I live in a country where Oasis is still treated as more than a punchline so I can’t help but notice that their album Be Here Now was released twenty years ago on this day. Whatever the relative artistic merits of them or it, Be Here Now still casts a long shadow over all subsequent rock’n’roll to this day. The album, as everyone knows, is an epic of empty bombast and false bravado that tries to simultaneously distract and intimidate the listener from observing the meaningless void it barely covers. There’s nothing wrong in itself with braggadocio in rock; the genre was created as a vehicle for blagging. But Oasis weren’t blagging to get in anymore – they’d made it. Looking down on the world from a small mountain of blow, it was their moment for untouchable self-indulgence. Instead, they flinched and looked over their shoulder. The bombast was purely defensive, the arrogance a deflection from a bad case of impostor syndrome. They were blagging just to stay put.
It was a turning point in rock music. For the first time, a band on the upswing made an album whose primary motivation was not the hunger to conquer the world, but the fear of failure. Fear of losing what you already have has become the dominant mode of rock. Into the new century, hundreds of bands have copied Be Here Now‘s example: cajoling anthems, singalongs fishing for assent from the crowd, hoping the mob doesn’t turn on them. Once, people in the audience wanted to be in the band; now, the band pleads to belong with the audience. Each new act, each new record reeks of focus groups and flop-sweat. This is Be Here Now‘s legacy, held tight like a comfort blanket.
