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Post by belfastdon on Apr 1, 2005 10:22:04 GMT -5
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Post by SlideAway on Apr 1, 2005 16:28:25 GMT -5
Could you post the review? Some of us don't have soapbox accounts.
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Post by Gifford on Apr 1, 2005 17:06:46 GMT -5
plus some of us dont want soapbox accounts!
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Post by Clint on Apr 2, 2005 13:46:15 GMT -5
Signed up at soapbox for you guys.
As I already announced, I went listening to Don't Believe The Truth yesterday. I also understand that you guys are waiting for info and the verdict and stuff. So here it is.
Ok first impression: Slightly dissapointed. I heard the album 2 times in total and some songs or parts of it 3 times.
The bad news (according to me):
- Liam's voice isn't that great, it has its moments, but overall it's far too nasal (is that how you call it, when someone sings winey through the nose?)
- There's no real Oasis singalong anthem on it, like Live Forever, DLBIA of Champagne Supernova
- The new single Lyla isn't that great
- The Meaning of Soul and A Bell Will Ring sound almost the same as at Glastonbury, with the exception that Meaning of soul (1.43 minutes short) has acoustic guitars instead of electric
The good news:
- Let There Be Love is absolutely fantastic. Like fuckin Let It Be or Hey Jude. Liam's best vocal performance. More about this later.
- Turn Up The Sun is a great opener. The first line is (if i heard it well): 'I carry madness......everywhere i go....' The way Liam sings it makes it sound very dirty and cool. Simple power chords and little two-note guitar riff (like Swamp Song) combining them.
I forgot some piece of bad news:
- No decent killer guitar solo. There's hardly guitar solo's at all. For me that's bad news...
Update 2
Ok i'll review song by song now:
1- Turn Up The Sun (4:01 minutes)
Great pumping rocksong. As i already said, very cool and dirty sound to it and suitable to Liam's voice. It starts with two rounds of 4 chords, a bit like the intro of Why Does It Always Rain On me by Travis. After it it stops and a some powerchords and heavier drums kick in. Liam starts singing: 'I carry madness.... tu-dum-tu-dum.... everywhere i go...'
In the chorus Noel also sings, he sings the higher notes. The lyrics are:
'Come on, turn up the sun. Turn on (up?), for everyone'
Could be great live this song and would be even greater if i was able to play it at loud volume, but that wasn't possible...
Verdict (after 3 listens at softer volume): 8 out of 10
2- Mucky Fingers (3:56 minutes)
For me this was the typical Noel-skip-song. Like She Is Love at the last album, or like Magic Pie. Not stylewise, but qualitywise.
Three electric chords al the way through with a drumrhytm that keeps going on and going on. Noel sings very fast like he sounds bored and is rehearsing of writing a new song. I wrote down the line:
'I know you think you deserve an explanation on the meaning of life' (which is sung in about 4 seconds)
The song ends with Noel singing (in falsetto) 'I don't mind' or 'It's all mine' over and over again.
To me, the worst song on the album.
5 out of 10 after 2 listens.
Btw update: at start the chords reminded me a bit of 'la bamba' only played slower and less happy. There's also a harmonica near the middle and the end of this song
3- Lyla (5.12 minutes)
Well, the first single. According to Noel is was extremely catchy and indeed, the chorus melody is still in my head. But it isn't realy a great melody as far as i'm concerned. The song drives around one central electric chord (probably A or sunnies.gif over which Liam sings most of the verse-lines. The first line of every verse has the exact same melody as the first line of Street Fightin Man.
A line i wrote down out of one of the verses:
'Lift me up and take me where i stand'
The chorus is sung by Liam and Noel together and goes (something) like this:
'Heeeeeeey, Lyla, the stars about to fall, the world around us makes me feel so smaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall, Lyla, catch me if i fall, so what do you saaaaaaaayy, Lyla'
There's a guitar break somwhere in the song with a sort of solo/riff. Not very impressive.
My feeling was 6,5 out of 10 after 2,5 listens
4- Love Like A Bomb (2.54 minutes)
Very easy, sweet acoustic song by Liam. His singing annoyed me in this one, too nasal. Sweet little melody that repeats itself, bit like the Beatles. The chorus goes like this:'
'You turn me on, and love's like a bomb, blowing my mind' (repeats itself a few times)
Halfway through the song there's a nice little piano solo and at the starts of the second round of verses a soft drumbeat kicks in, making the song sounding a bit better. There's also a middle piece where Liam sing 'blowing my miiiiiind' in falsetto, which sounds very Beatles/Lennon-wise. During the piano solo Liam 'na na na's' the song melody, which sounds quite sweet.
