OpenWebMailArticle Directory and Reviews

Oasis a seriously interesting band. Now, they were a British rock band formed in Manchester in about 1991, maybe a little bit before. Originally, they went by the name The Rain. The members were Liam Gallagher who really just sang and beat on the tambourine once in a while. Paul Arthurs, who's playing the guitar, Paul McGuigan, who was playing bass, and Tony McCaroll, who was the drummer. Now, pretty soon, Liam has an older brother named Noel Gallagher, who was a very prolific and solid songwriter, wrote some great tunes. But it was kind of, partly by being an older brother, wasn't too interested in what his younger brother's band was doing. But as time went on, he wants the band to put together, to play his songs. So, Noel pretty much called up the band and said "I want you guys to play my songs. I want to be the only song writer in the band."

They decided to take him on up on the proposal because they really needed some material and what they were going up with was really sub standard. Because is a great songwriter, once he joined up with the band, the great tunes turned them into a hit machine. They managed to put out 8 number one singles in the UK along with 7 number one albums. They won all kinds of awards, MTV, Q awards, and Europe music awards. In 2007 they produced one of the best albums of the past 30 years.

They were nominated for some Grammies after their BBC radio listeners voted for them. As of 2009, they have sold more than 30 million records. By the way, they were listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the longest top ten UK chart run for a group. This happened because they had 22 consecutive top ten hits. Really, this is unheard of. Even way back, the Beatles didn't have that many. It's certainly interesting when a band talks about or perhaps rarely proclaims that they are the next Beatles. This happens every now and then when the critics or the record labels, Sony, BMG, and others believe that their latest, hot band is on the way to being the next Beatles. People, this will never happen. There were things going on in history that made it possible for the Beatles to become who they were. Anyway, the band members signed on to the Creation Records label. This is when they started putting out their initial stuff.

Definitely Maybe. This came a little after their early hits. Really, I want to talk mainly about how the song, Wonderwall is really a take off of the Beatles. George Harrisons was the first of the Beatles to put out a solo album. It was the soundtrack to a movie called Wonderwall. Wonderwall Music with an album called Wonderwall Music. Well. It was really a bunch of ambient type stuff that was not anywhere close to being ready for the Beatles label. However, it was released under the Apple label, likely because Capital, EMI didn't think it would ever sell and wanted nothing to do with it.

At least George had more musical content. John were a little bit more like revolutionized and his other experimental song What's the New Mary Jane that didn't show up, that wasn't...They never showed up on official release. They finally put up an edited version, one of the edited versions on it on Beatles Anthology three ad lib. So, the song Wonderwall, getting back to Oasis, as I'm wandering off here in a daze. Whoops! Just a minute, my notes are disappearing. The band of course made appearances on MTV unplugged. They played on World Festival Hall but they also always have bickering between the brothers and it seems like now the plug has been pulled finally. And for every...As far as everybody else is concern, they are done. But Noel Gallagher is off and doing his own thing, writing his own stuff, playing...He spent some time playing with Zac Starkey, Ringo's son. So another Beatles connection between Oasis and a member of the Beatles. So, the album, by the way, that Wonderwall was from came out in 1995. It is called "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?". It just rode, rode the charts for a while, because it had a lot of singles: "Some Might Say, " "Roll With It, " of course, "Wonderwall, " "Don't Look Back in Anger." Those were all big. They were, again, much bigger in the UK, in Britain, than they were in the United States. But, they did have two big hits in the US. Aside from "Wonderwall, " "Champagne Supernova" was another one that became a radio staple for a while, and even a song I taught to a lot of people in the middle and late 1990s, when music was kind of sketchy and had entered a sort of void period at that point, anyway. There were some interesting complaints, or at least maybe critical comments about especially a lot of the stuff from "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?". Writer John Harris, in his article called "Britpop!: Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of English Rock, " compares a lot of the songs and themes from that album directly to other songs.

He cites Gary Glitter's "Hello, Hello, I'm Back Again" as a song that has stuff clearly stolen from it. John Lennon's "Imagine"... the song "Don't Look Back in Anger" is a lot like "Imagine." "You and Me, " "She's Electric, " and the R.E.M song, "The One I Love." "Morning Glory" is a lot like that. The songs really had such close resemblance to other existing pop songs, or older existing pop songs, that it really is hard to hand these guys a lot of credit for being very original.

But, that's what happens in this style of Brit pop. Actually, there was a lot of this in general just going on in the music industry, with not a lot of innovative, creative ideas. But, again, Oasis said they were better than The Beatles. Much like Michael Stipe. I was having a conversation the other day with one of my students, and we were talking about people. Self promoters. At one point in an interview, I believe, Michael Stipe of R.E.M. We were talking about some great R.E.M. songs, "Losing My Religion, " and "Stand." Anyway. But, at one point Michael Stipe referred to Beatles stuff as "elevator music." It's hard to believe anybody, any real musician, could even entertain that thought, let alone make the statement. I know the interviewer, at the end, did say had it not been for that elevator music, the makers of that elevator music, Michael Stipe would have been taking the stairs his whole life. That's what happens when people try to compare themselves to the masters. It's a bit dicey. The last thing I want to go through is some of the other songs that were on "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?" It opened up with "Hello." Even Gary Glitter got credit for that one, because it was definitely taken. It was almost a cover of his song."Roll With It" was the next song, and then of course, "Wonderwall, " then, "Don't Look Back in Anger." Again, this sounded so much like "Imagine."

There you go; I just had to get Imagine back in my head. They also did Hey Now! And one called Untitled. It's amazingly clever and creative to name a song Untitled. I mean, really, this is one of my all time favorite titles, I myself have dozens of songs by that name. "Some Might Say" was followed by "She's Electric", then "Morning Glory" and ending with a few more tunes, then one more "Untitled". You know something, they gave these untitled songs subtitles. This one was called "The Swamp Song." The other one was called "The Swamp Song." Part 1, part 2. Or, "Excerpt 1" and "Excerpt 2." And, then it ended with "Champagne Supernova." I must note that these two tracks, the Swamp tracks, were officially "Untitled, " but it's mainly because there were a few blank spots in the tapes, particularly on the ones that were produced in Mexico. There was a bonus track on the vinyl edition. Vinyl had kind of died about 10 years before, but it was still hanging around a little bit. There was an extra song on there, "Bonehead's Bank Holiday." If you're ever looking for "Bonehead's Bank Holiday" by Oasis, and you know it's from the "Morning Glory" period, you've got to find it on the vinyl.

That is my last couple of thoughts on these guys. So, if you're really interested in Oasis, I encourage you to check out some of their many interesting albums.Their songs are pretty fun to play. But, if you can play half a dozen Beatles songs, I guarantee you could play all the Oasis songs, because they're a little bit simpler.

I report on various music topics such as rock and guitar. For guitar lessons of Oasis or to learn Wonderwall Wonderwall guitar lesson visit TotallyGuitars.com