"They were wildly variable live - and sometimes appalling'
Alexis Petridis
I couldn't be more equivocal about Oasis reforming, because I am an Oasis agnostic. I'm neither a diehard fan: the kind of Weller-haired, Wallabee-shod "parka monkey", as Noel Gallagher put it, for whom it's an article of faith that they were the greatest band of their era. Nor am I the kind of naysayer who will tell you their inherent musical conservatism and penchant for the union jack somehow presaged Brexit. I think Oasis's first two albums and the accompanying singles and B-sides were fantastic. If anything, I think their debut, Definitely Maybe, sounds more potent now than it did in 1994.
Back then, it felt like a rush of sneering vocals, distorted guitars that were equal parts Slade and the Sex Pistols circa Never Mind the Bollocks, and tunes that seemed undeniable and immediately familiar. Now, I find it weirdly moving. The oddly wistful, melancholy lyrics and melodies, and the frustration and aggression in their delivery sound like an evocation of a desire for escape. They sound like songs about loudly expressed big plans made by people unsure whether they have the wherewithal to pull them off.
There's a certain perverse pleasure to be taken in 1997's Be Here Now - its claustrophobic, clenchedjaw sound embodying the excesses of the Britpop era running horribly out of control. But thereafter Oasis usually sounded bloated and weary, as if struggling to locate whatever had made them special in the first place, usually without success. Something would very fitfully spark - as on 2002's The Hindu Times or 2008's Shock of the Lightning - but for the most part Oasis's output for the remainder of their career was a pretty joyless trudge.
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