Headshrinkerr: August 2007

Be Here Now is the third studio album by the English rock band Oasis. Released in August 1997, the album was highly anticipated by both music critics and fans as a result of the band's previous worldwide successes with their 1994 debut album Definitely Maybe, and its 1995 follow up (What's the Story) Morning Glory?. The album's pre-release build up led to considerable hype within both the music and mainstream press. At that point, Oasis were at the height of their fame, and Be Here Now became the UK's fastest selling album to date, selling over 420,000 units on the first day of release alone, and over one million within two weeks. As of 2007, the album has sold eight million copies worldwide.

Recording

The sessions for Be Here Now began on 7 October 1996 at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London. The album's producer Owen Morris described the first week of recording as "fucking awful", and suggested to Noel that they abandon the session: "He just shrugged and said it would be all right. So on we went." Liam was under heavy tabloid focus at the time, and on 9 November 1996 was arrested and cautioned for cocaine possession following a bender at the Q Awards. A media frenzy ensued, and the band's management made the decision to move to a studio less readily accessible to paparazzi. The Sun's showbiz editor Dominic Mohan recalled of the period: "We had quite a few Oasis contacts on the payroll. I don't know whether any were drug dealers, but there was always a few dodgy characters about." Oasis's official photographer Jill Furmanovsky felt the media's focus, and was preyed upon by tabloid journalists living in the flat upstairs from her: "They thought I had the band hiding in my flat." In paranoia, the band cut themselves off from their wider circle. According to Creation publicist Johnny Hopkins: "People were being edged out of the circle around Oasis. People who knew them before they were famous rather than because they were famous." Hopkins likened the situation to a medieval court, complete with kings, courtiers and jesters. As he explained, "Once you're in that situation you lose sight of reality."

On 11 November 1996, Oasis relocated the sessions to the rural Ridge Farm Studios in Surrey. Though the band reconvened with more energy, the early recordings were compromised by the drug intake of all involved. In 2007, Morris remembered that "in the first week, someone tried to score an ounce of weed, but instead got an ounce of cocaine. Which kind of summed it up." Noel was not present during any of Liam's vocal track recordings, typifying the high drama surrounding the sessions. Morris was aware that the new material was weak, but when he voiced his opinion to Noel he was cut down: "So I just carried on shovelling drugs up my nose." Noel was also conscious of the relative shortcomings of his new songs and attempted to cover them up by layering multiple guitar tracks. In many instances he dubbed ten channels with identical guitar parts, in an effort to create a sonic volume. Creation Records owner Alan McGee visited the studio during the mixing stage; he said, "I used to go down to the studio, and there was so much cocaine getting done at that point . . . Owen was out of control, and he was the one in charge of it. The music was just fucking loud."

Reception

Be Here Now was released in the UK on 21 August 1997. The release date had been brought forward out of Ignition's fear that import copies of the album from the United States would arrive in Britain before that country's designated street date. Worrying that TV news cameras would interview queuing fans at a traditional midnight opening session, Ignition forced retailers to sign contracts pledging not to sell the record earlier than eight a.m. However, when the album did go on sale, the cameras showed up regardless, just in time to record the initially slow trade. It was not until lunch time that sales picked up. By the end of the first day of release, Be Here Now sold over 350,000 units and by the end of business on Saturday of that week sales had reached 696,000, making it the fastest-selling album in British history. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard charts in the United States, but its first week sales of 152,000–below expected sales of 400,000 copies–were considered a disappointment.

It's the sound of . . . a bunch of guys, on coke, in the studio, not giving a fuck. There's no bass to it at all; I don't know what happened to that . . . And all the songs are really long and all the lyrics are shit and for every millisecond Liam is not saying a word, there's a guitar riff in there in a Wayne's World style.

—Noel Gallagher reflecting on Be Here Now

Contemporaneous reviews of Be Here Now were, in John Harris's words, unanimous with "truly amazing praise." According to Harris, "To find an album that had attracted gushing notices in such profusion, one had to go back thirty years, to the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." While Q magazine described the album as "cocaine set to music", most early reviews praised the record's length, volume and ambition. Reviews in the British music press for Oasis' previous album (What's the Story) Morning Glory? had been generally negative. When it went on to become, in the words of Select editor Alexis Petridis, "this huge kind of Zeigeist defining record" the music press was "baffled". Realising they had gotten it wrong the last time, Petridis believes the initial glowing reviews were a concession to public opinion.

