Generation Kill

Whilst on the train on Thursday night, I noticed an advertisement at Chorley station for the latest Oasis compilation album, released I presume to milk the last few pounds out of the cash cow now that the abattoir has called. The tagline was something like "The soundtrack to a generation!", which made me chuckle a bit at first.

Then a terrible thought came to me: is the Oasis generation my very own? Quite probably: they are the most successful (at least in the UK) band over the last 20 years. Every single one of their original albums has topped the charts and, by my reckoning, they've had more chart topping singles than any rock band since the Beatles.

That band being one I remember plenty of early comparisons being made to. Even at 15, I never understood that. Actually, listening to Revolver or Abbey Road for the first time was a far more exciting moment than when I did finally get round to Definitely Maybe. Sure, it had a certain energy, mainly through force of personality of the Gallaghers, but the lyrics seemed even worse than the angsty, horrific nonsense I was writing at the time. Listening back years later, only Live Forever and Slide Away stood up to this listener's scrutiny.

Yet, they remained there at the top, seeing out all the competition (Pulp, Blur and the rest of the Britpop crowd) and inspiring their own followers, such as the equally tiresome Kasabian. Everytime a new album was on the way, I wondered if they really would surprise me and the world - after all, the stuff Noel Gallagher did with the Chemical Brothers wasn't too shabby at all. But no: the same old claptrap - the acoustic song, the big rocker, the one sung by Noel.

And yet it sold by the shedload and they remained one of the few genuine British stadium rock groups. I figured people bought their albums the same way people keep buying the same newspaper even though they disagree with the majority of it ("Yes, well, but the spelling is always good").

I recently saw Stewart Copeland on TV explaining that bands tended to be either 'gangs' or 'mercenaries'. One is made up of friends from similar backgrounds who get a band together to cure boredom, get girls etc etc. Happy Mondays and the Ramones would be good examples. The other type are generally well-honed musicians who seek the best possible people to work with, regardless of friendship or personal feelings. The Police, Led Zep and pretty much any supergroup ever fall into this category.

Oasis are a rarity in that they've been both. Starting out as a gang of mates from South Manchester, along with the singers big brother, they ended up as a cartoon based around two brothers and a cast of more talented sidemen. The most weird part is that the music didn't really change: same old chugging rock with horrific lyrics, making them the Status Quo of their age.

And now they're gone, and for good, with some luck. Maybe in years to come, people will parody the Liam Gallagher walk/talk/look the same way they have done Boy George or the glam rockers. Children in the future will gasp that their dad actually owned an Oasis album the same way a kid in the 80s would about an ELP or Yes LP. If Oasis were the soundtrack to my generation, then I'm glad I'm getting older.