One thing I'll say is I hope he doesn't do more "Wednesday" instrumentals. Ya they sound cool and all and they fit the vibe/atmosphere/course of the album

(even though he admittedly screwed up the order, as part 1 should have been before Black and White Sunshine. It annoys me that the instrumental breaks that 3 some up, because for me those final 3 songs are some of his best solo work. Same for the Mexican on Chasing Yesterday, a complete turd that breaks up The Right Stuff, While the Song Remains the Same, You Know We Can't Go Back and Ballad of the Mighty I. What a top foursome that would be if the Mexican didn't interrupt it. But his track listing efforts are a whole other topic....)

Back on track, I want more than 8 full songs this time. 3 of the 8 I don't particularly love, I don't hate them at all, but they only do so much for me (that's the nice way of saying I tune out when they come on and/or am tempted to skip them).

So while there are 5 full out songs I like, that's unfortunately ranked #3 for me out of the 3 albums. It does sound by far the best of the 3 though. I have no problem with an album taking me on a journey and I like that WBTM was like that and I'll gladly take more of it. But in the end, I want the songs to be full quality as well, or at least to have more than 5.

That's just how I feel, Noel could cover a whole Kesha album and I'd probably love it, so I'm not afraid of being let down, I'm just being nitpicky.

You talk as I feel he’s still writing classic tunes from the 90s. I’d rather listen to him fart in a bath tub than hear shite like Girl With The X-Ray Eyes ever again.

This.

I'm not understanding what some are expecting from Noel. He completely changes his approach in the studio, his writing process, makes music that sounds fresh and experimental for him, and somehow he's fallen short? Like, for an artist at his age to do that, well it's rare. Rarer than some are willing to admit. And it's really fuckin difficult. That is, to unlearn everything you've been doing for 20+ years.

Like, there are 6 different genres on Who Built the Moon; trip-hop, soul, instrumental atmospheric, country, dance, and rock.

We're watching a pretty special moment in Noel's career. He's growing at an age when most artists don't grow, when most recede, when the reasons for growing really have to be internal.

I honestly think people want Noel to reinvent a genre, at this point. Like when things are being compared to Zooropa, an album that has almost no comparative before or since. Like c'mon, if we're comparing him to once in a lifetime kind of albums, then we're just waiting on him to fail.

I hope you're one day compensated for your 15 seconds of fame, Gaz.

Just kidding, I'm on the spectrum....

Thanks.

I don’t think he ever hyped it up as ‘experimental’. And for us fans, we weren’t pining for a Kid A album. I remember from everything that was said before we’d heard one note of the album that we were taking on board Holmes’s point of view of making a modern record and one that wasn’t just mid tempo plodding. We got that emphatically. For sure, he had silly digs at ‘parka monkeys’ who wouldn’t like it, but then again most of them didnt like it because it was different so his point was proven.

I just think that some folk hated on it because it was Noel - the pantomime villain for those sad enough to take sides - doing something a bit different and that it was also critically acclaimed.

Noel is just not "that" artist.

I think the fact he was slagging off his own fans, calling them knuckle dragging parka monkeys, before they’d even heard the album, predisposed a lot of them to hate the album. X

But most of that is just describing the sound and production techniques? You’d really have to be picky or look for excuses to have issues with this? The Beautiful World description is the only one over the top but then again it only ‘bubbles’ with these aspects and doesn’t necessarily say full blown progressive ambient electronica. And if people paid attention, they’d clearly hear those electronica influences that are clearly Holmes. You’re clearly a fan of bing experimemtal acts like AA mossy, and it’s not anything like the sensational quotes we heard from Noel about that particular project.

I still think people are projecting their strange insecurities onto Noel with this. He did what he set out to achieve and it’s just laughable to hear what counts for ‘experimental’ from largely a bunch of Beady Eye fans.

PS I think “experimental” is not a well-defined word that in the context of music can mean different things to different people.

For me being experimental means doing things that have never been done before. So I think WBTM is a great step for Noel, but I don’t consider it experimental at all. People have been writing in the studio for decades. People have been using samples for decades. People have been making trip hop style instrumentals for decades. I don’t really even consider the AA to be that experimental. I’d argue FSOL and Humanoid were far more experimental: using recently invented instruments to help create entirely new genres.

Stuff I’d consider truly experimental: John Cage, Stockhausen, Brian Eno (helped invent the ambient genre), Flaming Lips (4 cd album to be played simultaneously), Can (early use of studio as an instrument, composed tracks by editing), Hendrix (early use studio as an instrument, mad guitar skills and effects not seen in rock music before), DJ Shadow (first album made entirely from samples), Beatles (Indian influence to western music etc), Velvet Underground, Miles Davis (helped invent jazz-rock), Black Sabbath (helped invent metal and every ridiculous metal sub-category since like doom, sludge, stoner etc), Cybotron (helped invent techno), Kraftwerk, Kool Herc (one of the first rappers, helped invent hip hop), Yellow Magic Orchestra (first use of an 808), PiL (helped invent post-punk, bringing dub, funk and disco into rock music), Lee Scratch Perry and other Jamaican producers (for inventing and popularising remixes), Sun Ra, Radiohead (not necessarily for the music, but for the first “pay what you want” album), loads of one hit wonders (for helping invent house, trance, dancehall, jungle, drum & bass, breakbeat, big beat, psytrance, psydub, dubstep, trap, etc.), Captain Beefheart (for being fast and bulbous). You get my drift.

X

Well he wrote the songs in the studio which was experimental for Noel.

I think he did a pretty good job with Standing on the Shoulder of Giants as his Zooropa. And Gem had not anyhting to do with it. People always say that all the Oasis albums sound the same, well Giants sounds nothing like the first three albums. There isn't even a hit single. How does that record sound like Be Here Now? He made a mistake that he wanted to make another 'classic Oasis' album with Heathen Chemistry.