Review: Oasis, Stop The Clocks

If there were ever a better argument for Oasis being a singles band, Stop The Clocks would pretty definitively prove that Liam and Noel Gallagher are much more adept (and consistently successful) at penning three minutes of brilliance than whole albums. Needlessly split across two discs, but jammed with one great track after another, Stop The Clocks is a band-curated glance backward at what could be charitably described as an erratic career, one which flared brightly in the mid-‘90s and is just now righting itself. Following the one-two punch of 1994’s Definitely Maybe and 1995’s (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, hubris got the better of the brothers Gallagher, and the results were often sprawling, wildly erratic, or downright miserable. With this year’s Don’t Believe The Truth, Oasis is getting back on track, recapturing what made the band essential to the Brit-pop revolution. A fresh listen to the classics—“Some Might Say,” “Wonderwall,” “Slide Away,” “Champagne Supernova”—solidifies the Gallaghers as first-rate songwriters with a flair for melody and a knack for welding soaring choruses to searing, anthemic guitar riffs, even re-purposing John Lennon’s “Imagine” to devastating effect for the still-perfect “Don’t Look Back In Anger.” Wisely including Don’t Believe The Truth’s best songs (“Lyla” and “The Importance of Being Idle”), Stop The Clocks is simultaneously a terrific introduction for the unfamiliar and a smartly assembled mixtape for the Oasis faithful.

Label: Columbia Release Date: November 14, 2006 Buy: Amazon

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