\nDefinitely Maybe<\/i> was one of the greatest debut albums of
\nall-time. Each song marked the arrival of a bunch of cocky,
\nBeatles-worshipping, coked-up Brits. The album’s excess (an obvious
\nreflection of the band’s) was the
\nLicense to Ill<\/i> of Brit-pop. If
\nDefinitely Maybe<\/i> was the party,
\n(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?<\/i> is the hangover. While
\nDefinitely Maybe<\/i> was bragging about becoming rock and roll
\nstars and doing white lines,
\n(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?<\/i> sounds like someone who is
\ncoping with the morning after who heard it from another person that
\nthey were a total ass the night before: “did I say that?”, “Was I
\nthat obnoxious?”<\/p>\n
Luckily, the band doesn’t lose any confidence on their sophomore
\neffort. Their Beatles’ worship definitely leans toward later-era
\nBeatles with this album, especially with mega-production numbers
\nlike “Cast No Shadow”, “Wonderwall” and of course, the epic
\n“Champagne Supernova.” Where
\nDefinitely Maybe<\/i> rocked,
\n(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?<\/i>moves.<\/p>\n
It’s no wonder that this was the album that gave Oasis a huge
\nAmerican audience (
\nDefinitely Maybe<\/i> barely cracked the top 50); the album was a
\nhuge hit on adult contemporary radio. The characters in
\n“Wonderwall” sound like more like the life-weary characters that
\npopulate a Bonnie Raitt album: “backbeat the word is on the street
\nthat the fire in your heart is out.” For the most part, the
\nwide-eyed optimism of Oasis’ debut is gone, replaced by kids who
\nhad to grow into adulthood faster than they ever anticipated.<\/p>\n
“Don’t Look Back in Anger” has to be both one of the most
\nheartbreakingly written ballads of the last 20 years and one of the
\nmost underused karaoke songs of all time. The almost-shoegazing
\n“Cast No Shadow” was inspired by The Verve frontman Richard
\nAshcroft. The use of strings, pulsating percussion by Alan White
\nand tide-wave guitar riffs by Noel Gallagher and Paul Arthurs
\nsomehow make these songs sound heroic statements, rather than sad
\nbastard posturing.<\/p>\n
There are plenty of sunny moments in
\n\u2026Morning Glory<\/i>. “Roll With It” was the first song that
\ninitially got me into the band. “Hey Now!” may be a safe rocker,
\nbut Oasis were so gifted at this time, it was still miles away from
\nwhat other rock bands were aiming for in the mid-90s. The only
\nblemish to this album was “She’s Electric” — a nice enough ditty,
\nbut at the end, I was wanting to push ‘stop’ and put on
\nThe White Album<\/i>. Of course, I can’t do that — not with
\n“Champagne Supernova” waiting in the wings.<\/p>\n
I can’t say enough about “Champagne Supernova”; with the
\nexception of “Bittersweet Symphony,” and “Paranoid Android,” it may
\nbe the best seven minutes of rock the ’90s produced. And unlike
\n“Bittersweet\u2026” and “Paranoid\u2026”, the scope is
\ndramatically scaled-back. The guitar-driven dynamics definitely
\nmake the song sound “important,” but the sad narrative deals not
\nwith an epic life struggle or the battle between man vs. machine.
\nRather, it simply details that exact moment when a person hits that
\nugly transitioning pothole between being a kid and an adult.<\/p>\n
Much like Radiohead, Oasis is defined by two back-to-back
\ncrowning achievements. And like Radiohead, both albums perfectly
\ncomplement one another (
\nThe Bends<\/i>\/
\nOK Computer<\/i> being the obvious comparison). Unfortunately,
\nfor Oasis,
\nDefinitely Maybe<\/i> and
\n(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?<\/i> complemented each other
\ntoo well. In so many ways,
\n(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?<\/i>sounds like a
\ncareer-capping album. At once, it’s a grand testament of the band’s
\n(gulp) maturity and the answer to so many doubters who dismissed
\nthe band as Beatles’ rip-off artists. With nothing left to prove,
\nOasis sadly languished after this statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":26791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6400],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-38064","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-oasis","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38064"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38064"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}