What's the Matter With You? Sing Me Something New...
Written: Jul 02 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: some great songs
Cons: songs too long and bloated, some mundane tracks
The Bottom Line: still a great album
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| underdawg's Full Review: Be Here Now by Oasis |
Oasis's Be Here Now is when the boys from England were supposed to start sucking. Their next album, Standing on the Shoulder of Giants is pretty bad, but Be Here Now? My only complaint is that it's not as good as (What's The Story?) Morning Glory or Definitely Maybe, but very few albums are. Be Here Now is not a masterpiece album as a whole, but has plenty of triumphs in it, although the whole album is held back by some dubious production and arrangement choices by Noel Gallagher.
D'You Know What I Mean shows exactly what I mean. The song is great, and you probably won't even notice that the chords in the verses are exactly the same as Wonderwall's. It has a different feel from any other Oasis song I had heard up to this point in their discography; it sounds like something that could play over the credits of a Matrix-like science fiction/action movie. Of course, Oasis did one better in their next album with an instrumental featured in the movie Snatch but I digress. D'You Know What I Mean is Oasis at their edgiest and also their most grandiose. I'm not just talking about the lyrics (“I met my Maker/I made Him cry”) but also the production/arrangement. The song starts off with over a minute of electronic sounds and the song also takes forever to end. The song clocks at over 7 minutes when it easily could have been done in 4 or 5. This is what prevents the song from being a true great, but it's not that bad. I just set my iTunes to cut off that intro and outro. Unfortunately, not all the arrangement problems can be rectified so easily, but let's get to the highlights of the album first.
Stand By Me is one of Oasis's finest songs and stands up with any of the giants from Morning Glory and Definitely Maybe. It's catchy from the first word, and has a bit of mystery around it since it sounds like a love song with the chorus's “stand by me/nobody knows/the way it's going to be” and yet the last verse warns “there is one thing I can never give you/my heart will never be your home”. I Hope, I Think, I Know is a straightforward rocker that never gets mentioned as one of Oasis's great songs, but it deserves to be. Liam allegedly burst into tears after recording his vocals for Don't Go Away, which was written for Liam and Noel's mother who was sick at the time. Liam does in fact does sound sincere as he pleads “So don't go away/say what you'll say/but say that you'll stay/forever and a day/in the time of my life/cause I need more time/I need more time/just to make things right”. Like just about every other song in this album, it uses an orchestra to good effect. All Around The World is Oasis at its finest and catchiest, and spreading good cheer with the optimistic chorus “all around the world/you gotta spread the word/tell em what you've heard, you're going to make a better day”. All of these songs deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as any of the other great Oasis songs like Live Forever, Wonderwall, Champagne Supernova, etc. These songs alone make this album worth getting, and most of the other songs are still pretty solid, besides Magic Pie (which is boring even though Noel sings very well on it).
However, there is still plenty wrong with this album. Why is there an orchestra in every other song? Why is All Around the World 9 minutes long? Noel in fact said that he wished he could've made it 12 minutes long! Why does such a tender song like Don't Go Away have Noel's blaring distorted guitar riffs throughout the song? Wasn't Wonderwall's “there are many things I would like to say to you but I don't know how” enough? Why is the meat of the Don't Go Away lyrics about not being able to find the words to say? What is starting to happen to Liam's voice?
Be Here Now features Oasis at its finest, with a few more filler songs than usual. Unfortunately, it seems to have captured Noel Gallagher and the boys at their most self-important and bloated. Seriously, the intro to D'You Know What I Mean is useless, and they would still play that thing during live shows! All Around The World sounds much better in the music video version where it is 6 minutes and not 9. Don't Go Away really should've been a more predominantly acoustic track like Wonderwall. Be Here Now is right on the cusp of greatness, and it's infuriating it's just the arrangement that is holding this thing back. This album with some nice fat trimming would be a 5 star album in my book, simply because the 5 or 6 really good songs on the album are really really good songs.
However, the problems with Be Here Now are mere annoyances. If you've liked Oasis's first two albums, definitely give this one a shot. Noel himself has seemed to have forsaken this album (not including a single song from here on their Stop The Clocks compilation), but it really is an essential in any fan's collection. Enjoy it while you can, because the next stop is Standing On the Shoulder of Giants, which has about 3 good tracks on the whole thing.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
underdawg
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Member: brian
Location: nyc
Reviews written: 228
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law school
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