By the end of 1997, Be Here Now had sold eight million units worldwide. However, the sales volume was largely gained in the first two weeks of release, and once the album was released to UK radio stations the turnover tapered off. Buyers realised that the album was not another (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, and by 1999, Melody Maker reported that it was the album most sold to second-hand record stores. In the 2003 John Dower-directed documentary Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Brit Pop, music critic Jon Savage pinpointed Be Here Now as the moment where the Britpop movement ended. Savage said that while the album "isn't the great disaster that everybody says," he noted that "it was supposed to be the big, big triumphal record" of the period. Q expressed similar sentiements, writing, "So colossally did Be Here Now fall short of expectations that it killed Britpop and ushered in an era of more ambitious, less overblown music". Irish Times journalist Brian Boyd wrote: "Bloated and over-heated (much like the band themselves at the time), the album has all that dreadful braggadocio that is so characteristic of a cocaine user." Reflecting in 2007, Garry Mulholland admitted, "the fact that nothing could have lived up to the fevered expectations that surrounded its release doesn't change the facts. The third Oasis album is a loud, lumbering noise signifying nothing."

The Gallagher brothers hold differing opinions about the album. As early as July 1997, Noel was "talking down" Be Here Now in the music press, describing the production as "bland", and remarking that some of the tracks were "fucking shit". In Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Brit Pop, he dismissed the album, and blamed its faults on drugs and the band's indifference during recording. He suggested that the people unsatisfied with the record simply sell it. In contrast, Noel noted that his brother "thinks it fucking rocks." In the same documentary, Liam defended the record, and said that "at that time we thought it was fucking great, and I still think it's great. It just wasn't Morning Glory." In 2006, Liam Gallagher added, "If he [Noel] didn't like the record that much, he shouldn't have put the fucking record out in the first place…I don't know what's up with him, but it's a top record, man, and I'm proud of it — it's just a little bit long."

Track listing

All tracks were written by Noel Gallagher.

1. "D'You Know What I Mean?" – 7:42
2. "My Big Mouth" – 5:02
3. "Magic Pie" – 7:19
4. "Stand by Me" – 5:56
5. "I Hope, I Think, I Know" – 4:22
6. "The Girl in the Dirty Shirt" – 5:49
7. "Fade In-Out" – 6:52
8. "Don't Go Away" – 4:48
9. "Be Here Now" – 5:13
10. "All Around the World" – 9:20
11. "It's Gettin' Better (Man!!)" – 7:00
12. "All Around the World (Reprise)" – 2:08

Singles

"D'You Know What I Mean?"
Released: 7 July 1997
Writer: Noel Gallagher
Producers: Owen Morris and Noel Gallagher
Chart positions: #1 (UK), #1 (FIN), #1 (IRE), #3 (CAN), #4 (US)
"Stand by Me"
Released: 22 September 1997
Writer: Noel Gallagher
Producers: Owen Morris and Noel Gallagher
Chart positions: #2 (UK), #5 (US), #2 (IRE)
"All Around the World"
Released: 12 January 1998
Writer: Noel Gallagher
Producers: Owen Morris and Noel Gallagher
Chart positions: #1 (UK), #1 (IRE)
"Don't Go Away" (Japan only)
Released: 13 May 1998
Writer: Noel Gallagher
Producers: Owen Morris and Noel Gallagher
Chart positions: —

source:
wikipedia.org

Oasis - Right Here Right Now (Documentary)

Part1
Part2
Part3
Part4

Promoting Be Here Now 1997

1997.06.01 German Radio, Germany
01.Stay Young

1997.06.10 New York, Howard Stern Show
02.Don't look back in anger
03.Interview 1
04.Wonderwall
05.Interview 2

1997.07.15 Milan, Radio Deejay
06.D'You Know What I Mean
07.Setting Sun

1997.07.18 TOTP
08.D'You Know What I Mean
09.Stand By Me

1997.08.19 Spain, Cadena 40 Radio
10.Noel Interview
11.Stand By Me
12.Wonderwall
13.Angel Child
14.Setting Sun

1997.08.20 Air Studios (Radio)
15.Be Here Now
16.It's Gettin' Better (Man!!)

1997.08.20 Air Studios (TV)
17.Be Here Now
18.It's Gettin' Better (Man!!)

1997.08.21 Cheshire, UK
19.Stand By Me

1997.10.04 Saturday Night Live
20.Don't Go Away
21.Acquiesce

1997.10.09 David Letterman Show, NY
22.Don't Go Away

1997.11.04 Paris, NRJ Radio
23.Stand By Me
24.Magic Pie
25.Underneath The Sky

1997.11.05 Paris, Nulle Part Ailleurs [NPA]
26.D'You Know What I Mean
27.Stand By Me

1997.11.17 Milan, MTV Sonic
28.Stand By Me
29.Talk Tonight

Part#1
Part#2