(What's The Story) Morning Glory - Oasis

Wonderwall, has a lot to answer for -it was due to rather liking this track that I impulse bought What’s the Story: Morning Glory some 8 years after it’s release. It was a bargain and a bit of an embarrassment - I mean me with an Oasis CD! Kept for those long car journeys so I could be that maniac woman in the fast lane singing along at the top of her voice to Wonderwall and Don’t look back in Anger. I never actually bothered with much else on the ...
...wasn’t much else on it that held my attention. Several years of it living in the glove department I took it out and actually listened to it. For me it was a bit of a revelation it actually showed Oasis weren’t just that mindless yob Liam Gallagher but a band that had talent with a capital T.


What’s the Story is a diverse album, mellower then their first album Definitely Maybe but still with a strong rock sound. If you compare ... more

Wonderwall, has a lot to answer for -it was due to rather liking this track that I impulse bought What’s the Story: Morning Glory some 8 years after it’s release. It was a bargain and a bit of an embarrassment - I mean me with an Oasis CD! Kept for those long car journeys so I could be that maniac woman in the fast lane singing along at the top of her voice to Wonderwall and Don’t look back in Anger. I never actually bothered with much else on the album occasionally fast forwarding to Champagne Supernova but there really wasn’t much else on it that held my attention. Several years of it living in the glove department I took it out and actually listened to it. For me it was a bit of a revelation it actually showed Oasis weren’t just that mindless yob Liam Gallagher but a band that had talent with a capital T.

What’s the Story is a diverse album, mellower then their first album Definitely Maybe but still with a strong rock sound. If you compare both Definitely Maybe and What’s the Story each are unique in their own way and each are great album’s in their own right. What gives What’s the story that edge for me is perhaps the mellower sounds, a production that doesn’t appear to have just turned the amps up full blast in places, but added strings, harmonica’s and some rather good keyboard. Liam Gallagher sneered his way throw Definitely Maybe on What’s the Story he shows his a singer with a fairly decent range, yes you’ve still got the sneery Liam in places but you’ve also a softer more gentler sounding Liam in places even at times sounding poignant.

As with any notoriously difficult second album What’s the Story had a lot to live up to. Add on the media hyped up battle with Blur then Noel Gallagher back in 1995 had a job and a half on his hands to write an album that would show the world Oasis were a force to be reckoned with and not as some thought a bunch of plagiarists. Which was unfortunately how some had seen some of the more Beatlesque tracks on Definitely Maybe. Did he pull it off? That is open to personal opinion, for me What’s the Story is a brilliant album and up until I bought Heathen Chemistry their 5th studio album I’d have said it’s their best to date but now I’m in two minds! What’s the Story gives you a great big dollop of pure Oasis sound mixed with some more mellow moments.

Opening with Hello, another of their opening tracks that could be thought as the band hitting the ground running. It’s loud it’s brash and it’s typical Oasis doing what they do best. Throw in a mean sounding Liam, add some fantastic guitar playing and crank the amp up to full blast and you’ve got one rather good opener for an album. Hello with it’s sampled Gary Glitter piece is not typical of the album as I said previously it does have it’s mellower moments but Hello is one of those tracks that grows on you.

With Roll With It - one of the first tracks to be lifted off the album and released as a single you would be forgiven in thinking that this album was going to be nothing but loud and brash. Roll with it was one of those tracks that grew on me to the point now I don’t hit the skip button. A review at the time of What’s the Story was released came up with the thought that Oasis were trying to be a mixture of the Beatles and the Sex Pistols on this track. Yes it’s loud, yes it’s in your face but where the Sex pistols come into I’m really not too sure! What Roll With It is, is the typical Oasis formula, stick a mean sneery sounding Liam on vocals, add a decent guitar sound, drowned out Liam at times with the drums and crank up the amps. Cynical maybe but it really does work. Roll With It was described by one reviewer as mediocre at best I’ll admit it was a view I held for along time but now you know it’s actually a rather decent track, maybe not their best but mediocre isn’t a word I’d use to describe it.

Wonderwall was the reason why I bought the album in the first place. The album at this point steps down a tempo. Wonderwall shows the listening public that Liam Gallagher isn’t just a vocalist who belts out the lyrics sneering before he grabs another beer/spliff. On Wonderwall in places he sounds all most poignant. Wonderwall is perhaps one of those Oasis tracks that everyone knows and loves even if they loathe the band. Rumoured to have been written, by Noel Gallagher for his then wife Meg Matthews a claim that he now veomontly denies. Whether or not it was doesn’t really matter but it does sound like it was written by someone who was in love and perhaps just a bit over whelmed by the situation he found himself in. It’s one of those songs you can’t help but love and sing along to! Should you ever see a mad woman driving a blue car on the M62 singing along to something you can bet it’s Wonderwall!

