More Maximum Oasis

AMG Review of More Maximum Oasis

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

Chrome Dreams' Maximum series of hour-long audio books on CD included a title on Oasis written by Tim Footman and recited by Sian Jones in 2000. More Maximum Oasis is a follow-up, tracing the history of the preeminent Britpop band from then to the 2005 release of their sixth studio album, Don't Believe the Truth. As a sleeve note disclaims, "This is a spoken word product and contains no original music by the artist. It is not authorised by the artist, their record company or management." The only appearances by Oasis are brief interview excerpts from group leaders Liam and Noel Gallagher that lead off each of the ten tracks or chapters. After an introduction, Footman, in the voice of Jones, a woman who sounds like a BBC announcer, rehashes the band's beginnings in "A Potted History of Oasis in the 20th Century," then launches into a critical history that takes in the fourth studio album, Standing on the Shoulder of Giants; the Gallagher brothers' marital and romantic woes ("Two Gone Blondes"); the live album Familiar to Millions ("Live and Not Terribly Dangerous"); the fifth studio album, Heathen Chemistry ("Chemical Brothers") from 2002; and, finally, the announcement of the imminent appearance of Don't Believe the Truth and a return to touring. Footman has the typically sarcastic, opinionated, and slangy style of many British pop journalists, so that the CD comes off like a long article in the NME read aloud. "To many casual observers, Burnage's greatest [i.e., Oasis] died at some point in 1997," Jones recites, and over and over the suggestion is made that the band is not as good or as important as it was in its early days of the mid-'90s. But Heathen Chemistry is hailed as "a return to form," and by the end Footman is concluding that, while still derivative and occasionally guilty of plagiarism, "Oasis still matters." Their fans, the likely purchasers of this CD, will be relieved to hear that.