the brilliantly leaping gazelle

I must confess myself to have been utterly bewildered by the seemingly universal praise that the news of an Oasis reunion and subsequent tour generated. My bewilderment then turned into incredulity as the press – the proper press, not the music press or social media influencers – fell over itself to find the superlatives needed for the glowing reviews for their tour. Had one just woken from a coma, one might be forgiven for thinking that Oasis were some kind of unmatched paragons of musical excellence, and that their return was a welcome corrective to the moribund musical wasteland that is 2025.

The thing is, Oasis were shit back in the mid ’90’s and they’re no less shit now.  It didn’t much matter to anyone that the entirety of Oasis’s music seemed even then to sound like a ropey Beatles tribute act, and now sounds like a crap AI imitation of a ropey Beatles tribute act, because they appeared at just the right time for the music business. 

Britpop and Cool Britannia rescued the music business – as it then understood itself to be – from its own contradictions. It proclaimed itself to be constantly seeking the new big thing, prizing innovation and originality above all, but the new big thing was always shockingly similar to the previous new thing. However, whilst Britpop and the whole Cool Britannia vibe was essentially a media confection, a PR stunt with a ruthlessly commercial goal – that of driving previously declining record up sales – something altogether more genuinely egalitarian, quietly industrious and uniquely British was happening in bedrooms throughout the land.

In August 1995, Blur and Oasis engaged in a highly publicized chart battle for the number one album spot in the UK, dubbed the “Battle of Britpop.” Blur’s “Country House” ultimately outsold Oasis’s “Roll With It,” securing the top position. It was big news. The supposed rivalry between the bands was pure Pop 101, the notion that what one didn’t like was just as important as what one did, and proof was a purchase of either one. As successful as it was lucrative, it was also one of the last throws of the dice for an industry soon to face the challenges posed by Napster, illegal downloads and digital content. 

The bedroom underground was part of that, a new way of producing, releasing and accessing music that technology had not just made possible but affordable. 

I am firmly of the belief that Acid House – I.e.not ‘proper music – was by turns ignored, belittled by the music press, demonised by the tabloid press as a moral panic and and then specifically legislated against by the government because it was essentially working class To anyone used to the idea of rock music and of a band consisting of a singer, two guitarists and a drummer, a strange hybrid of the ethos of early 1970’s hip-hop fused with a punk sensibility and given a modern twist was threatening. Threatening in the business sense and also socially. 

Young people had always danced late into the night and taken drugs. It’s what young people are meant to do. But when they started doing it outside of nightclubs with licensing laws, closing times and a mini-cab queue, then it became something else. To me, dancing all night in the open air until dawn was an updated version of the ’Block party’ spirit of early hip-hop. Often taking place in outdoors and using a pirated electricity supply – normally from street lights – to power the music set up. The DJ was the ‘star’ and the variety of his record collection, together with his ability to mix genres seamlessly to create a good time party vibe, was all. 

Fast forward to Britain nearly two decades later, and here’s where the punk mindset comes in, a truer distillation of the ‘fake it till you make it’ attitude than preached by motivational speakers, a DIY belligerence if you will. The modern twist – well in 1990 it was modern – was to meld these musically disparate yet creatively inventive attitudes with a scavengers eye for second-hand electronic music gear.

All of which, whilst fascinating, is but a preamble to my bold assertion. I believe that if the great classical composers who are so revered now, had had access to samplers, sound cards and other technological wizardry then, the resulting music would’ve been broadly similar. I cite as evidence for this Beethovens Symphony No.7 in A major op.92 – II, Allegretto and The Sabres of Paradise’ ‘Smokebelch II .

Annoying, I’m unable to provide a YouTube link to the Beethoven piece, because YouTube!So you’ll just have to trust me on this.

Despite being written over 200 years apart, they both share one striking similarity. And it isn’t that they were using the technology of time, but rather the repetition of the each pieces musical theme. And that’s one reason why I hate Oasis, Coldplay and other purveyors of guitar based music ear botheration. There’s nothing unique to now about any of it and whilst it might seem as if I’m contradicting myself, actually I’m not. The way people reacted to it on an instinctive level, the perfect combination of music, all night partying and the drugs, the explosion of creativity and enterprise, how it all fed off itself and and in turn, fostered new iterations of itself, that was new.

So we come back to Oasis. And the reasons for the unbridled sycophancy of the press. They didn’t understand it then, and they want to return to then, because the now in which they find themselves is so constantly disorientating. The then of Cool Britannia, of expense accounts and liggers, of a time of certainty, not just culturally but socially and politically.

One thing hasn’t changed though. Oasis were shit then and even shitter now.