Tag: British rock

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: Oasis “Definitely maybe”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Oasis
Album Title: Definitely maybe
Year released: 1994
Details: Gatefold, double LP, original pressing

The skinny: A few weeks ago I posted about how purchasing Oasis’s b-sides compilation, “The masterplan”, completed* the Oasis section of my vinyl collection. So I thought I might spin and take pics of the rest of said section over the next few weeks. (Don’t worry, I don’t have everything they ever released, just the important pieces.) And as mentioned in the preamble to my record collection list, Oasis’s debut album, “Definitely maybe”, was one of two albums purchased by wife at a Greenwich Village street sale, effectively kick-starting my obsession with vinyl. Not coincidentally, it is also one of the only two used records in my collection. As your can see by the pics, the album’s sleeve is not perfect, yet in pretty good shape considering its age. However, the sound that comes from the discs’ grooves is immaculate. Victoria once told me that she wouldn’t be offended if I wanted to dump this record in favour of a new reissue but the thought has never crossed my mind. It already has that built-in sentiment because it came from her. And oh yeah, the album? In my opinion, it’s up there amongst the best debut albums ever.

Standout track: “Live forever”

* I say ‘completed’ but I might be tempted if I ever found certain EPs or singles on vinyl out there in the wild.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2002: #27 Cornershop “Lessons learned from Rocky I to Rocky III”

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Cornershop’s third album, “I was born for the 7th time” was released in 1997 to critical acclaim but it only became a massive hit for the band after Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim, remixed the single “Brimful of asha” and that song hit the stratosphere. It took them five years to release a follow up album, “Handcream for a generation”, though the main players in the band, Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres, were anything but inactive. Of course, by the time 2002 rolled around, the buying public had moved on and the critics who fell over themselves for “I was born…” weren’t quite so enthused. I personally didn’t know what to think of it at first, beyond the obvious endearment of the grooves, but it has grown on me substantially over the years.

Some say their meteoric rise to fame is the inspiration behind the convoluted lyrics of this album’s second single, the awesomely titled, “Lessons learned from Rocky I to Rocky III”. There most definitely seem to be hits out at the music industry, at “soft rock shit”, at “TSB rock school”, and at hip hop stars bringing guns to meetings in A & R offices. However, all bets are off if you’re looking for depth here because Singh himself can’t account for the meaning in many of the tracks on this album. That is quite okay with me, though, because this tune really does rock and groove. Electric guitar hooks abound and funky drumming and soulful backing vocalists make it a real party. And Singh does his best Jagger swagger while he’s spouting this ‘nonsense’.

For the final word, I asked my friend Andrew Rodriguez to comment on the song and he came up with this:

“Packed lunches, chicks with dicks in miami beach and something about an Overgrown Supership. < lessons learned (and forget everything after 4)”

And this:

“That song in particular was referred to by some dumbf**k music critic as being ‘BTO esque’ ^^^seriously how do these cocks**kers have jobs???? *oh. wait. I answered my own question*”

Thanks again, Rodriguez.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2002 list, click here.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Oasis “The masterplan”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Oasis
Album Title: The masterplan
Year released: 1998
Year reissued: 2016
Details: Gatefold, double LP, 180 gram

The skinny: So here’s one of my more recent purchases and having it pretty much completes my Oasis vinyl collection. Not that I have everything they ever released, but I think I have the ones now that really matter. When I brought the disc up to the counter at one of my favourite local shops, the clerk mentioned what a great album it was as he put it in the bag. To which, I agreed and commented on the fact that it was likely one of my favourite B-sides compilations ever. The clerk’s response: “It just speaks to how prolific they were at the time.” And he was so right. This amazing collection of songs were “throwaways” from the short period around the recording of just their first two records. It’s definitely worth a spin if you haven’t heard it and you love yourself a bit of early Oasis.

Standout track: “The masterplan”