I must say that I'm glad to see someone defending them. I was beginning to think that all Word readers were, rather boringly, united in their loathing for this band.

However. I think their entire output is pretty damn poor. I could go on and on, but I'll try and whittle it down to ten points:

1. No, they don't sound like The Beatles; in which case it would be very refreshing to hear them stop trying to.

2. Many of their songs have approximately two minutes' worth of material but they insist on padding them out to three times that. All Around The World is a good example of a song that simply refuses to end, despite that fact that, in an ideal world, it never would have started.

3. The only half decent song that they have ever come out with is Don't Look Back In Anger. This is despite the fact that the intro is nicked from Gene Clark's From A Silver Phial; the title is a highly self conscious attempt to reference Bob Dylan, David Bowie and John Osborne; and that the very clever lyric about brains going to your head is supposedly from an unreleased John Lennon song.

4. They came along at the right time, being the perfect noisy antidote to bands like Take That and perma-Number One dross like Wet Wet Wet. However, just like Quentin Tarantino in the world of cinema, being slightly more interesting than total rubbish doesn't equate with genius. As both proved by being unable to progress in their respective genres.

5. Wonderwall is meaningless nonsense. In a bad way.

6. Live Forever, although being the one song (one song! In fifteen years!) that fans defend, is pretty awful too.

7. Their lyrics rank with some of the most trite and awful in the world of rock/pop. Someone should release little Oasis fridge lyrics: you have to construct a song out of words such as okay, anyway, shine, mind, slide, today, way, forever and better.

8. In Annie Hall, Woody Allen equates his relationship with Diane Keaton with a shark: it has to keep moving or die. Oasis were a dead shark after one album.

9. Their heroes The Beatles went from "she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah" to "turn off your mind, relax and float downstream" in about three years. Oasis have been around for approximately twice as long as The Beatles were and have failed to move on from where they started. Apologies to the music journalist that I borrowed this point from.

10. Have you ever heard She's Electric?

There first two albums played at every party i went to for several years and so ihave soft spot for them. However I've seen them live 3 times and they were rubbish, there's a moment when sarky distain for the crowd turns to just abuse, they norammly just play loud all the way through with no nuisance.

I do find Noel entertaining when he's interviewed, but there are a lot more interesting bands still making good records, one half interesting song per album is poor.
Basically they stopped being interesting the moment they started having helicopters in their videos.
this may be useful rule for most bands!

...was for a while they shared a haircut.
I used to work with a guy who was a big Oasis fan and decided that because they talked about them so much he ought to buy a Beatles album for the first time. He didn't like it much and I guessed correctly what it was that he had bought. This one.

Noel seems capable of stringing a few words together on occasion, but he's a below average songwriter, and that's being charitable.

The main things that stick in my craw regarding Oasis are the level of hype that surrounds them, and the abrasive, rude, arrogant anti-intellectual posing of their obnoxious "singer".

I used to read interviews with the band, but gave up after repeatedly being left slack jawed and dumbfounded by journalists' uncritical fawning and lack of reproach for Liam's moronic behaviour. I can only put it down to weak journalists being afraid to challenge his affected and exaggerated rejection of anything approaching intelligent debate.

I can understand a 16 year old Chimney's naive admiration of "swagger", but now that you've grown up a bit, surely you can see that Liam's just appropriated Harry Enfield's "Loadsamoney" attitude, without realising that Harry Enfield is a comedian.

I'm sorry Chimney, but your claim that Liam is "the best white soul singer alive today" is laughable. Please tell me you were joking.

I've got no problems in admitting they changed my life. To be caught up in the whirlwind of their early gigs in 1994 aged 16 was a thrilling introduction into music. I totally agree with the singing crow chap.

How about a big hug. When are we having the Word Bloggers Pissup?

.....cos if it's mine, I'll miss some smashing music.....
(See under: other strands, cross pollenation of.)

I went to see them in New Cross (at the Venue ?) in early 1994 and I think it was one of the most exciting gigs i've ever seen.

there said it.

I think most of the negativity about them is because they er, sold millions of records. and still do incidentally.

This came up on shuffle recently, and I'd forgotten that they were Kings of the B side for a while.

Great haircuts too (at times)

is a common defence of music that you like but others don't. Not just on this thread. Am I alone in thinking that this line of thought is given too much importance? I was a teenager from December 1984 to December 1991. I felt at odds with much of the music during that time, and an awful lot of it today still sounds as terrible as it did then.

