Alex Niven - Oasis Definitely Maybe

DEFINITELY MAYBEPraise for the series: It was only a matter of time before a clever publisher realized that there is an audience for whom Exile on Main Street or Electric Ladyland are as significant and worthy of study as The Catcher inthe Rye or Middlemarch The series is freewheeling and eclectic, ranging from minute rock-geek analysis to idiosyncratic personal celebration The New York Times Book Review Ideal for the rock geek who thinks liner notes just arent enough Rolling Stone One of the coolest publishing imprints on the planet Bookslut These are for the insane collectors out there who appreciate fantastic design, well-executed thinking, and things that make your house look cool. Each volume in this series takes a seminal album and breaks it down in startling minutiae. We love these. We are huge nerds Vice A brilliant series each one a work of real love NME (UK) Passionate, obsessive, and smart Nylon Religious tracts for the rock n roll faithful Boldtype [A] consistently excellent series Uncut (UK) We arent naive enough to think that were your only source for reading about music (but if we had our way watch out). For those of you who really like to know everything there is to know about an album, youd do well to check out Continuums 33 1/3 series of books PitchforkFor reviews of individual titles in the series, please visit our blogat 333sound.com and our website at http://www.bloomsbury.com/musicandsoundstudiesFollow us on Twitter: @333booksLike us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/33.3books For a complete list of books in this series, see the back of this book 9781623564230_txt_print.indd 1 18/03/2014 09:39 Forthcoming in the series: Biophilia by Nicola Dibben Ode to Billie Joe by Tara Murtha The Grey Album by Charles Fairchild Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables by Mike Foley Freedom of Choice by Evie Nagy Live Through This by Anwyn Crawford My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kirk Walker Graves Dangerous by Susan Fast Exile in Guyville by Gina Arnold Sigur Ros: ( ) by Ethan Hayden and many more 9781623564230_txt_print.indd 2 18/03/2014 09:39 Definitely Maybe Alex Niven 9781623564230_txt_print.indd 3 18/03/2014 09:39 Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc 1385 Broadway 50 Bedford Square New York London NY 10018 WC1B 3DP USA UK www.bloomsbury.comBloomsbury is a registered trade mark of BloomsburyPublishing Plc First published 2014 Alex Niven, 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Niven, Alex author. Oasis Definitely maybe / Alex Niven. pages cm. -- (33 1/3) Includes bibliographical references. : alk. paper) 1. paper) 1.

Oasis (Rock group). Definitely maybe. I. Title. ML421.O27N58 2014 782.421660922--dc23 2013049455 ISBN: ePDF: 978-1-62356-883-2 Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN 9781623564230_txt_print.indd 4 18/03/2014 09:39 Track Listing 1. Rock n Roll Star (5:23) 2.

Shakermaker (5:10) 3. Live Forever (4:38) 4. Up in the Sky (4:28) 5. Columbia (6:17)* 6. Supersonic (4:44) 7. Bring it on Down (4:17) 8.

Cigarettes and Alcohol (4:50) 9. Digsys Dinner (2:32) 10. Slide Away (6:32) 11. Married with Children (3:12) * A bonus song, Sad Song, was sandwiched between Columbia and Supersonic on vinyl editions of the album. 9781623564230_txt_print.indd 5 18/03/2014 09:39 9781623564230_txt_print.indd 6 18/03/2014 09:39 For socialists past, present and, most of all, future. 9781623564230_txt_print.indd 7 18/03/2014 09:39 9781623564230_txt_print.indd 8 18/03/2014 09:39 Contents Foreword x Introduction: A speck of dust in a football stadium 1. Water 3. Fire 4. Fire 4.

Air Postscript: Quintessence NotesReading and Watching ix 9781623564230_txt_print.indd 9 18/03/2014 09:39 Foreword In what follows, I have tried to treat the early Oasis narrative with the seriousness it deserves. With one or two exceptions, previous writing about the band has tended to be either salacious or plain dismissive, so there was a need for a study that looked at Oasis through a critical lens, and with at least an attempt at objectivity and balance. The unique, versatile 33 series format turned out to be an ideal home for this sort of argument. It was also important to me to try to show that even the most simple-seeming pop music can contain multitudes of meaning. Accounts of British nineties music in particular often take seriously only those (usually middle-class) bands who gesture at literary and art-school touchstones. Meanwhile, the less-knowing, less-allusive (usually working-class) art of the period is often judged to be lumpen and boorish, even by critics who should know better.

The Oasis narrative is a story about a music of surface simplicity becoming the most profound creative expression of its age, and in order to bring out this fact, it was necessary to adopt a form of analysis that sees a world in a grain of sand. x 9781623564230_txt_print.indd 10 18/03/2014 09:39 A L E X N I V E N When it comes to art, there is form, and there is politics the rest is gossip. I have tried to follow this maxim here by giving equal attention to the music of Oasis and to its social and political backdrop. Because to my mind these two things are usually closely related, throughout the book I juxtapose discussions of songs with digressions on socio-political themes in a narrative that follows the chronology of Definitely Maybes tracklisting (with a couple of exceptions to the rule). However, the major structural division of the book is into sections based loosely on the classical four elements earth, water, fire and air. This division does not reflect any kind of occult or new-age ethos.

Rather, its a way of drawing attention to the powerful elemental imagery of Oasiss music and lyrics, and provides a more flexible framework for discussing the albums themes than would have been possible with separate sections on individual tracks, biography, the recording process and so on. During research for this book, David Hugginss website Oasis Recording Information was an invaluable factual resource those looking for an exhaustive account of the recording of Definitely Maybe should check out its many interviews and micro-histories. Im also grateful to the commenters on Freaky Triggers Some Might Say Popular article (19 June 2013) for more general thoughts about Oasiss cultural significance. More personal thanks are due to John McWilliams, Alex Barker and Carl Neville for reading and commenting intelligently on the manuscript, to Aaron Rosenberg for conversations about oceanic feeling, to Ally Jane Grossan, Kaitlin Fontana and David Barker at Bloomsbury for editing and guidance, to my fellow nineties revisionists xi 9781623564230_txt_print.indd 11 18/03/2014 09:39 D E F I N I T E L Y M A Y B E Rhian E. Jones, Agata Pyzik, Owen Hatherley, Phil Knight, Wayne Kasper, William Farrell, Paul Hebron, Graham Sanford, Mark Fisher and Tariq Goddard for inspiration and solidarity, to David Stubbs for village-elder wisdom, to my friend Graeme Ferguson for giving me that Woolworths voucher in December 94, and to my friend Ol Escritt for giving me that