Nice, easy and sweet. Those words appeared in my head while listening to the song. It was good, but not pure brilliance.
7 out of 10 after 3 listens
5- The Importance Of Being Idle (3.40 minutes)
Ok now we're talking. An instant popclassic sung and written by Noel. It's Oasis own better version of 'I'm only sleeping' by the Beatles. Great happy song about a guy who is just lazy and wants to be left alone.
Almost half of the song is sung falsetto. The first word of the song is sung falsetto. Noel does a great job. Some lines i remember/write down:
'Iiiiiii (<--falsetto) don't mind, as long as there's a bed under the stars that shine' 'hooooold (<--falsetto) me tight, bla bla bla...........................'
'You can't seem to win it when you're heart's not in iiiiiiiiiiiiit' (not to sure about the first part of this line)
Halfway after the first chorus there's a great happy poppy guitar riff, followed by a sort of easy bending solo, which is pure genius.
Kinks, Beatles, whatever. You name it. This song is absolutely brilliant. Noel's my hero again.
9,5 out of 10
6- The Meaning Of Soul (1.43 minutes)
Well, not much to say about this one if you already head the Glastonbury-version. The only difference is that it's played with an acoustic guitar. I'm not to sure if there even was a bass during the verses. It sounded like they were only acoustic guitar and drums. The rest sounded almost exactly like the live-version, only in better sound quality. Vocals not too great if i remember well.
6 out of 10
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Post by Clint on Apr 2, 2005 13:46:42 GMT -5
7- Guess God Thinks I'm Able (3:25 minutes)
Starts off with an intro of a few acoustic chords (played on higher frets, not the usual G C Am D). Then Liam starts singing and immediatly it made me say: John Lennon.
If i remember well there's no bridge. Just verses and a chorus. The chorus goes something like this:
'Let's get along, there's nothing we can do let's go find a rainbow la la la la................ guess god thinks i'm able'
In the verses there's lines like:'
'I could be your lover you could be you're mine'
'you could be my railroad (i'm serious...) la la la la.............'
I think this was the structure:
two verses, chorus, one verse, chorus, xxx
xxx is a part where Liam sings in falsetto again. He sings:
'No (<--falsetto) one could break us No (<--falsetto) one could take us if they try'
O the background Noel or a little choire is doing 'aaaahhh' 'aaaahh'. Sounds very sweet and nice. Best part of the song, and also the first line of the chorus is a nice melody change.
At the end eveything is quiet, then all of a sudden there's drums and electric guitars coming in and liam sings one sentence like 'Let's go and make it tonight'. Just that one sentence, and then the song's over. A weird ending of a very good acoustic song. Nice melody's and good vocals, especialy the falsetto parts.
8 out of 10
8- Part of the Queue (3.50 minutes)
I'll have dissapoint you regarding this one, cause didn't write down any lyrics and i can't remember much of the song. Don't ask me my, but i noticed when i was looking through my notes.
I do remember that the song had a real atmosphere around is. A weird acoustic guitar rhytm and nice drums. Noel did a good job singing and listening to the song you could just picture yourself walking through a busy, rainy city. I do remember finding it a good song, very different and not comparable to anything else.
I can't realy give it a grade, but if i had to judged on what i felt listening to it twice i would say 8 out of 10
9- Keep The Dream Alive (5.47 minutes)
Congrats to Andy cause he wrote a killer of a song. The verses (accompanied by electric guitar chords) annoyed me bit especially the way Liam sang it (through the nose again), but when the chorus kicked in it send shivers down the spine. Majestic, fantastic melody and a magic feeling to it. The lyrics of the chorus went something like this:
'I'm no stranger to this place where rèè-al life and dreams collide even now i fall from grace i will keep the dream alive'
The verses had a line like this:
'Every night i hear you scream but you don't say what you mean'
There's a little guitar solo in it, but very easy and no real killer. But the chorus made eveything up for me and made this one of of the best 3 tracks on the album, along with TIOBI and LTBL.
8,5 out of 10
Btw, on the promo-disc i heard there was NO secret/hidden track. I searched for it, but after LTBL the cd just stops. But maybe it's just the promo...
