It has long been said that Oasis borrow from their idols, The Beatles, and their latest effort Dig Out Your Soul shows nothing has changed. If anything, their infatuation with the Fab Four has mutated from obsessive to nearly fetishistic. The proof is partially in the percussion: they’ve got Ringo-spawn Zak Starkey on drums, for Pete Best’s sake!
Of Dig Out Your Soul founding brother Noel Gallagher says, “I wanted a sound that was more monotonous, more hypnotic even; more driving.” In that regard the album delivers, giving us track after track of relentless plodding. The only exception is the radio-licious “The Shock of the Lightning”; a hard driving, toe-tapper with sing-along potential. Still, it bears a Beatle-nugget within its lyrics: Love is a litany/a magical mystery. Sigh.
The remainder of the disc is tolerable, if a tad repetitive, and provides many opportunities to listen for and identify blatant lifting. “Waiting For the Rapture”? Sounds a lot like John Lennon’s “Cold Turkey”. “Falling Down”? Why, that’s the way-out sound of “Tomorrow Never Knows”. “I’m Outta Time” contains actual audio of Lennon speaking, while “The Nature of Reality” jars us with “Helter Skelter” guitars. Even the mop-tops’ psychedelic phase is conjured as a sitar introduces “To Be Where There’s Life”.
Dig Out Your Soul is the seventh album for Oasis since the Brothers Gallagher and Co. came on the scene in 1994. In these past 14 years they have been tremendously popular in the U.K. and the U.S., enjoying album sales of over 60 million. Of their success Noel Gallagher notes, “You might think that, from the experience of all the records you have made, you would just swan into the studio and know how everything is going to go. But it has never been like that, at least not for us. If anything, it’s been the opposite. It just gets more and more of a challenge.”
Every band is influenced to an extent by some other band, some more obviously than others. We all stand on the shoulders of giants and Oasis, giants now in their own right, would do well to develop a sound that vibrates with originality instead of echoing the past. Their inspiration has become more of a distraction than an appreciable homage. Dig Out Your Soul leaves the thirsty listener with only a mirage.
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