Oasis – Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants (LP Silver Vinyl)
Commercially viable darlings Oasis is similar to the likes of Take That and Coldplay. Big bands with real appeal to a broad-ranging fanbase, so large whatever they do cannot fail. What they do not avoid is volatility and criticism of less-than-solid workings. Be it on their pedestal of plain toast music, Standing on the Shoulder of Giants must look pathetically short of the Definitely Maybe heights. But this is where Oasis has always been – and if you look back far enough, not in anger but with a clear vision and a working brain – the writing was on the wall for a hollow album of glitz and post-glamour intent. The turn of the century shuffled in the reality check for many of the mid-1990s finest British outputs. Oasis never managed it.
Immediate, heavy and miserable drumming explodes on Fuckin’ in the Bushes. It is likely what Oasis was up to rather than fine-tuning their studio pieces. Grinding instrumentals on a vaguely foot-tapping experience which Robbie Williams could have battered out as the backdrop to one of his mid-1990s efforts, this opener is, sadly, the high point. It is all rot and dreck from here. With vaguely similar layering to Strawberry Fields Forever with its pipes and brass, the hollow shell of Go Let It Out marks a massive problem Oasis was never capable of conquering. Their lyrics. Dullard refrain of “Don’t let it in, go let it out,” is as tiresome and uninspired as it gets for Liam Gallagher and his withering contributions to this record. Simple, plain and broad enough to sound vaguely inspiring to knuckle-draggers trying to figure out which hole of a jumper their head goes in. Arm sleeves for those who enjoy Go Let it Out and knackered follow-up Who Feels Love?.
No matter the context or the crunch, from the drug-free paranoia felt in the words of Gas Panic! to the hands on the wheel of Put Yer Money Where Yer Mouth Is, it all feels repetitive and ingenuine. Oasis hopes to digitise itself after Y2K fears never amounted to anything. They flutter between the fumblings of a band failing to adapt to the new century and copying The Beatles yet again, with the piano strokes of Little James a poor man’s Hey Jude. Album closer Roll It Over goes on and on without much sense of placement beyond it being the risible end of the fourth Oasis album. It does nothing more than close all these pathetic, nasally performed disasters out. Plenty of empty backing vocalists with their interjections and repetition for good measure, too. A bloated effort from Oasis at the best of times.
Gallagher and Gallagher left to their own devices after the departure of Bonehead and Guigsy. They hopped off when Oasis pulled into a profitable station and settled in. Yet for Liam and Noel, they could not decide when enough was enough. Gluttonous events of Be Here Now are palatable when dragged up alongside this misquoted Isaac Newton car crash. “Some people reckon the album is shit, but I think it’s a great album… it’s just a bit different,” Noel said back in 2002. Music for simpletons, by simpletons. Almost everything written by Noel, and it shows. Standing on the Shoulder of Giants would have been a lofty fall from the top spots and glory days had Oasis not already peddled themselves backwards down a flight of stairs with overwrought and gluttonous album Be Here Now
Label: Big Brother – RKIDLP002C
Country: Europe
Media Condition: Mint (M)
Sleeve Condition: Mint (M)
Sealed