Critics take notions, and they know they do, they have the power to get to the average Music fan, a great example of this is Paul Weller, his solo stuff was done mainly in obscurity, and i believe his record label dropped him, and know all of a sudden the press etc are interested, they lift people up, and drop others, another example is Morriesy last year, for years Morriseys solo stuff took real kickings, but at that point the press choose to get behind him, and said it was his best stuff in years, when manys a morrisey fan who stuck around when then press had thrown him out into the wildnerness wouldnt agree, my last example U2, a band i love, on the last album they hailed it as the best since Achtung Baby, when for anyone who owns All that you Can't Leave Behind and maybe Pop would tell you this is clearly not the case, the press pick and choose, look out for it, maybe next year the press will choose to drop interest in the Kaizers or the Arctics, i wouldnt be surprized if on Oasis new album, the press decide to lift them up again, to a further degree than they did with DBTT

There are a lot of reasons.

For one thing, keep in mind that attitudes towards Oasis are STILL in backlash mode. Don't forget that back in the mid'90s, critics LOVED Oasis, even in the U.S. (WTS)MG got uniformly excellent reviews in the US - better even than in the UK, where the reviews were somewhat mixed (the attitude there was "pretty good - but no Definitely Maybe").

The problem was the band kind of got swallowed in the hype. Expectations were pretty big even in the U.S. for BHN, which also got good reviews in the U.S. but was overall a commercial flop. And the bad press they got from bustups, cancelled tours, and Liam's antics didn't really endear them to most Americans.

The band themselves also has to take some blame. Oasis would have been MUCH better regarded if they hadn't compared themselves to the Beatles SO MUCH. Not only did it sell Noel's songwriting short, it meant that the band never allowed itself to be judged on its own terms. Instead of being judged as just another rock group, they were judged as a would-be Beatles. And while I think DM and MG are clearly up there as some of the best albums ever, clearly their overall output doesn't approach the level of consistency or creativitiy of the Beatles (not that many artists do).

The band also hurt itself in the US and outside the UK with its releases. It was great that MG came out only a year after DM, but that inadvertedly hurt them in the US. DM barely got any promotion early on until mid-95, and just as soon as it started getting some buzz and attention, the attention moved towards MG. So they came to be only known for that one album. DM is still relatively unknown here.

And the band hurt itself by throwing nearly 2 1/2 albums worth of great songs onto b-sides. It's great to have these as "fans-only" songs, but in all seriousness, had they formed a 3rd or 4th album from these songs, they would have been massive. Even had they just made the b-sides available to the U.S. back in '95 or '96, they'd have a much higher reputation. Instead, nobody outside die-hard fans ever heard any Oasis b-sides on record and by the time The Masterplan was released most people had moved on.

So basically, the band's critical reputation, which had been great, came undone because of over-hype, bad press, and the failure to match The Beatles or too many of the other "greats" in longevity and consistency (although I would agree that they've been a much more consistent band than people give them credit for, as none of the following albums were outright bad and all contained several good songs). Their reputation would have been a lot higher had they not been hyped as "the next Beatles," had they not cancelled tours, and/or had they produced a 3rd album that showed greater musical growth and consistency.

Keep in mind, however, that most group's have a peak period of critical support; For Oasis it was between '94-and'97. For The Beatles, it was between '65 and '67. The Beatles were treated as an oddity by the stuffy music press in their first year, got a bunch of praise for A Hard Day's Night, mixed reviews for Beatles for Sale and Help! and then a lot of critical praise for Rubber Soul, Revolver, and Sgt. Pepper. The Whole Magical Mystery Tour project was panned, and The White Album and Abbey Road got mixed reviews. Let it Be got pretty negative reviews. For the Rolling Stones, it was similar - for them, between '68 and '72 followed by a "comeback" in the early '80s and then a decline.

i love Slideaway´s opinion,, completly true

Another good point, but the press obviously don't care much about the quality of musicians if Arctic Moneys can get a 10/10 from NME(Nothing against the Monkeys though. Fanatastic debut album.)

It seems the critics just want to smash Oasis in whatever way they can.