Oasis – Don’t Believe the Truth (album) [Number 1 UK Album – 5th June 2005]

English rock band Oasis had the No. 1 album in the UK on the 5^th June 2005 with Don’t Believe the Truth.

Their sixth studio album saw each member of the band make a songwriting contribution for the album; it was the first Oasis record to feature the drumming of Zak Starkey, who replaced the band’s longtime drummer Alan White.

Don’t Believe the Truth was recorded between October 2004 – February 2005 in London and Los Angeles; with Noel Gallagher handling production duties with Dave Sardy, a Brooklyn musician, songwriter and record producer who has worked with acts such as Jet & Wolfmother.

The Don’t Believe the Truth Tour saw the band play to 3.2 million people across 26 countries at a total of 113 concerts.

To date the album has sold more than 7 million copies worldwide.

Lyla – wp.me/p3uHDF-ev

The Importance Of Being Idle – wp.me/p3uHDF-es

Let There Be Love – wp.me/p3uHDF-en

Don’t Believe the Truth (full album) – wp.me/p3uHDF-ey

“Do you remember the first time? The leathered sneer of Liam Gallagher that only a smack in the gob from his brother could silence, and his songwriting genius, and the swagger of their band (the ‘Sex Beatles’ is how a magazine called The Face heralded them) and the early records like ‘Supersonic’ or ‘Live Forever’ – quite possibly ‘Digsy’s Dinner’ – that announced the aspirations of an era with such a rip-roaring snort that a young Prime Minister wooed them.

Shortly into the Blair presidency, Noel found himself at Number 10, asking Tony how he had managed to stay up through election night. ‘Probably not by the same means as you,’ the PM quipped, and that was 1997 all over.

Little is the same as it was back then, for all parties concerned, but this is where Oasis start to mend some broken promises. It feels like a lifetime since a new album from the Gallaghers justified the hype and rhetoric spun on its behalf, but this is so good, it makes you want to pour not one but two glasses of Jack-Daniels over your head.

Not so with the album that appeared three weeks after the Downing St party, Be Here Now, which was all bombast, or the successive disappointments of Standing on the Shoulder of Giants and Heathen Chemistry (bonus points if you can remember more than three song titles from that 2002 set); or the desultory showing at Glastonbury last summer; or the performance on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here of Liam’s sister-in-law, Natalie Appleton. These could be seen as more than failures of will or of imagination – rather as acts of cultural betrayal.

So a touch of cynicism seems quite in order when it comes to Don’t Believe the Truth – a title that might disguise a message but is probably just more of Noel’s gobbledegook in the band’s own grand tradition.

(And the sleeve – surely Oasis hold the record for the worst album sleeves of all time, and in this respect, their latest is no disappointment.)

Perhaps the band have come to a realisation of why some people feel like throwing crockery – Noel strikes a contrite note when he says: ‘Someone said to me my songs sound like B-sides from 1994. I take that as a compliment.’ What’s more, where once he ran the band as an autocracy – booting out anyone who didn’t toe the party line – these days he’s started to listen, to share responsibility. So it is that he’s only written five of the 11 songs, with bassist Andy Bell contributing two tracks, second guitarist Gem one, leaving Liam chipping in with three.

Let’s not get carried away, but only two of those last are in the ‘Little James’ category (where he essayed the rhyme ‘live for your toys/ even though they make noise’). One good Liam song immediately elevates this sixth album above the status of its two immediate predecessors, and everything else reaches a new target in quality control.

Noel is right to seize on that comparison with the band’s early output, because the most helpful way of thinking about Don’t Believe the Truth is to ponder what’s not there: there aren’t any of those coked-up guitar workouts, for instance, when the songs long outstayed their welcome. In fact, this is a record that doesn’t sound at all druggy, but alive to possibilities. The bluster, the straining for effect, the attempt to live up to a grandiose reputation of their own making – all these are absent. Indeed, for the past few years, Oasis have been trying to emulate the sound of the old Oasis, rather than ripping off their peers, which is what they once did, as if they were politicians nicking rival policies. After taking their time with this record – its release was rumoured last year – that’s all changed now.

So first single ‘Lyla’ appropriates a riff from the Stones’ ‘Street Fighting Man’ before stumbling into the bar-room territory of the Faces; ‘Mucky Fingers’ is a one-chord homage to the Velvet Underground; ‘The Importance of Being Idle’ is very Kinks, which at least makes a change from the Beatles; while the way in which ‘Part of the Queue’ borrows shamelessly from the Stranglers’ ‘Golden Brown’ completes a process akin to ‘triangulation’, which makes you believe you have the best of all possible worlds on offer.

These songs of Noel’s apart, Gem’s ‘A Bell Will Ring’ is otherwise this week’s pick, but from Andy Bell’s slow-burning opener ‘Turn up the Sun’ onwards, you’re reminded of what genuine charisma means and your heart skips a beat, as it flares into life with the line ‘I carry madness, everywhere I geeeeeeaaooo’ – no prizes for guessing it isn’t stand-in drummer Zak Starkey fronting up the microphone.

