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Critiquing Oasis

Fozzie Bear said:
Gonna have to mildly disagree with you ska invita

Taping CDs for mates was still widespread and weirdness was available to many via John Peel and others.

You could by NME/Melody Maker/Sounds in most newsagents and things like The Wire in decent ones.

A lot of mainstream music was weirder than Oasis in the 1990s - hip hop and the Bristol scene for example. Or Beck.

And then there was the gamut of dance music - you would need to be pretty conservative to think that Oasis sounded fresher than jungle...

For me Oasis the was the end of the line for "indie" as a genre really.
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that is fair comment and if you really wanted weird you'd find it, but i think its fair to say that if you lived in the provinces , didnt have much money, only had radio 1 and commercial radio as a source of music, and crucially were 16 in 1994 then Oasis and Verve would be much more likely to appeal and feel rebellious
 
Favelado said:
Correct though his observations might be, odd that he likes MSP, who gave us 'Kevin Carter' and 'And if you tolerate this..', archetypal bloke-rock that was often played through the speakers of a Ford Mondeo doing about 20mph.
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The attempt to draw parallels between the last great British working class band in history and dreary, plodding, pub rockers Oasis is an outrage :mad:

Shove this in your Wonderwall....

 
ska invita said:
that is fair comment and if you really wanted weird you'd find it, but i think its fair to say that if you lived in the provinces , didnt have much money, only had radio 1 and commercial radio as a source of music, and crucially were 16 in 1994 then Oasis and Verve would be much more likely to appeal and feel rebellious
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I'm going to keep prodding away at this one. :D

Was Oasis really the music (white, suburban) teenagers chose if they wanted to be rebellious in the mid 90s? I'd say the pop goth of Garbage, Placebo etc was a better bet.

We could maybe unpick what was being rebelled against by Oasis fans? I will grant you that it was good music to singalong to and get drunk to and be a "new-lad" to. Maybe that counts for rebellion for some? I'd say it was just a strand of youth culture....

Maybe all rebel music is also quite conformist or tribal, but.... I remember getting on the tube in Brixton in 1997 and every single other passenger was a white lad in his late teens or early twenties with adidas trainers and a bucket hat. Many of them clutching rolled up posters. Turns out Ocean Colour Scene had just played at the Academy.

The cynic in me says that if Oasis was a rebellion it was against feminism, and "the new man" and musical innovation... ;)
 
Fozzie Bear said:
I'm going to keep prodding away at this one. :D

Was Oasis really the music (white, suburban) teenagers chose if they wanted to be rebellious in the mid 90s? I'd say the pop goth of Garbage, Placebo etc was a better bet.

We could maybe unpick what was being rebelled against by Oasis fans? I will grant you that it was good music to singalong to and get drunk to and be a "new-lad" to. Maybe that counts for rebellion for some? I'd say it was just a strand of youth culture....

Maybe all rebel music is also quite conformist or tribal, but.... I remember getting on the tube in Brixton in 1997 and every single other passenger was a white lad in his late teens or early twenties with adidas trainers and a bucket hat. Many of them clutching rolled up posters. Turns out Ocean Colour Scene had just played at the Academy.

The cynic in me says that if Oasis was a rebellion it was against feminism, and "the new man" and musical innovation... ;)
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Or rap/hip hop or house music or the darker end of landfill indie but definitely not Oasis. Oasis were absolutely the choice of conformists, precisely as you describe: petit bourgeois 'lads' dressing up and acting like they thought people in Manchester did. Embarrassing.

Talking of prodding away, some of trainers/bucket hat lot did indeed briefly attempt to attach themselves to the Manics at the point of their post-Richey grief rise to stadium band phase around 'A Design for Life' seemingly attracted by the line "we only want to get drunk' (and misisng that even at their most overblown the Manics still had lyrics like "Libraries gave us power, the work came and made us free") but were promptly ejected by the goth/outsider/weird fanbase of the band.
 
