Oasis - Stop the Clocks

Mon 29th Jan, 2007 in Music Reviews

A lot of people didn’t think Oasis would still be around in 1996, let alone 2006. Yes, Definitely Maybe made them the biggest band in Britain and yes, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? made them the biggest band in the world, but with all the women they wanted and enough free drugs to fill a few hundred pharmacies, the members of Oasis should probably have been dead long before Be Here Now came out in 1997. But somehow, with help from a revolving cast of supporting actors, Liam Gallagher and Noel Gallagher managed to keep making good music for over a decade.

After six studio albums, a couple of thousand gigs and more fistfights than Mike Tyson’s boxing career, Oasis bring together the best moments of their career thus far with Stop the Clocks. Far from being a greatest hits or retrospective-type record, this double-LP is more a cross-section of the band from debut album Definitely Maybe right through to 2005’s Don’t Believe the Truth.

While the casual listener may not look past Definitely Maybe and (What’s the Story) Morning Glory and the even-more-casual listener will never even make it to the b-side of his Wonderwall single (10 bonus points if you know what it is), the band’s die-hard fans would have bought Stop the Clocks had it been a box set, a 12-disc anthology or even recordings of Noel clipping his toenails. As the Gallagher brothers explain on the Lock the Box documentary (included with the bonus edition of Stop the Clocks), the challenge with this release was coming up with a definitive list of songs that worked as an album in its own right.

Oasis’ reputation has been built as much from the euphoria of their live shows as it has their mega-selling long-players, so it’s no surprise that the running order of Stop the Clocks isn’t much different from the setlist at an Oasis concert. There’s the fiery opening (Rock ‘n’ Roll Star, Some Might Say). There’s the bracket of songs from the good-but-not-quite-as-good album (Lyla, The Importance of Being Idle). There’s the song all the fans love that radio never heard (Slide Away). There’s the bit where Liam lets his big brother have the mic to himself (Talk Tonight, The Masterplan) and then there’s the bit where Noel lets his little brother do one of his own songs (Songbird – not Little James, thank God). And of course, there’s the rousing finale, where you raise your pint glass to the heavens with one arm and grab your best mate with the other to bellow out the words to the songs you’ll never forget (Champagne Supernova, Don’t Look Back in Anger).

You don’t need to be an pure-blooded Gallagherian to appreciate Stop the Clocks - all the band’s biggest hits are here – but you get the feeling there is also a ‘secret history’ narrative that breaks the monotony you get with the annual slew of pre-Christmas U2, Elvis Presely and The Beatles rehashes. For every Wonderwall there’s an Acquiesce and the twinkle of the more delicate moments in tracks like Half the World Away keeps the hedonism and testosterone of Supersonic, Cigarettes & Alcohol and Live Forever in check.

Though there’s nothing new on Stop the Clocks, the 18 tracks here come as close as one could ever to compacting 24 hours’ worth of music into one 5”x4” plastic box.