If their was one track on the album that could be classed as a Lennon rip off then it would have to be Don’t Look Back in Anger. For a fleeting moment as it opens you really do feel as if you’re about to here a version of perhaps Lennon’s greatest song Imagine. Throw out the track you are greeted with a slightly mellow hippy trippy sound. Noel Gallagher proves he’s not the only one in the family that can sing a decent lead vocal. Noel pulls it off extremely. Noel Gallagher wrote Don’t look back in Anger with the philosophy that there is no point in look back and regretting what you should or shouldn’t have done or said. Look to the future not past regrets. With lyrics like: “Take me to the place where no body knows” it appears escapist in place and perhaps not the usual material Oasis sing about. Just perhaps we could all remember that looking back and thinking if only is in some instances a waste of time! Wise words from the man who’s not known for them! Don’t Look back in Anger along with Wonderwall were the two tracks that actually made me wonder if there was any thing more to Oasis than pictures in the Sun with Liam smacking some photographer or other.

The Album moves back to the brash Oasis sound with Hey Now which along with many others I have to say is an album filler. What you get with Hey Now is 5 minutes 41 seconds of a rather mediocre track with Liam Gallagher belting out rather mediocre lyrics in a whiney bored manner when he’s not being drowned out by the only redeeming factor of this track the guitar playing. As you might well have gathered this track has not grown on me and the skip button is often hit before the first few bars are played out.

After the dirge that is Hey Now, you are treated to a 40 second instrumental which sounds like the boys couldn’t be bothered to finish off the glam rock sounding track and add a few vocals! Perfect to put the kettle on and come back to the next treat in store for you!

The album gets back on track with Some Might Say, a mix of Oasis does glam rock in places. Some Might Say was rightly the first track to be lifted from the album probably due to the fact it wouldn’t have been out of place on their first album Definitely Maybe. Some Might Say with it’s Sladesque opening bars is another of those tracks that after a good few listens actually grows on you, with it’s typical Oasis feel to it and Liam doing his finest sneery/nasal vocals you find you just can’t help but sing along badly on my behalf. But it’s such a catchy tune.

Cast No Shadow, is perhaps the biggest surprise on this album, even though you could describe both Wonderwall and Don’t Look Back in Anger as fairly mellowish songs Cast No Shadow is poignant, mellow and gives an air of being totally chilled out with it’s backing track. Noel Gallagher wrote Cast No Shadow as a tribute to Richard Ashcroft Ex The Verve front man. If you look closely at the lyrics you do find it rather surprising that Noel Gallagher actually wrote what is a very poignant song. Noel Gallagher has since wrote equally poignant songs but for me having heard this first I was a wee bit surprised. With lyrics like “As they took his soul they took he’s pride it” and "Here's a thought for every man
Who tries to understand what is in his hands
He walks along the open road of Love & Life
surviving if he can" It gives a bleak look at being famous. If you always thought of Oasis as some arrogant bunch of noise polluters then listen to this track and perhaps you might see them in a different light.

She’s Electric rids the album of it’s sombre over tones with one of those feel good tracks that you could imagine being belted out by a pub singer some place! It’s one of those jingly tunes, silly tracks with just a hit of the Beatles in it. In places you feel it’s more of a jam track then an actually fully produced album track. The thing about it is that it works! You can’t help but sing along for what it is a very silly track that doesn’t fail to rise a smile!

The Album steps back into serious mode with the title track Morning Glory. With it’s opening bars that incorporate sniper helicopters over head you do wonder if the boys had be partaking in “recreational” drugs whilst watching re runs of old Vietnam war films. Morning Glory is a dark moody track with some wonderful electric guitar rifts but a very bleak look at drugs.

Prior to the final track you are again treated to a 40 second instrumental track that merges very well into the intro of the stunning Champagne Supernova. Noel Gallagher readily admitted that Champagne Supernova was about taking drugs. It’s a mellow, soothing song that you can’t help but like. Yes the lyrics are psychedelic in places and if you study them closely they make no sense at all but then it was written by a bloke who was off his face when he wrote them in it’s defence how many other song lyrics make total sense to anyone apart from the author. Champagne Supernova is an anthem that perhaps summed up Noel Gallagher’s life at that point in time and a wonderful one at that! I readily admit that I bought this album for Wonderwall alone but in my mind the best track on here is all 7 minutes 30 seconds of Champagne Supernova.

What’s the Story is in it’s own right an excellent album, it built on the foundations of Definitely Maybe and as I said previously up until I bought Heathen Chemistry I thought this was perhaps their best album to date. Perhaps it was the best album they released in the 90’s but that’s my personal opinion and I know others will disagree citing Definitely Maybe as the best!

 

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