Review Summary: Have you ever heard an album where every note just feels like it's in the right place and every song is so inexplicably wonderful? Oasis' unfairly maligned third album, Be Here Now, is that album for me.
The date was the 21st of August, 1997. News cameras rolled as one of the most important events of the year, if not of the decade was about to take place. The British rock band Oasis were about to release their magnum-opus, the greatest album since Sgt. Pepper was released thirty years before. Thousands upon thousands of excited fans lined up to purchase in droves what was supposed to cement Oasis into rock legends, the album which was supposed to be like nothing anyone had ever heard before. Except when they took the time to listen, they were greeted with an overwrought, terrible, muddy mess of songs that made absolutely no sense at all, and the album was quickly forgotten and passed off as when Oasis lost the plot.
Or so the story went.
To be fair, I wasn't even alive in 1997. I didn't experience the hype that went along with the release of Oasis' third album, Be Here Now. I could only go by what others wrote about it. Plus, well, I'm not even British, and Oasis were never really huge in the United States, so my experience with this album was quite a bit different from what many other people went through. But maybe it was to the album's benefit. Maybe the fact that when I was getting to Oasis years ago, when I listened to this album with open ears for the first time and with no impression that it was going to be the greatest thing ever, it actually made me realize how wonderful and mesmerizing it really was. Every song, every single second is incredible, from the helicopter taking off in the beginning of "D'You Know What I Mean?" to the door shutting at the end of the reprise of "All Around the World". Everything about it feels like it has a purpose, and it feels to me like the absolute limit and the culmination of everything Oasis could and would ever achieve.
The guitars all had 50 separate overdubs. The songs went on too long. Everyone involved with the production was on the brink of overdosing on cocaine at any given moment. This pretty much seems like the perfect recipe for an incredible, straight up ROCK-N-ROLL record. Be Here Now creates an entire atmosphere; centered around walls and walls of guitars turned up to eleven, drums that propel and keep the songs alive, and on the moments that are needed, give songs like "Don't Go Away" a more intimate feel, although they're embellished further than their counterparts on Oasis' first two albums. "My Big Mouth" smacks you straight in the face with what seems like hundreds of guitars piling up, not caring at all while it's repeatedly kicking you while you're down. "It's Getting Better (Man!!)" is rock to the fullest extent, going further and louder and just absolutely rocking more than anything they ever did before. Even the most insignificant track on the album, "I Hope, I Think, I Know", is a prime example of a simple, yet effective hard rock song that does exactly what it's supposed to do.
Listening to something like "Magic Pie" on a good set of headphones makes you feel like you're in the middle of something so huge, so massive, so expansive and so breathtaking that you just want more and more of it, and it feels like it actually needs the 7 minutes to get its point across, being packed with a steady stream of guitar riffs piled on top of more guitar riffs piled on top of more, everything just seems to be in the right place. "Fade In-Out" feels influenced by Americana, beginning with the strumming of an acoustic guitar, a nicely purposed slide guitar line, and one of Liam Gallagher's best vocal performances yet when suddenly it blows up with the force of a thousand tons of C4 and creates one of the best and most satisfying cuts from the album. "All Around the World" was kept under wraps by Noel for years until he was finally able to record it the only way he saw fit - in the most extravagant, overblown way possible, and it works unsurprisingly to its benefit.
Be Here Now is one of the only albums that have really stood the test of time for me for over hundreds and hundreds of repeated listens. Maybe it's because of the fact that it isn't something that you really have to think deeply about to get. Maybe I just like it because it's straight up rock that never loses its shine and just does what it's supposed to do. It's uplifting, incredibly interesting, and even sentimental at times, and I can't understand why people don't put this on the same level as their first two albums. It creates an entire universe for me, one where everything just feels right and everything just slips away to the background. Maybe the reason I like it is because of some sort of strong emotional connection that no one else gets. And perhaps that's the reason why I love it so much. I'm the only one who really has that sort of connection to it.
