Definitely, Maybe

OASIS: “Definitely, Maybe” (Creation)

OOH, THE great white hope of Britpop and their silly antics, doncha just love loathe ’em? With Suede, it was all sexual ambiguity and bad shoes. With Blur, it was all lager drinking and greyhound racing. And with Riot Grrl it was all over before it had really begun.

Now it’s the turn of the dreadfully monikered New Wave Of New Wave bands, and what headline-seeking antics do main contenders Oasis opt for? Why, trashing hotel rooms of course. And scrapping on ferries (and occasionally with their audiences). And mouthing off great big gobs of egowank at every given opportunity. Chances are they hope to die before they get old, as well. Yawn. We’ve seen all this before.

Fortunately, with Oasis that’s the whole point. They’ve been called the new Beatles, the next Rolling Stones and are even considered to be a pretty good substitute while the Stone Roses continue to extend their seemingly never-ending sabbatical. Retro is the name of their game and they’re pretty fucking good at it too. Oasis have unashamedly plundered all of the best bits from the last thirty years of British popular music (the Fab Four’s melodies, Keef’s guitar riffs – Christ, they even open one of their songs with a T-Rex intro!), strung them all together with some pretty dodgy lyrics and released the end product as an album called “Definitely, Maybe” (geddit?). And it’s probably the most brilliantly derivative record I’ve ever heard.

It opens magnificently with ‘Rock ’n’ Roll Star’ – a guitar-driven live-for-today type number with the simple but catchy refrain of “Tonight I’m a rock ’n’ roll star,” which pretty much signals the ethos of the whole album. Then it’s into ‘Shakermaker’ with its wonderful hooks (lines and sinkers) and wacky characters like Mr. Clear, Mr. Soft and Mr. Ben.

Noel Gallagher’s lyrics may have the intellectual content of a baked bean and if you gave ten monkeys a typewriter they’d probably knock out lines of more depth in, oh, half and hour or so, but the wonderful way in which they’re sung by his brother Liam and delivered to your door with such superb guitar playing and dancey drumming lend them a resonance that keeps you from splitting your sides laughing when you hear lines like “I knew a girl called Elsa/She was into Alka Selzer.” In the Oasis equation the lyrics are a sackcloth and the music is Beatrice Dalle. In other words they don’t really matter.

This is an album of truly great (though totally unoriginal) music. That’s really all you need to know. I could continue with a track by track analysis but aside from telling you that, yes, all three singles are here, you’ll thank me later for leaving that magical mystery tour for you to discover and delight in yourself.

Positively. Absolutely.

• Olaf Tyaransen