10- A Bell Will Ring (3:09 minutes)
Well this is where i was quite dissapointed. I head the live-version a few times already and didn't like that one that much, but had the feeling that it had lots of potention to make it an epic, Champagne Supernova-like song with good production and the adding of some guitars and na na na's. But as is said: i was dissapointed. The song was exactly the same as the live version, the production of it was boring. They could have added lots of cool stuff, background vocals, guitar parts, piano, whatever but it was just the electric guitar like at Glastonbury (same intro also, same moment where the drums kick in). And just like at Glastonbury, i felt that at some moments the timing and rhytm was a bit weird.
This song could have been so much better and should have been at least 2 minutes longer...
6 out of 10
11- Let There Be Love (5.29 minutes)
The album closer is a classic for me. Forget that crappy demo we once heard called It's A Crime, the lines 'it's a crime' aren't even in this song. The lyrics are totaly different, apart from the Let There Be love bit.
It starts off very calm with an acoustic guitar and a piano. It's played and sung very slow, even slower than the demo of it's a crime. When the singing started i thought: hey, that's Noel. But the second half of the first line i thought: hey, it's Liam. An after the first few lines i started thinking: i think it's Noel and Liam, bothing singing parts of one sentence, but not at the same time. Mixed through one another on a weird but fantastic way. Liam's best vocal on the album that's for sure.
After the first verses and 'let there be love' bit there's Noel singing the part which in It's A Crime had the lryics 'and i never knew' etc. The lyrics here are different, like for instance (picture that part of the song in your head)
'Come on baby blue, shake up your eyes, the world is waiting for you'.
The part where Noel went falsetto in the demo is different in this song, it's not one falsetto (and it 'makes' me feel etc...), but three falsetto-lines after one another. Also different lyrics again. When the part is over the song seems to stop. It gets very quiet and then Liam's there again with the verse melody:
'Who keeps a whole in the sky, so the heavens come down on me' or something like that.
For the second time the 'Let There Be Love' (sung by Liam and Noel) kicks in and it's being sung more often than after the first verses. Drums kick in like they did and sounded in Imagine, an extra guitar kicks in. It's magic, pure magic.
I said at the beginning there's wasn't a real singalong and that's true, but only because this song is being played and sung so slowly. It doesn't make you wanna sing along, just whisper along maybe. It's absolutely beautiful and sweet. A classic song about love with tearjerking vocals and melodys and good lyrics. I loved it.
9,5 out of 10
Phew, finally done. There's probably loads of things i've forgot to say. Loads or lyrics may just pop in my mind later. Like this morning i was wistling Part of the Queue when i sat in the train. But this afternoon, i completely forgot about the melody cause TIOBI was in my head.
The overall thought i had was, at first, that i was slightly dissapointed. But at this moment, i hate that i can't listen to the album again. I have to wait too now and i can't wait to hear it again. I think that's a good sign.
Also, the weaker tracks ons this album (Bell Will Ring, Meaning Of Soul, Mucky Fingers) are much better than HC-tracks like She Is Love, A Quick Peep and All In The mind. The stronger tracks are better than the good ones on HC (Let There Be Love, Turn Up The Sun, Keep the Dream Alive, Gues God Thinks I'm Abel and The Importance Of Being Idle compared to Born On A Different Cloud, Songbird, SCYHO, Hindu Times).
It's a good record. No classis like WTSMG, but still a very very good pop/rpck album. 8 out of 10. But i got the feeling this gets better after listening to it more often, which is the exact opposite of HC.
I think i'm gonna get a beer now!
Cause some people asked me.
Oasis album top 7:
1- WTSMG 2- DM 3- The Masterplan 4- DBTT (yes, at 4...) 5- BHN 6- HC 7- SOTSOG
:\ Hmm. I don't know how to react. I know that I probably won't agree with him as I like DM better than WTSMG, and really like SOSOG (better than HC) I'm disappointed that there's no solos. I LOVE solos.
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Post by Clint on Apr 2, 2005 13:54:05 GMT -5
Also: Who here thinks it's good that there are no anthems? It seems like it's all natural-- like Definitely Maybe and WTSMG. It seems like when an anthem came about in their later years, that it was very forced. They were trying hard to make something very Liver Foreverish or Champagne Supernovaish, you know what I mean?
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