In their waning years, frail and easy to trip over, both Oasis and the Queen Mother were immune to criticism in the British press. Yet while the Queen Mother may have needed a new hip, Oasis needed something new to make them hip again. Their new “best of” compilation, Stop the Clocks, is their most recent shot.
It can’t be ignored that the golden age of Oasis is long gone; but they did at least have a golden age. Oasis’s radio hits only ever told part of the story – their glorious hit singles were held up by a backbone of standout album tracks and more than a band’s fair share of superb b-sides.
Thankfully, this “best of” collection contains just those excellent singles, standout album tracks and superb b-sides. More than seventy-five per cent of the material is culled from sessions for 1994-5 albums Definitely Maybe and (What’s the Story) Morning Glory. Albums Standing on the Shoulder of Giants and Heathen Chemistry donate just one track a piece and Don’t Believe the Truth is represented by just two. Underselling tracks from their third album, Be Here Now, don’t make the track-list at all.
In their heyday, Oasis brought back a “laddish swagger” to British rock music that had been missing since Johnny Rotten snarled and spat nearly 20 years before. Their tunes were, at worst simple and accessible and, at best, classic pop tunes, as infectious as early Beatles hits (a comparison Oasis themselves loved to make). They may have used nonsensical lyrics in their songs (what is a “wonderwall,” anyway?) and they may have borrowed a style as painfully derivative as British law allows -- but Oasis captured the mood of a nation in way that rock bands are rarely able.
Highlights:
Oasis connoisseurs will be pleased that Definitely Maybe album track “Slide Away” is included alongside “Morning Glory” from the album of the same name. But, then again, Oasis connoisseurs will be pleased for everyone else -- surely they already own all the tracks and won’t be buying this compilation.
”Wonderwall,” “Don’t Look Back in Anger” and “Live Forever” are, of course, all featured. Alt/ indie rock rarely reaches the lofty heights of these tracks -- both in popularity and in pop music gusto -- and each one, an anthem for males between ages 14 and 30 when the music was released, is a necessary inclusion.
Guitarist Noel Gallagher (who chose the tracks for this release) is judicious in his selections from latest release Don’t Believe the Truth, but the two he has chosen, “Lyla” and “The Importance of Being Idle” are solid songs. At least he didn’t include “Let There Be Love“ -- a song that is proof that Gallagher has a future writing boy-band ballads if the cash dries up.
Elsewhere, some of Oasis’s old b-sides are dug out, though they have already seen mainstream release on b-side collection The Masterplan. “Acquiesce,” singer Noel and brother Liam’s best duet, is still ace, despite Noel sounding more like a warbling construction worker than he usually does. “The Masterplan” is also included – thankfully. It is Noel’s best vocal performance.
Lowlights:
It’s a credit to Oasis that their best of collection wouldn’t fit on one CD. But it is to the band’s detriment that it then couldn’t really fill two –18 tracks spread over two discs means only 40-odd minutes’ worth of music on each. But then again, in the mp3, who’s gonna actually spin two Cds?
Conspicuous by its absence is “Roll With It.” Is Oasis still embarrassed by the fact that Blur’s “Country House” beat it to number one in the so-called “Battle of the Bands”? Also, Noel Gallagher’s choices don’t give his band’s middle period albums justice – Heathen Chemistry’s only song, “Songbird,” was not the best song on the album (that was “The Hindu Times”) and the LP that should have been ignored was the lacklustre Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, not Be Here Now. “Go Let It Out” probably is the best song from Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, but it’s the weakest song on this collection -- Be Here Now’s “D’Ya Know What I Mean” isn’t nearly that bad.
The biggest omission -- and it really is tragic -- is the 1994 single “Whatever,” which has never featured on any Oasis album and deserved inclusion if just for it to finally get mainstream release, if not because it’s an excellent song.
Minor gripes aside, Stop the Clocks is a superb release, one that is honest and on the ball in most of its choices. It would be a perfect introduction to Oasis for anyone intrigued by the biggest British band of the 1990s. Or for someone whose forgotten all about them.
