I'm not mad keen on Oasis (although I’m partial to the early funny ones) but seeing the reviews of the Oasis and AC/DC albums in the new issue reminded me that I almost (just almost) feel sorry for the Monobrow Twins. Every new Oasis album gets criticised (generally, this isn’t a Word specific thing and Andrew Harrison’s review refers to this) for a lack of musical development, making records like their early ones, only not as good. Meanwhile, every new AC/DC album gets praised for a lack of musical development, the mark of playing to your strengths, even if the records are like their early ones, only not as good.

So why not bash out the same sound over and over again, if that’s your schtick and people like it? Isn’t this just an extension of the ‘give the punters what they want’ line often lauded in Word, at least when it comes to live music? I'd rather have variety with music, but it’s probably a relief that Oasis have never discovered their latent Malian influences and made an album featuring extended kora workouts, best leave that to the people who are good at it.

Anyway, this got me thinking about acts who have tried to change and made you merely admire their efforts from a safe distance – The Doors’ Soft Parade anyone? Any other examples?

**(Oh, quick aside, the guitar sound driving Oasis’ new single Shock of the Lightning is obviously a beefed-up version of Stereolab’s Super Electric (even more similarity than Silver Machine, Andrew H!), a record which Noel Gallagher must be familiar with from the early 1990s. He’s plundering material from new genres now, at least some things change…)

You Tube clip contains 40 seconds of rambling nonsense from The Lab before it kicks in...