The Wind That Brings On the Bloody Fookin' Change

A few months ago, after years of well-publicized internal feuds, sibling rivalry, and cocaine abuse, the 90s alt-rock colossus of Oasis finally -- officially -- disbanded. The dissolution of their relevance preceded that of the actual group by about a decade, but I think the latter will help to facilitate some important developments in music trends over the coming twenty-four months or so. You see, don't mean to patronize, but trends move in cycles. With the swathe of "nu-gaze" that's cropped up over the past few years, the winding path of Retro has found its way to the Nineties. Who knows whether early 90s Shoegazer music was actually good; what matters is that it wasn't very cool during its "heyday," for lack of a better term, and thus serves as a perfect emblem of coolness now. So everybody and their mother jumped all over it. But as it did sixteen or seventeen years ago, this new generation of Shoegaze will inevitably give way to what will end up being labeled as the reincarnation of Mid-90s Alt-Rock, and possibly even -- dare I say it -- Britpop.

With Oasis officially out of the picture, they're now fair game -- nay, ideal candidates -- to be repurposed as kitschy retro-novelty. That's right -- bust out the t-shirts. Personally, I'm going to promptly go dig through my old CDs and rip all the Oasis I can find onto my iTunes in preparation for heavy rotation. You might be laughing now; just wait until you're the unassuming butt end of any conversation you'll be having with someone cooler than you circa mid-2011. "Oh, what's that you've got there? A Jesus and Mary Chain tee? Listening to some Slowdive? That's pretty sweet. Me? Oh nothing, just listening to my Parklife cassette...and wearing my Suede '93 tour shirt" Burned.

To celebrate the pending trend shift, I've featured some non-album Oasis songs that many of us stateside may not have been exposed to. These are nothing short of straight fire:

"Cloudburst" from the 1994 "Live Forever" single:


"Whatever" from the eponymous 1994 single; also a prime example of Oasis' frequent, err, "misfortune" of getting into hot water for lifting lyrics and/or other musical elements from existing songs: