Yet more 'Best Album Ever' poll arguments...
According to NME readers (I used to count myself an NME reader, after the Kerrang years, before the Mojo years...) the best album of all time is Definitely Maybe by Oasis. Other predictable candidates in the top 20 are Radiohead, the Stone Roses, The Smiths, Pink Floyd, and the Beatles.
Whilst it's in no way my choice for best album, I would rather a loud guitar record was voted top than some whiny Radiohead dribble, or the patchy and over-praised Stone Roses, which often comes top in these kinds of polls.
Oasis had their faults, which became more and more unavoidable as they got more famous and the cocaine kicked in, but there are some great tunes on Definitely Maybe, and it served as a vivid antidote to more critically lauded 'britpop' bands like Blur and Suede; bands which wore equally retro influences on their sleeves, Ray Davies and David Bowie in particular.
The 'Beatles rip-off' accusations chucked at Oasis were often valid, but they were equally in thrall to the Sex Pistols, T Rex, Slade, Stone Roses, etc. The piled up guitars which crash in at the start of Definitely Maybe could have been swept off the studio floor from the Never Mind The Bollocks sessions...and let's not forget that the Pistols had their own musical antecedants in The Who, Small Faces, Stooges, NY Dolls, Alice Cooper and more.
Originality in rock music these days is hard to find, and when it does show up, it's rarely going to set the charts on fire. Noel Gallagher was never slow to talk about the bands that went before him and influenced his songwriting -the copyright lawyers at Creation were often kept pretty busy- and his lyrics were usually terribly banal, but none of that stops me from enjoying Definitely Maybe for what it is, a cranked up guitar party record.
3 comments:
Lazy journalism, predictable depressing list. I'd rather see Oasis there than the Beatles - even as a Beatles hater I can't see why anyone would pick Sergeant Pepper over Rubber Soul. But 2 Oasis albums in the top 5 seems a bit much. And the lack of American albums shows a level of parochialism I normally think of existing the other way around. It's a pointless question, but no Velvet Underground & Nico? No Pet Sounds? No Dylan? No REM...I could go on.
Oh sod it, it's got me angry now. No Born to Run, no Ziggy Stardust, no Exodus, no Whats Going On, no Forever Changes, no Dusty in Memphis, no Who's Next...
"...this poll shows that the truly great albums always have longevity.
... the voters have clearly thought long and hard about their decision."
Yeah, that would explain 2 Radiohead albums in the top 10, wouldn't it?
the more I consider this the more irritable I become...not a single Rolling Stones LP in the top 20, and many other omissions too tedious to detail...no acoustic guitars, no female artists - ever heard of Patti Smith, PJ Harvey, Kate Bush??? Aretha Franklin, even bloody Madonna for God's sake. Sorry girls, this club is for boys only...
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