Oasis - Be Here Now

This is the sound of a band where no one tells them “no”.  Their first two albums are considered high points in Britpop.  Rightly so.  There are so many classics on those albums.  The band themselves say that the problem with Be Here Now was drugs.  Their excuse for the album not being very good is that they took too many drugs while making it.  But I think it goes further than that.  Lead single D’You Know What I Mean goes for nearly 8 minutes.  Ballad All Around the World is nearly 10 minutes long - and it has the kitchen sink thrown at it.  Strings, Brass, guitar solos.  The lot.  There are only two tracks on the album shorter than 5 minutes. 

I don’t think the problem was drugs necessarily.  I think the problem is that there was no one telling the band that their ideas weren’t any good.  There are some good songs hidden here.  Stand By Me – while it could have done with an edit – is good.  Low key Don’t Go Away is also top shelf material.  But the whole album is overblown and bombastic.  After this album Oasis went from being a vital band, to being inessential.  They had moments of greatness, but were never the same again.  The classics, so abundant on their first two albums, became very rare.  This is a case of more being definitely less.