Best Song/Worst Song: Oasis - Sabotage Times

Best Song/Worst Song: Oasis

Even the best bands have one turkey in their back catalogue, one bit of filler to nullify so much killer. I love Oasis, but it wasn't hard for me to think of their lowest ebb.
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Even the best bands have one turkey in their back catalogue, one bit of filler to nullify so much killer. I love Oasis, but it wasn't hard for me to think of their lowest ebb.

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Best Song: Live Forever

Whistle. “Oh yeah”. Drums. Then Liam begins: “Maybe, I don’t really want to know, how your garden grows, because I just want to fly.” Bang. Brilliant. Noel Gallagher at his finest. Live Forever is Oasis at their best being aspirational, memorable and universal.

Live Forever was the anthem of the 1990’s that you are probably singing in your head right now. Allegedly inspired in part by the then negativity of the early 90s Grunge scene. Noel Gallagher has been quoted as saying “I remember Nirvana had a tune called '’I Hate Myself and I Want to Die’, and I was like . . . 'Well, I'm not f*cking having that.” He definitely wasn’t, the positivity of the song shines through in a direct counter to the self-loathing guff spouted by Cobain.

Live Forever just gets better as it goes on, reaching a peak with the line “We’ll see things they will never see.” Then Noel delivers one of his best solo’s as Liam sings “We’re gonna live forever” over it. It is brilliant from start to finish.

Go on. Stick it on now. Make your day better.

Worst Song: Little James

Now to make your day much worse…

Little James is listless rubbish. Liam’s first foray into songwriting was this song dedicated to his then stepson, the thought was there, sure, but the music and the lyrics weren’t.

Liam Gallagher’s voice makes most songs better but it can’t save this track. The lyrics are well known for their weak simplicity: “live for your toys, even though they make noise” but it is the music that finishes it off. A song that starts terribly and sinks lower with the cringe worthy guitar solo coming in at the end before the inevitable “na na na na” starts happening.

Thankfully Liam improved later on with the some decent songs in “Meaning of Soul” and “Song Bird” but Little James was the point of no return for Oasis, where nothing after it came close to their early brilliance.

It just so happens that the worst Oasis song is also on their worst album. As Liam sings “I’m singing this song for you and your song and that’s all.” Sadly he was singing it for the millions of people that shelled out a tenner for “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants”.

I bet no one of sane mind has intentionally listened to Little James for pleasure in the last decade. Not even “Little” James himself; too busy on that trampoline probably.

It’s strange really since the two songs aren’t that different. Simple music, straightforward rhymes but one transcends music and the other, much like “Little” James’s toys, just “makes noise.”

Follow Tom on twitter: @twgreaney

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