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Fozzie Bear said:
I'm going to keep prodding away at this one. :D

Was Oasis really the music (white, suburban) teenagers chose if they wanted to be rebellious in the mid 90s? I'd say the pop goth of Garbage, Placebo etc was a better bet.

We could maybe unpick what was being rebelled against by Oasis fans? I will grant you that it was good music to singalong to and get drunk to and be a "new-lad" to. Maybe that counts for rebellion for some? I'd say it was just a strand of youth culture....

Maybe all rebel music is also quite conformist or tribal, but.... I remember getting on the tube in Brixton in 1997 and every single other passenger was a white lad in his late teens or early twenties with adidas trainers and a bucket hat. Many of them clutching rolled up posters. Turns out Ocean Colour Scene had just played at the Academy.

The cynic in me says that if Oasis was a rebellion it was against feminism, and "the new man" and musical innovation... ;)
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totally fair

i think the bit i liked most about the post was the importance of radio and how rare actually owning a physical copy of music was and im conscious of how lucky ive been in my life to have access to brilliant radio shows . the oasis bit is basically irrelevant to me, but seemed like an earnest enough take from the person who posted it.

it is interesting to think about what musical ecosystems people are exposed to...the fact that tiktok is now a massive force in breaking new music to young people is pretty depressing to me, in comparison to listening to great djs presenting music over two hours and the depth that experience provides. it is what it is, but my main point being that you can only eat from the menu you get
 
xenon said:
. No, it was American hip-hop.
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By the mid-90s I was in my forties but my own perception was that hip-hop's most interesting period seemed to be over, and that mainstream 'landfill hip-hop' had become just as conformist, and just as much a rebellion 'against feminism, and "the new man" and musical innovation' as Fozzie puts it, as Oasis and their ilk. (In this country Tim Westwood 'stamping his brand on a human face—forever').

Of course what artists intend to "stand for" is only part of the equation. Their audience(s) decide how to interpret and respond to what they are presented with. That might mean amplifying and celebrating the worst and most reactionary, or most conformist, elements, but then again it might not. I remember not liking the Spice Girls first single, or their image. But on the housing estate I worked on I was given a very feisty presentation of their merits by a young fan. Can't say I was entirely convinced about them, but I certainly came to see a lot of late 90s pop as a healthy response to indie shite, even despite it's conditions of production as the 'music industry struck back'.
 
Fozzie Bear said:
I'm going to keep prodding away at this one. :D

Was Oasis really the music (white, suburban) teenagers chose if they wanted to be rebellious in the mid 90s? I'd say the pop goth of Garbage, Placebo etc was a better bet.

We could maybe unpick what was being rebelled against by Oasis fans? I will grant you that it was good music to singalong to and get drunk to and be a "new-lad" to. Maybe that counts for rebellion for some? I'd say it was just a strand of youth culture....

Maybe all rebel music is also quite conformist or tribal, but.... I remember getting on the tube in Brixton in 1997 and every single other passenger was a white lad in his late teens or early twenties with adidas trainers and a bucket hat. Many of them clutching rolled up posters. Turns out Ocean Colour Scene had just played at the Academy.

The cynic in me says that if Oasis was a rebellion it was against feminism, and "the new man" and musical innovation... ;)
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Oasis and bands like that quickly turned into Dadrock.
 
Fozzie Bear said:
I'm going to keep prodding away at this one. :D

Was Oasis really the music (white, suburban) teenagers chose if they wanted to be rebellious in the mid 90s? I'd say the pop goth of Garbage, Placebo etc was a better bet.

We could maybe unpick what was being rebelled against by Oasis fans? I will grant you that it was good music to singalong to and get drunk to and be a "new-lad" to. Maybe that counts for rebellion for some? I'd say it was just a strand of youth culture....

Maybe all rebel music is also quite conformist or tribal, but.... I remember getting on the tube in Brixton in 1997 and every single other passenger was a white lad in his late teens or early twenties with adidas trainers and a bucket hat. Many of them clutching rolled up posters. Turns out Ocean Colour Scene had just played at the Academy.