We have all made mistakes. So just as Noel would seem to have taken a long hard look at the band, we might ask ourselves some questions. Is swapping Pete Doherty and Kate Moss and crack for Liam and Patsy and the naive optimism of 1997 all that we have done?

Don’t Believe the Truth isn’t a novel – or novelty – record but it makes you care about Oasis again, and makes you believe they can matter again. So our bond with them is renewed”.

***** Caspar Llewellyn Smith, Sunday 24 April 2005, Observer Music Monthly

Credits:

Vocals – Liam Gallagher

Bass – Andy Bell

Drums – Zak Starkey (tracks: 1, 3 to 11)

Guitar [Rhythm] – Gem Archer

Guitar, Vocals, Backing Vocals – Noel Gallagher

Mixed By – Dave Sardy (tracks: 1, 3 to 11)

Producer – Dave Sardy (tracks: 1, 4, 6 to 11)

Engineer – Andy Brohard, Greg Gordon, Ryan Castle

Written By:

Noel Gallagher (tracks: 2, 3, 5, 8, 11)

Liam Gallagher (tracks: 4, 6, 7)

Andy Bell (tracks: 1, 9)

Gem Archer (tracks: 4, 10)

Tracklisting:

1		Turn Up The Sun	3:59
2		Mucky Fingers	3:55
3		Lyla	5:10
4		Love Like A Bomb	2:52
5		The Importance Of Being Idle	3:39
6		The Meaning Of Soul	1:42
7		Guess God Thinks I’m Abel	3:24
8		Part Of The Queue	3:48
9		Keep The Dream Alive	5:45
10		A Bell Will Ring	3:07
11		Let There Be Love	5:31

 

 

Oasis – Don’t Believe the Truth (full album) [Number 1 UK Album – 5th June 2005]

Turn Up the Sun 0:00

Mucky Fingers 4:01

Lyla 7:58

Love Like a Bomb 13:12

The Importance of Being Idle 16:06

Meaning Of Soul 19:46

Guess God Thinks I’m Abel 21:35

Part of the Queue 24:59

Keep the Dream Alive 28:49

A Bell Will Ring 34:35

Let There Be Love 37:47

Can Y’See It Now? (I Can See It Now!!) (Japanese bonus track) 43:19

Oasis – Lyla (single) – Don’t Believe the Truth (album) [Number 1 UK Album – 5th June 2005]

The 1st single from the Oasis album Don’t Believe the Truth.

Released 16 May 2005.

Oasis – The Importance Of Being Idle (single) – Don’t Believe the Truth (album) [Number 1 UK Album – 5th June 2005]

The 2nd single from the Oasis album Don’t Believe the Truth.

Released – 22 August 2005

Oasis – Let There Be Love (single) – Don’t Believe the Truth (album) [Number 1 UK Album – 5th June 2005]

The 3rd single from the Oasis Don’t Believe the Truth album.

Released – 28 November 2005

15th May – The Number One Album in the UK – 1999 (Suede – Head Music)

The English alternative rock band Suede had the Number One album in the UK on 15^th May 1999.

Suede’s chart topping fourth album Head Music followed studio albums Suede (1993), Dog Man Star (1994), Coming Up (1996) and Sci-Fi Lullabies (1997) a compilation album of B-sides from the singles that were released from the band’s first three albums.

Suede originally formed in 1989 and were one of the acts at the forefront the music revolution of the ’90s, known as Britpop – a movement that had developed as a reaction against various cultural and musical trends at the time, particularly the phenomenon of grunge.

Before the band had even released a single, a late April 1992 issue of Melody Maker featured the group on the cover, with the headline “Suede: The Best New Band in Britain”.

One of the core strengths of the band in the initial phase of their career was the songwriting team of guitarist Bernard Butler and vocalist Brett Anderson – with some critics comparing it to Marr & Morrissey from The Smiths [the band took their name from Morrissey’s single Suedehead].

Suede were an ambitious band with their anthemic glitter rock sound across their early albums described as drawing upon acts such as Bowie, T.Rex, Adam Ant and Roxy Music; their sensual guitar sounds melded with sexually ambiguous lyrics were a potent combination.

The band decided to try a different production approach for their studio follow up to the Coming Up album (which sold 1.5 million copies), wanting to go in a more electronic-sounding direction.

Hence opting not to continue working with Ed Buller whom had produced their initial three studio albums.

“The last three albums have been pretty much four people playing the same sort of thing, and we just wanted to do it in a different way this time. Songs came about through drum machines, stuff like that. We were just exploring other instruments really. It wasn’t like a conscious plan for it to be an experimental record, it was more something in ourselves and the music just followed.” – Brett Anderson on whether he considered Head Music to be the band’s most experimental album so far – February 14, 1999 – NME

Suede ultimately chose Steve Osborne (U2, Placebo, Happy Mondays, New Order) to helm production duties for Head Music.

