Oasis bring out our conservative side, so we like them
Ok everything, ok the myth of the Gallagher brothers – the last two, real rock stars? Who knows – that they scar each other and that of the English nineties, ok the nostalgia and ok the return of the Britpop. Still, there is an aura of extraordinary that hovers on the tour of the Oasis reunion, just left, which has few rivals in the history of music. Just see the scenes of hysteria, even before the (perhaps) record numbers. Again: ok the wait, ok the reconciliation between brothers, ok everything. But this is not a return like many others – even very great – that have already been there: the English band has indeliblely marked the nineties, but its charm goes beyond the eras and involves previous generations and, above all, subsequent ones, mostly with the only strength of the songs. Translated: because we like the Oasis so much? Because they are a group, let’s say, so special?
The merits of the Oasis
Let’s put it this way: for artistic merits, the Oasis are not even remotely in the Olympus of the greatest artists ever, at least if as such we mean those who broke the musical rules of a period, have raised the bar or in any case made at least a small innovation on the scene. They were not even in their period, that of the Britpop, where the scepter, from this point of view, belongs to the blur of Damon Albarn, definitely more in step and capable of renewing – and renewing the context – of the Gallagher brothers. However, and here is the point, they have always had with them the love of the people, who were English – for a reflection, perhaps yes, identity – or from all over the world, Italy in the front row and, at a later time, the United States, where at the beginning they had struggled enough.
The fact is that, simply, nothing were invented. Everything they played in their golden age, from 1994 to 1996 and not surprisingly celebrated on this tour, including the various Wonderwall, Don’t Look Back in Angers And Live Foreverhas precise and never hidden references, by the Beatles themselves – Liam’s son is called Lennon, to understand us – at the Stone Roses of the late eighties. For heaven’s sake, they themselves, who are gladly sold as one of the greatest rock bands ever, have never professed like genes or inventors of who knows what, and indeed probably the cheekyness with which they have never claimed anything more of the success and a certain effectiveness It is the basis of that worker rhetoric that Oasis still holds, net of being billionaire stars.
And yet. And however all this does not mean that they are artists scarcefar from it. Nor that this is a downward race. On the one hand there is an exceptional charisma, mostly of Liam, the last star of rock, in singing and impersonate The songs written by his brother, who have epic and engaging tones, as far as easy and immediate style. On the other, in fact, the songs themselves: with few ingredients, all more or less already seen and historicized, satisfying to sing – melodic refrains, slow curves – and that never displace. And, as they say, Try to youto write them. Because Noel’s talent in composing, in using a palette with two colors on the cross, to bring out a timeless pop-rock, is unique. No other band has managed to create such simple and predictable pieces yet, at the same time, engaging, never banal: the Beatles, from which they fish a lot, were a cultural revolution; The Oasis, at most, a reflux, have already had the end of the story behind them and run for themselves. And what a run, though.
Our comfort zone
This is why we like their music so much. Because it is a safe harbor, a space of which we already know the rules, the operation, everything, but which despite this is satisfying, does not tire. Or rather, more: he tells us that looking at the past – somehow surrender to it, have a certain reactionary attitude: in the end, musically, the Oasis are like this – it is the best choice to make and that even a conservative music like this – and therefore stimulates, in fact, our conservative part – can be alive, button, not necessarily barricadiera or defeat starting from time. Few pretensions, many certainties, zero wanting to be who really is not. Despite the many stars proclamations, they are a rock band at hand, because their elementality is disarming. But it is the only ones, really, who have transformed it into a value, who have capitalized the safety without expires. In short, Oasis, like our comfort zone. Indeed, the best of possible comfort zones. And for once it is fine.
