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Peter: It’s the summer of Oasis!

I think you said that already, but it’s true!

Just so the readers know, Tyler is going to see Oasis in Chicago, and I have been sworn to secrecy regarding the great big tour which kicked off recently in the UK (which I have been following obsessively). So there will be no spoilers today!

About the tour. Other shit is going to get spoiled for sure.

Tyler: For this discretion I thank you, my good and fellow fan.

Peter: Well, everything else is on the table. JFK. Area 51. New Coke, etc.

The finale of Dinosaurs.

Tyler: Don’t stop! Believin’!

Peter: Today we’re doing Don’t Believe The Truth! The sixth studio album from our beloved Oasis. This album is twenty years old! Can you believe it?

Tyler: Jesus.

It came out right around my college graduation. I even wrote a column about the unexpected virtues of the album’s first single. I was a newspaper columnist, see? A gratuitously overwrought pop culture columnist for the entertainment section of my alma mater’s student rag.

Peter: I’m guessing I bought this at the Virgin megastore on the Mag Mile in Chicago over my lunch break on the day it came out.

Tyler: I’m not sure where I heard that lead single—pre-streaming off the Oasis website? YouTube?—but it inspired me to buy the album pretty quickly upon release. My copy was a special “DualDisc” or “GoldenEye” or some nonsense that included a DVD on the CD’s flipside.

Peter: It might be hard for the young people to understand, but this was really seen as a comeback album for the band. They’d sort of been wandering in the wilderness with their last two albums, and this was hailed as a real return to form at the time. Does it still hold up? We shall see!

Just kidding, it does.

See? Spoilers!

Tyler: This album slaps. It bangs.

Peter: Does it bop? Am I using that correctly? We should note, this is the first Oasis album to feature Zak Starkey on drums (following Alan White’s departure). Having the son of a Beatle in Oasis proved far less distracting than one might have expected. I think he’s my favorite Oasis drummer?

Tyler: Zak has quite a pedigree. He was a regular tour drummer for The Who before he worked with Oasis. Don’t Believe The Truth is his only LP with the band, but man does he bring a steady kick and fire to the proceedings.

Incidentally, he was not considered an official member of the band. On the inner sleeve of the vinyl release, he is listed as an additional musician.

Peter: Interesting!

They’ve got a little bit of a Spinal Tap situation with their drummers. As Noel once said, “There’s been hundreds of ’em.”

Our opener, “Turn Up The Sun,” was written by Andy Bell. Safe to say Gem and Andy felt like part of the band at this point? Fully integrated?

Tyler: Completely. This album is the work of a tight band hungry to show off their power as a unit. Heathen Chemistry, their fifth album and first to include Gem and Andy, was uncertain. DBTT is confident.

Peter: For sure. It’s a confidence earned from picking themselves up after getting knocked down. They’ve moved on from the coked up arrogance of their youth.

Side note, this is the only Oasis album to open with a song not written by Noel.

Tyler: That’s a statement right there. Gem and Andy both offer terrific songs here on DBTT, and “Turn Up The Sun” to my ear is the best of the batch. It rocks.

Peter: I like “Turn Up the Sun.” It starts out great, but I think it kind of runs out of ideas mid way through. Still, it is one of the best Oasis tracks not written by Noel.

And it sounds suitably massive to kick off an Oasis album.

Tyler: I’ve always thought it an effective album opener, but in recent days, after folding it into regular rotation, I’ve found myself digging how lean and mean it sounds, that scaled-back but amped-up production brought by Dave Sardy.

Liam’s vocals on this one are for the ages, and announce the swagger that this era of Oasis was going to bring.

Peter: “I carry a madness!”

Tyler: I swear to you—it’s “I carry a magnet.”

Peter: Oh shit!

Madness is way better.

Tyler: Apparently Andy or a close associate carried a magnet around with them, inspiring that weird twist.

This, I have to believe, I got from that DualDisc.

Peter: This is hugely disappointing! I think that might ruin the song for me!

Tyler: Lemme look on the sleeve. Google has “madness.”

It’s “madness.” Wow!

Peter: Well maybe it was magnet initially and they changed it? That story sounds legit.

Tyler: Did I dream this? That’s too random even for Freud.

Peter: It has to be real.

Dig out the Blu-Ray (or whatever it was)!

Tyler: Lost to the ages, my dear friend.

Peter: Have you seen that concert in Manchester from the DBTT tour where the crowd busted the barricade during “Turn Up the Sun,” and the band had to stop while the crew fixed it?

Tyler: That is some rock and roll shit right there. Those Brits know how to start a white riot alright.

Peter: Mad fer it!

I rate the next song as a top-shelf classic. “Mucky Fingers” is one of my favorite Oasis tracks of all time. I think it’s just about perfect. I’d put it up there with the best stuff off their classic albums.

Tyler: Yeah, it’s special. Noel, flashing a very rare political edge, bringing his own version of a Velvet Underground stomp to the band’s sound. I’ve included it on many a mix or playlist as both a terrific song and a declaration that Oasis brought fire long past their American heyday.

I think of “Mucky Fingers” in contrast to Heathen Chemistry‘s “Force Of Nature,” another Noel-led second-track that, Peter, you and I agreed is awful filler dreck. “Mucky Fingers” is such a leap upward in quality that it’s astounding.

Peter: Sort of a “Hot Stuff”/”Miss You” situation.

Remember “Hot Stuff?” That song sucks.

Tyler: Oh, God, “Hot Stuff.” You brought it back! You brought back Black and Blue!

Peter: Black and Blue is never really gone. It’s like measles. In fact, it’s RFK Jr.’s favorite album! I assume.

Tyler: Is B&B the worst of the albums we’ve covered? Some Time In New York City might be the only other contender, unless I’m forgetting some real nadir.

Peter: I’d say Some Time In New York City was worse than Black & Blue.

It’s close though. Both are awful.

Tyler: Well, not awful is “Mucky Fingers.” Nor the following track, that lead single that turned my head, “Lyla.”

Noel somehow knocking off The Kinks and Clapton in one tidy title.

Peter: “Lyla” is very good. It went to number 1 in the UK!

It was actually a late addition to the album. They only included it because the record company didn’t think there was a suitable lead single.

Tyler: Somehow, I absolutely hear that, but I also feel like it rises to the occasion.

Peter: For sure. Noel used to sort of disparage it, but he’s come to like it over the years. It helped to play it live, I think.

It really rocks live.

Tyler: So, on three straight tracks, Oasis have re-established their presence as a full-on rock band. Next up is a shift in gears, then, one that I think is irresistible and charming. “Love Like A Bomb.”

Peter: I completely agree. This is a great album track. Love it.

Gem wrote it with Liam? I’m just seeing this.

Tyler: The sleeve lists it as Liam with Gem, that’s right.

Peter: Well done, lads.

This is also one of my favorite Oasis tracks not written by Noel.

The production is great. Dave Sardy really did nice work on the last two Oasis albums. He kind of subtly shifted them into new sonic worlds without changing what they are at their core.

Tyler: There’s a tenderness, too. Liam’s first songwriting credit, fourth-album offering “Little James,” was saccharine but no folly; Heathen Chemistry‘s “Songbird” followed, a truly lovely achievement; now, “Love Like A Bomb,” a comparatively swinging romantic ode that makes for, you’re spot-on, a terrific album track. The boys are always banging on about love, and here’re Liam and Gem letting some fly. I understand why it’s one of your favorites. It’s terrific.

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