Crow likes 'em, some others like some, some people liked more then than they do now and some people never did. Lets accept the differences until some blighter puts up the same post about Coldplop, sorry,'play, which given the abuse usually received, will only be a matter of time.

that it was all Wet Wet Wet before they came out. Is that not a bit like saying that before Arctic Monkeys came around it was all Girls Alound and Norah Jones? In 1994 it was Blur and Suede and the Manics. There is always commercial MOR stuff around. I know it was unusual for a band like them to be No.1, when The Smiths made no.10 in the singles chart, it was a big deal.

I'll tell you what though, the songs are too long. Shave 2 minutes off half of their songs and there albums would be better for it.

Some of my favourites songs are: Gas Panic, Let's All Make Believe, Sad Song, Guess God Thinks I'm Abel

Several comments here seem to suggest correspondents don't like the music because they don't like the lovely Liam and his modest brother.
Well, I don't like them and I wouldn't go and see them, but I do like their music (up to What's the Story anyway, nosedived after that).
Isn't it possible to separate the music from the artist?

but they are certainly not the worst.

As long as an artist/band makes the music they want to make, not what they think they should (or are told they should) - that's fine by me.

are not remotely relevant. And let's not forget the way some writers of the nineties would talk of Oasis and the Rolling Stones in the same paragraph (and unforgivably omitting the word "not"). See their god-awful cover of Street Fighting Man for confirmation of the basic mistake on this one.

Oasis weren't the new Beatles, they were a retread of Slade. Which was fine, until they started taking themselves seriously and believing their own bullshit. Which is usually the early sign of death for most bands/writers/politicians etc.

Hats off to The Chimney for mounting a robust defence of a group he loves while knowing full well that the rotten fruit would be raining down from the stalls the minute he pressed the "Post Comment" button.
It's easy to dismiss things with a glib one-liner, much harder to articulate passion and enthusiam, which are, after all, what brings us all here.
As far as Oasis goes I think my take on them is fairly respresentative of most people's: they were a breath of fresh air at the time after years of mewling, uptight grunge and shoegazing. Big loud guitars, half-decent tunes, laddish swagger, gormless decadence. But it soon got stale and boring. And they turned out to be pretty limited. Friends of mine still love them and I have to sit through albums that I find pretty unbearable. But then many would say the same about an evening round at my place.
Heard Roll With It on the radio today. Sounded great.

....but ultimately repetitive strand. Much like the band.
Thanks Richard. Thanks Crow.
'Nuff said?

Oasis may have had something with their first album but like with many other acts as soon as the megabucks start coming in the suits want to mould them into a sustainable revenue earner.We then get watered down music, designer rudeness in interviews, brotherly fights that make Tabloid headlines and all the other associated crap. The problem is that the lemming like population of this country believe the hype and play follow the leader.
Personally I though Wonderwall was okay and that was about it. I use 'Was' as that is how I think of them - past tense. If they ever had anything worthwhile to say it was a long time ago.

Well, at least they're not Blur. (Or should I say BLURGH?)

From a distance (quite a long distance actually) I tried to like Oasis. I have to admit I find their interviews and their shenanigans intermittently amusing, and I like to keep up, so I thought I would try and "get into them". (After all, I managed it with the Allman Bros and Sufjan Stevens - though not Radiohead).

Anyway, I bought the first two Oasis albums. I later bought Masterclass. I watched them on DVD and on TV. I put them on my iPod. Five years later, as a last ditch effort, I bought the greatest hits double album, and put that on my iPod as well. Net result? I still can't recall any single one of their songs. Even now, I was just trying to recall how Wonderwall goes - and I can't. All I can recall is that every song plods, and that they frequently end up on the wrong side of tribute in their songwriting.

So forget the Beatles comparisons. Slade sounds more like it - but even with Slade I can remember half a dozen songs - and I didn't even like them overmuch. If Oasis can't capture a sound or a period, then sorry. Oasis are hype. I wish them well, but they are not for me.

And of course Oasis covered Slades's 'Cum On Feel The Noize' sounding more like a Slade tribute band (is there one BTW?).

My enjoyment of Desperado has always been marred by the Sladey drivel of Out of Control.
Honestly, listen to it.

My two cents. I first met Liam G in 1994, just as 'Live Forever' was about to be released. He was a superstar in his own head then and had absolute self belief that he was going to be mega-famous. Thanks to his brother's way with a tune, a brilliant manager, a tuned in record company (Creation with support from Sony) and being in the right place at the right time - it happened. At any given time, someone has to be the biggest band. Oasis are absolutely outstanding at being rock 'n' roll stars - they literally cannot do anything else. Long may they run.

I had always laboured under that misapprehension, being confused when I downloaded In Crowd and found it somewhat different. Now where can I find Billy Taylor?