The cynic in me says that if Oasis was a rebellion it was against feminism, and "the new man" and musical innovation... ;)
Click to expand...

As a white, rural teenager I was a metaller. In hindsight it was a pretty conservative and insular scene in a lot of ways but even now I'd still say something like Sepultura or Godflesh is a lot more out there than the likes of Oasis - and I definitely did see that stuff as the mainstream to rebel against.
 
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Elpenor said:
As someone who was 13 years old when Definitely Maybe was released, Oasis were a gateway band that led me to other things, and probably the first band I was “in to”. For example finding about their influences and listening to them, then finding out about who influenced them.

I wouldn’t say my musical tastes are that far out but I wouldn’t have been listening to the indie shows on radio 1, or discovering for myself say The Clash or the Velvet Underground a few years later on, if I hadn’t first listened to Oasis.

Which is not to say Oasis were objectively a good band, more that they provided a route into wanting to know more about music than just what was in the charts for someone at that age.
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Yeah I can see that but I'd think to a large degree if it wasn't them it would be someone else iyswim? If it wasn't for Oasis I doubt you'd just never have found anything else.
 
Monkeygrinder's Organ said:
Yeah I can see that but I'd think to a large degree if it wasn't them it would be someone else iyswim? If it wasn't for Oasis I doubt you'd just never have found anything else.
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Yes, exactly right place right time. It would been someone else if I’d been a few years older or younger. I doubt I’d have the same soft spot on Oasis if I’d first heard them at age 23, 33 or 43!
 
ska invita said:
totally fair

i think the bit i liked most about the post was the importance of radio and how rare actually owning a physical copy of music was and im conscious of how lucky ive been in my life to have access to brilliant radio shows . the oasis bit is basically irrelevant to me, but seemed like an earnest enough take from the person who posted it.

it is interesting to think about what musical ecosystems people are exposed to...the fact that tiktok is now a massive force in breaking new music to young people is pretty depressing to me, in comparison to listening to great djs presenting music over two hours and the depth that experience provides. it is what it is, but my main point being that you can only eat from the menu you get
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Yes no worries - I certainly had family members who had about two CDs in the house in the 1990s (one of which was always Dido).

Also I totally get that the person who you quoted might feel like that in terms of their teenage years, and I don't especially want to ruin that for them. But on here I think it's fine to say that they are just wrong :)

A lot of stuff I see on tiktok is clips from DJ sets, so it might be an avenue for people to discover more long form versions of the things they like. Or not.

My daughter is currently doing a deep dive into female rappers from South America and her dissertation is about two Argentinian rock albums that bookended the dictatorship* which probably isn't indicative of anything but is a pleasant surprise.

(*I am both very proud and very jealous of this).
 
Lurdan said:
Of course what artists intend to "stand for" is only part of the equation. Their audience(s) decide how to interpret and respond to what they are presented with. That might mean amplifying and celebrating the worst and most reactionary, or most conformist, elements, but then again it might not. I remember not liking the Spice Girls first single, or their image. But on the housing estate I worked on I was given a very feisty presentation of their merits by a young fan. Can't say I was entirely convinced about them, but I certainly came to see a lot of late 90s pop as a healthy response to indie shite, even despite it's conditions of production as the 'music industry struck back'.
Click to expand...
Yes all good points. There was more scope for musical and lyrical weirdness in pop music in the nineties and noughties than in Dad/Lad rock in my book. Things like Missy Elliot's Get Ur Freak on, even Up and Down by the Vengaboys sound deranged compared to Toploader...
 
it was possible to like Oasis and all sorts of other music, especially when you're a teenager...
I was into the first two Oasis albums as a young teen. it was the music but also the look, attitude, the feeling of being part of something etc. like so much of what you get into at that age, it's about all sorts of things coming together. wouldn't exactly have called it rebellious, it just landed at the right time for so many people (clearly). I also listened to the prodigy, gabba, jungle, nirvana, one hit wonder indie bands, garage etc. chin-stroking about the quality of the tunes years later or as a middle-aged bloke at the time just completely misses the point of youth movements.
 
