I remember as if it were yesterday, walking into some new hole-in-the-wall record store that had sprung up on Lincoln Ave, ironically right across the street from where Wax Trax! once rocked the block. I had read a little about Oasis in the UK press, but hadn't heard anything yet.
Upon seeing the CD for Definitely Maybe on the shelf, I asked the clerk if he'd heard it and he replied, "Yeah, it's good." I asked him what it was like, to which he thought for a few seconds and said, "Guitar rock."
Guitar rock? Was he being intentionally vague because, in truth, he hadn't really heard the record or had the band's sound actually been that ambiguous? Being that I was on myway home from an expensive trip to two other record shops in the area, I was hungry, tired, and in my mood for taking yet another musical chance.
A few days later, whilst driving to work, I heard my first Oasis tune on the radio. The song, Live Forever, left me with absolutely no real impression. Only after it was over did the DJ inform the audience that what we heard was the latest UK smash from Oasis.
Crap, I though, why don't they ever tell us this BEFORE the song begins rather than after we spend three minutes not paying attention. One could argue that if the song had been good enough, it would have gotten my attention, but then I remembered the time I slept through a 6.0 earthquake.
Within weeks, Oasis was the biggest band in Britain and the U.S. modern rock scene embraced them as well, but, having become familiar with their music, I couldn't not help wonder what all the fuss was about. Aside from some very obvious Beatles influences - which was enough to usher many other bands to the no-zip sorting bin over the years - the only real commodity Oasis seemed to have was the bankable bickering between brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher.
Remember when every issue of People magazine had some made-up story about Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie all because Jolie had stolen Pitt from Aniston? This went on every week, it seemed, for literally years and years.
The idea that there was an entire industry built upon a non-existent tension between two actresses, to prop up a flagging print media industry much less millions of consumers who ate that shit up, was deeply concerting, but nothing compared to the weekly NME and Melody Maker covers devoted to the feud between Oasis and established UK hitmakers Blur.
Even after that feud finally fizzled out, and was later revealed by Noel to be a complete fabrication for the sole purpose of promoting both Oasis and Blur (shocking), NME, Melody Maker and the rest of the UK music press hung on Noel and Liam's every word.
And when there were no new words to report, the papers simply alluded to the possibility that there might be something juicy contained therein.
Thing is, even in the month of May in the year 2015, a visit to the NME website reveals the following:
Yep, the Gallaghers are at the top of the page, all because Liam took a shot at Noel in a tweet.
That's right, a single Twitter burp was all it took to land Liam and Noel at the top of the NME website. Sadly, the tweet arrived too late for NME to put the Gallaghers on the front cover of the latest print edition.Further down the page of NME.com, there's more, as Noel apparently took a chuckle-worthy shot at Jay-Z's Tidal commercial:
Thing is, Liam doesn't have a new album, or even a band, to promote, yet there he is getting the ink that some upstart band whose rent is a week past due would've killed for.
As much as I, and others, may enjoy a good Noel quote, all NME are doing is reporting on a Rolling Stone interview with Gallagher, which, last time I checked, was lazy journalism.
Do YOU read the NME to find out what Rolling Stone are reporting? Didn't think so.
But that's what the NME and other rags are up against: they can't bear to let some other publication steal their thunder, their god-given right to report Noel's every burrito fart as if it were front page-worthy news.
1994 was twenty years ago. It ain't coming back, even when Oasis does eventually sign up for the reunion tour that we all know will happen once Liam's checks start bouncing.
When they do, of course, the collective "Squee!" from those in the editorial offices of NME and Melody Maker (I'm presuing they're still around) will be audible from space.