Oasis

Be Here Now

Attains total heaviosity

Review Score:

(10/10)
Noel Gallagher himself may be down on this album; artists have their privileges to evaluate their own work, after all. But "Be Here Now" still sounds thrillingly huge, a symphonic-scale rock album that soars upward in a bubble of optimism. "D'You Know What I Mean?" sounds like a call to arms-- very few tracks since the '60s, if ever, sound so full of apocalyptic excitement. People constantly complain about the alleged "banality" of Oasis lyrics, but "I met my maker, I made him cry . . ." is a sublime rebuke worthy of William Blake. "Be Here Now" invites being divided into movements, with the second beginning with "Stand By Me", which introduces the theme of relationships with the hope of sailing together in the same direction, an idea which becomes aching by the time "Don't Go Away" arrives. Then comes confirmation with the We-Shall-Overcome awesomeness of the four closing tracks. Every song is long and loud; and, though the feel is different from the playfulness of "Definitely Maybe" [I imagine part of what bothers Noel is the sense that Oasis lost the quirky romance and humor of those earlier songs] and though some individual songs may fade away in the 70-minute wall of sound, that doesn't necessarily hurt the album.The big anthems (tracks 1, 4, 8, and 10) anchor the album and the tracks around them flesh out their mood. This is really a pretty radical approach today; Oasis doesn't have to repeat it but it wasn't a vain experiment. "Be Here Now" makes most of (non-Oasis) 90s rock look like something you get up with a toothpick. Listen to "Magic Pie" and see if this isn't a grand statement of hunger for greatness. That's part of what separates Oasis from most other bands. The other part?-- oh yeah, greatness.

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