pbsmooth said:
I was into the first two Oasis albums as a young teen. it was the music but also the look, attitude, the feeling of being part of something etc. like so much of what you get into at that age, it's about all sorts of things coming together.
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donald.png
 
Fozzie Bear said:
There was more scope for musical and lyrical weirdness in pop music in the nineties and noughties than in Dad/Lad rock in my book. Things like Missy Elliot's Get Ur Freak on, even Up and Down by the Vengaboys sound deranged compared to Toploader...
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As far as there wasn't much weirder stuff in the charts/mainstream, I'd say the causality was the other way round tbh. IE the charts were full of dull indie-rock because Oasis and co were massive, rather than people getting into them because there wasn't anything else around. It's not like there wasn't plenty of more interesting stuff around before they were big was it?
 
Monkeygrinder's Organ said:
As a white, rural teenager I was a metaller. In hindsight it was a pretty conservative and insular scene in a lot of ways but even now I'd still say something like Sepultura or Godflesh is a lot more out there than the likes of Oasis - and I definitely did see that stuff as the mainstream to rebel against.
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100% agree with the latter point. I grew up in Birmingham and while I was never into metal loads of working class youth in the city were.

As for conservative and insular I know what you mean, but there was (as you'll know) much more to it than that. Some of it genunely counter cultural and radical. Like this:

Home of Metal | At the Mermaid
www.theguardian.com

‘My chest was vibrating. Plaster fell off the ceiling’: the Brummie pub that birthed grindcore

It eschewed working toilets to host crust punks, hunt saboteurs and some of the fastest, loudest music in the UK. The Mermaid in Sparkhill is finally having its history acknowledged
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
Smokeandsteam said:
100% agree with the latter point. I grew up in Birmingham and while I was never into metal loads of working class youth in the city were.

As for conservative and insular I know what you mean, but there was (as you'll know) much more to it than that. Some of it genunely counter cultural and radical. Like this:

Home of Metal | At the Mermaid
www.theguardian.com

‘My chest was vibrating. Plaster fell off the ceiling’: the Brummie pub that birthed grindcore

It eschewed working toilets to host crust punks, hunt saboteurs and some of the fastest, loudest music in the UK. The Mermaid in Sparkhill is finally having its history acknowledged
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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I loved that podcast, I put it up here a while ago but I don't think anyone noticed. We never had anything quite like that in rural Lincolnshire but some bits still resonated - certainly lots of people trying out teenage versions of politics. Not anything I saw coming from Oasis for sure.
 
Oasis, for a brief moment, seemed to bridge a gap between cool and mainstream, stylistically and musically. And that was the appeal.

Not saying they were particularly innovative, musically or even stylistically. But they sounded and looked fresher than most of the other guitar bands of the time, at a time when UK pop music needed a new driving force.

Obviously bands like the Verve, the Charlatans, Suede, Manics etc were around, but none of them crossed over as heavily until post Definitely Maybe. Even Weller and the Beatles massively cashed in on it. They also tapped into that whole ladz market pretty effectively at a time when there was an obvious gap in the market for it. The baggy scene had petered out. The charts was full of tacky boy bands, or the likes of american r&b, cod-reggae, etc. - the people who were turned off by all that lapped it up.
 
:weed:

Wernt BritPop a media creation anyway - excluding Oasis, the rest of the 'A listers' - The Auteurs, Suede, Blur, Pulp - all had good songwriters, who've all gone on to do innovatie stuff... Blur's 'Modern Life is Rubbish' was hardly formulaic dad rock and after The Great Escape, they reverted to a more Amercian guitar influenced sound (Pavement etc.),... while the underrated Luke Haines has a string of brilliant off-beat releases..

The B listers - Sleeper, Catatonia, and others I dare not mention... well pretty much derivative crap with the odd hit single.
 
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