Oasis

Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants

Apt Title

Review Score:

(8/10)
There they are, melded together like the New York skyscrapers in the distance, the giants of Rock - Sir Paul McCartney, the Stones, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, Led Zep, etc. - all Colossi whose massive guitar-toting forms twine together making a craggy yet not unsightly mass. Near the top, next to the composite head of the conglomerated monster, there is a little flat zone, perhaps the plateau of a hunch. It is here, on this singular shoulder of the giants of the title of this album, that Oasis stand.

It doesn't look like the enormous excrescence supporting this shoulder will ever get any higher. In fact there is the constant fear that it will totter and swing, crashing down on the hundreds of cozy little record companies below. In the meantime, Noel and Liam and their hired help go about plugging their derivative but evocative songs singing lines like "Your thoughts and words won't last forever more," keeping the 'eternal flame' of Rock burning long after the Revolution has sold out.

Rock music once the aural form of social revolution, almost druidic and shamanistic, is now no more than the pleasant strumming of minstrels who sometimes still feel compelled to act as if they were sweeping away a social order. Maybe they don't realize it but in the title of this album, Oasis have summed themselves up perfectly. This is good music but I doubt if anyone in the future will ever stand on Oasis's shoulders.

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