Oasis announce 25th anniversary edition of ‘Be Here Now’
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Hear Me Out: Oasis killed Britpop with ‘Be Here Now’
The world held its breath when Oasis arrived with their third album, Be Here Now, in 1997. The music industry was expecting their follow-up to (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? to be yet another timeless classic that combined their no-nonsense form of rock ‘n’ roll with lyrics about the idiosyncrasies of life in Britain and anthemic choruses. However, what fans recieved was not what they were expecting.
Both of Oasis’ first two records, Morning Glory? and their 1994 debut Definitely Maybe, were so successful that they established the Manchester quartet as the biggest act on this tiny sceptred isle, akin to the British version of Nirvana. They were working-class lads spreading the gospel of a rollicking good time and weren’t afraid of anyone or anything.
As with any outfit that is revered as the voice of a generation, what came with this creative success was a wave of familiar factors. Since their breakthrough success, the band had been growing increasingly hedonistic, with their heavy drug use and alcohol consumption now taking their toll and the cracks starting to show in the inter-band relationships.
Their lifestyle wasn’t just affecting their personal lives; it also seriously impacted their creative output. This is a divisive point amongst Oasis fans, as many adore Be Here Now and all that followed. Despite this, the album is credited with being the moment that the Britpop moment died, blown away by a mixture of ego, drug use, and a general lack of self-awareness. The Oasis of old was dead, and whilst there are redeeming features about the record, as a whole, it represents the greatest misfire of their career.
The story of the album is a famous one. The project was so hotly anticipated that Oasis’ management company, Ignition, was acutely aware of overexposure’s adverse effects. In response, they tightly controlled the media’s access to the album, limiting the pre-release radio airplay and forcing journalists to sign gag orders. Whilst this only exacerbated the buzz and intrigue, it also alienated the press, which would have side effects as musos began to sense that the machine of Oasis was getting ahead of itself.
Preceded by the nostalgic but overblown lead single ‘D’You Know What I Mean?’, Be Here Now was an instant commercial success, becoming the fastest-selling album in British chart history, topping the albums chart in 15 countries. The band released the third and final Platinum record in the US, but its commercial success did not reflect the critical response it garnered.
Oasis were championed for their simplicity and the universal appeal of their lyrics, as tracks such as ‘Live Forever’, ‘Supersonic’, ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Star’, and ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ reflect. However, Liam Gallagher’s lyrics are questionable on Be Here Now, even for the man who championed the rather rudimentary a-b-a-b rhyme scheme. The chorus of ‘D’You Know What I Mean?’ is a classic example of just how far gone Oasis were: “All my people right here, right now / D’You Know What I Mean?”
Nobody, not even Liam Gallagher, knew what he meant. The lyrics are just a minor indication that the Oasis of their first two records had departed, as it was more to do with the music and the production that confirmed the album as a flop.
The band were attempting to do something they weren’t yet ready for. In more recent times, Noel has come closer to perfecting this creative vision with The High Flying Birds, taking cues from Ennio Morricone and Sgt. Pepper’s era Beatles as on Be Here Now, but at the time, the artistic intent and what they produced were far removed from each other.
The lead single was a sign of what was to come. With its many guitar layers, added helicopter and crowd noises, and noisy string section, Oasis turned into a hollow shell of their former self. However, if it had been done with more panache, as Noel Gallagher has done in his solo career, things might have been much different.
With that, Liam’s vocals get lost in the mix across the record, which resulted in confusion. He was the poster boy of Oasis, their mouthpiece. Exacerbating this feeling of alienation for fans was the fact that Be Here Now clocks in at 72 minutes long, extensive by the standards of the day, and with over half the songs longer than six minutes, without anything to keep us entertained, fans were rightly enraged.
Reflecting on the album, Noel Gallagher said: “It’s the sound of … a bunch of guys, on coke, in the studio, not giving a fuck. There’s no bass to it at all; I don’t know what happened to that … And all the songs are really long and all the lyrics are shit and for every millisecond Liam is not saying a word, there’s a fuckin’ guitar riff in there in a Wayne’s World style”.
Noel didn’t hold back there either. In July 1997, he was quoted as straight out describing the production as “bland” and some of the tracks as “fucking shit”. Most hilariously, he later opined: “Just because you sell lots of records, it doesn’t mean to say you’re any good. Look at Phil Collins”.
That’s the thing about Be Here Now. Of course, it is not the worst album ever made, but what it represents makes it so significant. Not only did it signal Oasis’ long crawl to oblivion, but it also meant the end of Britpop as a whole. The genre had become so bloated and full of itself that Be Here Now was just the main talking point of a much larger trend. The 1990s was losing sight of itself, and the new millennium could not come quickly enough. Only through saving graces like Placebo did people realise all hope wasn’t completely lost.
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