Eric and Anouche met in New York in 2002 and moved to DC in 2008. She’s moving from a career in fashion and publishing to teaching, he’s an editor and writer in international development, and they have a two-year-old son. Both love music and are still discovering each others record collection nine years later. Their tastes are all over the place – The Cramps, classic soul compilations, The White Stripes, Aphex Twin all share space on the shelves. In One/One Thousand, Eric and Anouche randomly choose an album from their music collection each week and share their reactions. They may rediscover old forgotten loves, get into something new, or recoil in terror at what they used to listen to.

Artist: Oasis
Album: D’You Know What I Mean? (single)
Release Date: 1997
His or Her Album: His

MP3: Oasis – “Stay Young”

Read the entire column after the jump:

 

Anouche:

Oasis always sounds like Oasis. At their best and at their worst they are unmistakable. On this collection of b-sides they are playing Oasis’ evil twin. Cocky, loud, totally nonsensical. Take for example the first track “ D’You Know What I Mean?” I mean, even the punctuation in the title is a harbinger of the nonsense to come. During the refrain when Noel asks “All my people right here, right now, d’you know what I mean?” Sounding something like one of the more obnoxious high school students that I sub for, I feel like yelling “No! What the hell are you talking about?” Take these lyrics, for example:

“Look into the wall of my mind’s eye
I think I know, but I don’t know why
The questions are the answers you might need
Coming in a mess going out in style”

If lazy song writing were a highly respected art, these guys would be masters.

The second track, “Stay Young” is the only tolerable, even fun, song in the collection. It’s the kind of drunken-bliss, jump up and down anthem that they’re known for, complete with handclaps. “Stay young and invincible!” Ok! Sounds good to any 20-something on the dance floor.

Moving on to more torture the “Angel Child” demo is just a joke. What is this, Oasis doing “Sweet Child of Mine?” Glack! Then there is the travesty that is their cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes.” How could they take such a beautiful, dynamic song and make it so frigging flat? I can just see them at the mixing board, “Pump up the volume on everything!” And don’t bother warming up your voice before you record this either. Enough said.

Eric:

In the summer of ’97, I worked at a hotel in Guam that catered to Japanese tourists, manning the spotlight for a Vegas-style variety show, complete with a Dolly Parton impersonator. I clearly remember the buildup to the video premiere of “D’you know what I mean” on MTV that summer (back in the days when a new video from a band was a big deal), and the first time I saw it sitting on my hotel room bed – Noel, Liam and the rest ambling out of that helicopter, flares going off, kids hanging out in post-apocalyptic abandoned buildings, etc. It was MEGA. I loved all 7 min and 22 seconds of it. When my family came to visit me a few weeks later, my youngest brother brought the single (with 3 b-sides!) he had bought from me in Japan.

What a glorious band for a glorious age – 18. Oasis was my obsession from late high school through early college. To me, this is a record of a time that has passed for music, when I could count down to the day when a new single by Oasis, The Verve, Radiohead, etc. would be released – along with three -b-sides. I mourn the loss of the b-side. It was the refuge for the obsessed. And  even though it’s not cool to admit, I can still listen back to certain Oasis songs and genuinely enjoy them, without any irony and detached cool.

That said, this has NOT aged well. In the summer of 1997, Oasis and Radiohead both returned with monster singles that were around 7 minutes long. Whereas “Paranoid Android” was composed into a suite of three separate parts, D’You Know What I mean just plods along dumbly, overriding everything in its path like a zombie steamroller. Backwards guitars and vocals vie with a wankfest guitar solo, a spoken “oh yeah” and wah-wah pedal nonsense. As for the b-sides, there is probably no other compressed-to-shit recording in music history that will give you as much ear fatigue within 20 seconds as the Noel-sung cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes.” Angel Child is a paint-by-the-numbers Noel acoustic tune that he seems to have been able to write in his cocaine-induced sleep by 1997. Maybe I’m being harsh. The song I choose to highlight is “Stay Young.” It’s very Oasis in that I makes you want to throw up your hands and sing along while drinking with your friends with a dumb grin — that is, if you just turn off your brain a bit and enjoy it for what it is.