The importance of being idle
I had stopped going to record stores. Aside from the fact that I can simply download freebies on the iPod, I feel the crappiness of today’s watered-down music industry doesn’t deserve P500 from my tattered old wallet. Arrogant and bold, you might say, but if Britney Spears can get away with murdering her own songs live, you probably wouldn’t have a good comeback for that.
I mean if Hugh Grant (no matter how fine an actor he is) and Drew Barrymore can belt out a tune that’s good enough for FM radio, then who else can?
That, of course, and the fact that alternative music has finally taken a permanent backseat to R&B and hip-hop makes me feel much older than my years. And I’m not that old. So on the rare occasion when I have had to buy a blank CD at a record shop, I decided to browse through the back catalogue of those forgotten music heroes of the ‘90s. It was a spur of the moment thing and I immediately regretted it. But buried there on a lonely shelf, deep within the confines of has-beens and one-hit wonders, was “Stop the Clocks” — a greatest hits collection by Oasis, my favorite group.
Apparently, the album (released last Christmas), slipped quietly into record shops and was quickly forgotten. Sad. Oasis was never really a band that could write the most unforgettable tunes or create the most original licks, but they had — and still have — a sound that is both uplifting for its familiarity and swelling for all its grating. And while the group’s passed the apex of their fame, their music remains somehow comforting.
I couldn’t agree more with the Pitchfork media group when they said that this compilation largely proves that Oasis were at their best when they were coming up from the bottom. Their 1994-95 ascendancy fittingly provides the retrospective with nearly 80 percent of its material. Both the “Definitely Maybe” and “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?” albums are well represented with 10 tracks, while four B-sides from the era also appear. Though classics like Rock ‘N’ Roll Star and Cigarettes & Alcohol have come to represent clichéd ideas of stardom and its vices, those songs were originally written from the outside looking in. Liam Gallagher is given triumphant lines based on figments rather than reality: “In my mind my dreams are real,” he snarls, willing his hopes toward actuality over the band’s spiky Led Zeppelin crunch.
Fearless optimism reins on the group’s classic hit, Live Forever, a quasi-reaction to the nihilism of grunge. Talking about the song in an excellent “this is your life”-style 40-minute interview included on “Stop the Clock”s deluxe edition DVD, Noel Gallagher dismisses some of Kurt Cobain’s heroin-laced diatribes while backing up the careful hope of his signature track: “That was a guy who had everything and was miserable. We had f**k all and I still thought getting up in the morning was the greatest f***in’ thing ever ‘cause you didn’t know where you’d end up at night.” Indeed, such escapism and idealist wonder found blissful haven inside Oasis’s finest tracks. “I dream of you, and all the things you say/ I wonder where you are now?” sings Liam on the blustery distortion ballad Slide Away, once again reiterating the band’s romanticism.
Aside from the inclusion of obviously lesser post-1996 tracks — which stick out clumsily amidst the undisputed greats — and the minor squabbles that are sure to arise over which B-sides Noel left out, the collection’s most controversial point has to be the exclusion of anything from the group’s coke-fueled third album, “Be Here Now.” While that infamously excessive LP was a clear step down from previous heights, it’s also more ambitious and tuneful than any album they’ve released since. Tracks like the crushing, murky epic D’You Know What I Mean, swelling heartbreaker Don’t Go Away or underrated burner The Girl in the Dirty Shirt should have replaced skippables like Go Let It Out. To group’s credit, there are no new songs included as shameless sales boosters.
After their astonishing run of hits, Oasis attained their bacchanalian rock nirvana but had no idea what to do next. Instead of exploring new sounds and styles like their Beatle gods once did, the group fell into a repetitive AC/DC rut trying to recreate past glories without the striving hunger that originally gave them life. Unfortunately, Oasis only made two or three essential albums, so while its song selection is generally wise, this double-disc rewind can be quite unnecessary. But, for a fading, much-loved band, it’s also a necessary evil.
And as I left the record shop, I was naturally hit with a wave of bittersweet nostalgia — a time when people still preferred raw, good ‘ole rock and roll tunes over the squeaky-clean, computer-polished ditties of today. So stop the clocks, indeed. It’s not too late (I hope).
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E-mail estabillo_rt@yahoo.com.
