Oasis – Be Here Now (1997)

According to some people, this album marked the official death of Britpop. In a way, I agree with them. This was definitely where the downhill of Oasis started. Then again, they faced an impossible task with their third album. Their debut album Definitely Maybe had been the fastest selling debut album of all times and (What's the Story) Morning Glory was one insanely successful. Their success could also be seen from the massive concerts they sold out after Morning Glory. So, I think it's fair to say that the expectations were ridiculously high and it was nearly impossible to improve from where they were. Despite all of this, I think Oasis could've pulled their difficult third album off a lot better. Some of the songs on this album are still quite good, but the production is way too bloated with a result that sounds really messy and overly produced.



There are so many electric guitar tracks on this album that it's nearly impossible to hear any of them. It feels like the band has just put in as many sounds as in any way possible and as a result, the album lacks genuine band sound and even the occasional great guitar riffs and solos are drown by noise. You can hardly hear any of the bass lines on this album, because there are so many guitars everywhere.

Even Noel Gallagher himself commented on the album before its release by stating that the album wasn't inventive, it was just Oasis playing their music like they had always done. This is indeed another flaw of this album. It didn't do anything to change the band's direction. If you compare this situation to other Britpop albums that were released around the same time, namely Blur's self-titled album and Pulp's This is Hardcore, it's very easy to see which of these albums was least innovative. Then again, Be Here Now still has quite a few good songs, when it comes to songwriting. Stand by Me, Don't Go Away and All Around the World are great hit songs with heart and hooks to hold on to. After this album Oasis made many much worse albums where even the songwriting had been lost.

Many music critics have criticised this album for being over the top in sounds mirroring the over the top lifestyle that Gallagher brothers were living at the time. They were constantly on drugs, fighting and buying ridiculous mansions with their money and you can hear the change in lifestyle for former working class lads in their music as well. The lyrics are a bit empty on this album.

My favourite song on the album is the hit song Stand by Me. It's almost so generic Oasis song that it's difficult to say on which album it is, though. Anyway, in the fashion of this blog, I'm linking a music video into the text and this is the song I'm linking. Even this music video is hiding boasting of their success. There's a scene where Noel is walking past a wall of posters, one of which is the poster for their Knebworth Park gig, one of the biggest concerts of all times. There's also a Beatles poster there to highlight that at the time Oasis liked to compare themselves to the biggest rock band of all times.

I don't think it's really that fair necessarily to bash this album so badly as I've done here, because if an unknown band were to publish an album like this, it would definitely draw attention. It's just that when the band has already made two as amazing albums as the first two Oasis albums, this can only be seen as a way down.

Listen to the album on Spotify.