilant censor, Gallagher seems to have matured over these last few years. During his publicity tour for As You Were, Gallagher actually seems sober, funny, insightful and likable – much to the surprise of anyone that knows anything about him (this clip of him making tea is both hilarious and revealing). For instance, an actual headline from Esquire reads: “Liam Gallagher Is Trying Not to be a Dickhead.”

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“Urban Hymns” Turns 20

1997 was a banner year in British music. Radiohead gave us “O.K. Computer,” one of the best albums ever made and one whose central theme of being consumed by technology seems prescient given the world we live in today. The Blur/Oasis war entered a transitional phase, as Blur took a step back and released its low-fi, American style self-titled album while Oasis charged full-steam into pretension and excess with “Be Here Now.” The Chemical Brothers and Prodigy both released successful electronic albums, while one of their forerunners, Depeche Mode, made a nice comeback with “Ultra” (arguably, the band’s last good album). It was a good year for British pop, too, as the Spice Girls had two albums hit #1 on the charts, and Gary Barlow had his last solo chart-topper before reuniting with Take That.

But one album towered above the rest.

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Album Review: “Chasing Yesterday” by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

Noel Gallagher’s career has been a case study in diminishing returns.

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Album Review: “BE” by Beady Eye

Liam Gallagher sounds like he’s desperate.

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Not So Bitter, Definitely Sweet – A Concert Review of The Verve at MSG

This is an old favorite of mine. I originally wrote it for my Livejournal blog and decided it was time to import it over here. Still holds up, except for the fact that the Verve broke up shortly afterwards. That and the Robbie Williams line about not wanting to rejoin Take That.

Concert Review:

The Verve

April 29, 2008

WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden

When the Verve released “Urban Hymns” in 1997, they seemed poised to become the biggest of all the British pop bands that were invading America from across the Atlantic during the mid-90’s. Oasis had great hooks, but they were about as likeable as smallpox. Blur couldn’t escape from the shadows of their biggest U.S. hit, the ubiquitous “Song 2” (currently playing at some sporting event somewhere in this country). Radiohead were too esoteric and were about as interested in promoting themselves as Robbie Williams was in rejoining Take That. The Verve, however, had great songs, a unique psychedelic/rock sound, a loyal and devoted fan base, and a charismatic frontman in Richard Ashcroft.

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Browsing Category

Browsing Category

Career Killers: “Be Here Now” by Oasis

Career Killers: “Yes Please!” by The Happy Mondays

Album Review: “Who Built the Moon?” by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

Album Review: “As You Were” by Liam Gallagher

“Urban Hymns” Turns 20

Album Review: “Chasing Yesterday” by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

Album Review: “BE” by Beady Eye

Not So Bitter, Definitely Sweet – A Concert Review of The Verve at MSG