GO LET IT OUT

Oasis

I don’t like Oasis. All (three) of my huge and loyal army of readers will know this and will appreciate this fact. Be Here Now is one of the most boring and overlong albums I have ever heard. All Around The World is a rejected Beatles song in all but name. Liam Gallagher, to the best of my knowledge, has never and probably will never have a good hair day. Right, I feel better for that, so lets wipe the slate clean and see what they’ve got for us now. It moves along at a good pace and Liam sounds almost interested. We could be onto a winner here. And then, suddenly it all goes Sergeant Pepper – it may be brief but it’s definitely there. Still, it’ll take a while before they finally realise they’ll never be the Beatles (mainly because another band got there first), so I’ll forgive them for that. So off we go again and it moves along nicely. And keeps going. And doesn’t stop. For ages. In fact, it goes on at least two minutes after it should have finished. I’m starting to get a little bored by now, but Oasis fans’ll lap it up. After all, it’s the first new stuff from them for two years. That said, though, I don’t mind this one. It’s far better than anything they’ve put out since Wonderwall and that’s much more than I was hoping for. A result.

THE GREAT BEYOND

REM

I originally reviewed this one a couple of months ago (on the ball or what?) and I actually quite liked it. Now it’s coming up to the release date of 24 January, I thought I’d reappraise it. I still like it. It’s rather reminiscent of Man On The Moon and it sounds like the band’s interested again after the dull fare they’d put out in the form of Up. Can’t be bad, can it? Hang on a minute, this can’t be right. Two positive reviews in one week? I’m more than a little concerned here.