“Steve was responsible for a hell of a lot of this album’s sound. We chose him first of all because he did this fucking brilliant job on Savoir Faire, which we did as a tryout around about May last year in Mayfair Studios. It just sounded really exciting and unusual. It was the stuff he’d done with Happy Mondays that we liked best, stuff like Pills ‘N’ Thrills…

We’ve been listening to a lot of dance music. I suddenly realised that there was a whole other world of musical dynamics out there. I guess the closest I’d been to it before was listening to stuff like Prince. From Prince, I just started listening to all those modern dance-rap bands. Things like Black Steel, that Tricky track, I really love that. People had played it to me before and I hadn’t really got it, but suddenly it just clicked. It was just one of those things.

The last thing we wanted to do was some obvious attempt to make a dance album, because it would have sounded like shit. There’s a lot more tracks that are rhythm-based, because they’ve been worked on from the bottom up this time” – Brett Anderson on producer Steve Osborne – February 14, 1999 – NME

Commenting on the general themes of the album:

“I don’t think you can pigeonhole this album as easily as you maybe could the last one. I wouldn’t say there was any particular theme, it’s just about the people who are part of my life. I wanted the lyrics to be less emotional in a way. I think I’ve been guilty in the past of writing songs that have been over-dramatic. That was good for the first couple of albums, but I wanted the lyrics to get a little bit colder this time around.

It sounds like a contradiction, but even though they’re less emotional, they’re more honest in a way, because they’re just looking at the truth a little bit closer without any emotions getting in the way. Lots of the songs are quite negative, but I think you can express negativity without it being a down thing” – – Brett Anderson – February 14, 1999 – NME

The End Of Year Critic Lists – Melody Maker – 1999 – saw Head Music placed at no. 1:

1. Suede – Head Music
2. Blur – 13
3. Super Furry Animals – Guerrilla
4. The Charlatans – Us And Us Only
5. Travis – The Man Who
6. The Chemical Brothers – Surrender
7. Supergrass – Supergrass
8. Macy Gray – On How Life Is
9. TLC – Fanmail
10. Eminem – The Slim Shady LP

Singles:

Electricity – Released: 12 April 1999

She’s In Fashion – Released: 21 June 1999

Everything Will Flow – Released: 6 September 1999

Can’t Get Enough – Released: 8 November 1999

Tracklisting:

Electricity – 4’39” (Anderson, Codling, Oakes)

Savoir Faire – 4’37” (Anderson)

Can’t Get Enough – 3’58” (Anderson, Codling)

Everything Will Flow – 4’41” (Anderson, Oakes)

Down – 6’12” (Anderson, Oakes)

She’s in Fashion – 4’53” (Anderson, Codling)

Asbestos – 5’17” (Anderson, Codling)

Head Music – 3’23” (Anderson)

Elephant Man – 3’06” (Codling)

Hi-Fi – 5’09” (Anderson)

Indian Strings – 4’21” (Anderson)

He’s Gone – 5’35” (Anderson, Codling)

Crack in the Union Jack – 1’56” (Anderson)

5th May – The Number One Album in Australia – 1984 (INXS – The Swing)

It was in 1984 when INXS achieved their first number-one single “Original Sin”, the opening song from the fourth album “The Swing”

INXS originally formed as The Farriss Brothers in 1977.

The early part of their career was a combination of relentless touring and recording where in the space of three years the band had released their first three records – “INXS” (October 1980) a Top 30 album, “Underneath The Colours” (Oct 1981) a Top 20 album and “Shabooh Shoobah” (Oct 1982) a Top 10 album.

The band was perfectly poised for major success in Australia.

It was 1983 after a show in Toronto when INXS was approached by Nile Rodgers, who had just produced the hugely successful “Let’s Dance” album for David Bowie, to see if they could work together

The outcome of that encounter was recording a song titled “Brand New Day”, which would become “Original Sin”, in September 1983 at New York’s Power Station Studios.

Andrew Farriss recalls:

“We were fresh off the road. So we had the basic song completed and we’d been playing it live in the set. He was talking to us through the headphones, kind of saying things that were meant to encourage us, and we figured he was just getting levels and stuff on the whole band playing together, but after we’d run it down a couple of times he said ‘OK, come in and have a listen’. We went in and the control room was sort of full of people dancing. Apart from adding background vocals and the sax solo, we were finished. We didn’t even know he was recording” – “Burn : The life and times of Michael Hutchence and INXS”

Nile Rodgers who had also worked with Hall & Oates invited singer Daryl Hall into the studio who sings the chorus along with Michael Hutchence.

“Original Sin” became the lead track on “The Swing”, which was completed with producer Nick Launay – who had produced Midnight Oil’s  “10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1” album (1982), The Church’s “Séance” (1983) and Models “The Pleasure of Your Company” (1983).

The ten track album had a number of music videos made – in addition to “Original Sin”, promos were done for “I Send a Message”, “Burn for You”, “Dancing on the Jetty”, “Love Is (What I Say)” and “All the Voices”. These combined with the band’s touring and promotional schedule saw “The Swing” enjoy a lengthy tenure on the Australian charts where it sat inside the Top 50 selling albums for over 2 years.