(What's The Story) Morning Glory?
by Oasis

From junodog4 TOP 100 COMMENTER 06/10/2012 01:28 | #44197 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

People (especially hipsters) love to hate on Oasis. I can understand; they got quite arrogant, they wear their influences boldly, and they didn't grow much after this. But this is a cracking album. Gifted melodies, clever hooks - the Gallagher boys know pop-rock. This is good stuff. Shame they never matched or topped it...

I suppose some never moved past their Oasis vs. Blur rivalry days (hint: Blur was better) since both have countless albums on here with ratings inflated beyond their actual worth. I supposed if one has an affinity for atonal and really, REALLY whiny shout-singing of banal lyrics over completely unoriginal song compositions, Morning Glory would be about as sufficient as anything else.

The supposed crown jewel here - 'Wonderwall' - could very well be the most irritating, most poorly sung and most childishly written hit song of the entire decade. Some of the others - namely the title track and 'Champagne Supernova' - are somewhat more digestible. As for the filler songs, there's a good reason you've never heard of any of them.

See enough online discussions about Oasis, and you'll find that certain criticisms get repeated every time, without fail:

"Their instrumental skills are utterly rudimentary, rarely venturing beyond pentatonic scales. Their lead singer is a neanderthalic thug with annoying vocal affectations like 'sheeeeeiiiine', and their fans are just as moronic. They steal everything and don't have a single new musical idea of their own. They world's most successful Beatles/Slade tribute band. They were one of the biggest instigators of the Loudness War. Their songwriting consists of Moon/June rhymes and the same few clichéd themes (the weather, leaving the city, songwriting itself). They revel in their anti-intellectualism. Early-'90s British indie music was getting along quite promisingly until they came along and overwhelmed it. They were the prime example of how the entirety of the Britpop movement was inherently creatively bankrupt due to how backwards-looking it was. They never changed and basically kept releasing the same album over and over again. 'Slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball' is one of the worst lyrics ever written.

"Overall, Oasis' music is derivative, repetitive, unambitious, inane, generally backwards-looking and Pulp were better anyway."

Yes, I admit it's hard to argue against almost any of those complaints...

... but I love this album anyway. (Though not quite as much as Definitely Maybe.) (Edited)

I dismissed them as a beatles ripoff after hearing wonderwall, don't look back in anger, and champagne supernova, but those are great songs and it probably only reminds me of the beatles b/c of the vocals anyway. of course, they don't have the experimental side or half the diversity of a great beatles record, but it'd be unfair to hold them to a standard that no one reaches. they still utilize piano and violins to great effect and have keen sense of what makes a perfect pop rock song so it's not like they have absolutely no right to try to take on the beatles' sound.

if you're going to do a lennon/mccartney impression the entire time you're performing, constantly reminding ppl of arguably the greatest band ever and inviting direct comparison like that, then well, more power to you, I say. that's probably the most confident thing you could do on a record actually. and even if it's just beatles-style pop and nothing more, that's really all I'm asking for sometimes. I was surprised by the supposed filler, not only for its quality but its genuine spirit that's reminiscent of 60's music in general, not singularly the beatles. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the band strictly listens to 60's.

I heard bad things about the vinyl mix but I liked it just fine. the instruments might all be mixed at the same volume or w/e, in such a way that they sort of bleed into each other and make it harder to follow what any instrument is doing individually, but it's still possible to tune into any one aspect if you focus. it's better than completely burying the bass guitar or one of the other guitars at least but the band's sound would admittedly probably be better suited to a more sophisticated producer.

hopefully we'll always get more great 60's style music like this. can't really say that I want more and rate it lower than 100.

From swagnadalf 08/09/2014 19:39 | #119109 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Growing up in England when this came out made it impossible not to get swept up by all the hype and all the hits it spawned, but revisiting it now is depressing. It's so unbearably bland.