Blur, Oasis, or The Verve?

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discothequeLP said:
let me clarify. Bono being a humanitarian has nothing to do with the quality of music U2 produces. neither does Liam being a prick.
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BUT, just like you argued in the Edge's Mic thread it's the whole package, the aesthetic and everything. So given that argument him being a prick does matter...
 
gherman said:
I like Keane better than all 3 of them :drool:
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I adore Keane (listening to them as we speak coincidentally), but they're not really part of that wave of 90's Britpop icons like Verve, Blur and Oasis.

Keane would better belong in some kind of comparison with Coldplay, Snow Patrol and Athlete... maybe even throw in an Elbow, Travis or a Starsailor, as part of a "very heavy soft rock"/"wimp rock" kind of showdown.

You could almost have an Editors and White Lies in a "We want to be Interpol and revive Joy-Division style gloomy, post-punk" showdown with maybe a few others.
 
intedomine said:
Keane would better belong in some kind of comparison with Coldplay, Snow Patrol and Athlete... maybe even throw in an Elbow, Travis or a Starsailor, as part of a "very heavy soft rock"/"wimp rock" kind of showdown.

You could almost have an Editors and White Lies in a "We want to be Interpol and revive Joy-Division style gloomy, post-punk" showdown with maybe a few others.
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Elbow are better than all of them, in my opinion.
 
BVS said:
BUT, just like you argued in the Edge's Mic thread it's the whole package, the aesthetic and everything. So given that argument him being a prick does matter...
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i will concede that Edge's headset mic only bothers me when watching them live, and does not really affect the band's overall image (though if it does it would be pulling them towards the lame side of the spectrum; then again, the new version of Mercy does this x100). the headset mic doesn't affect the quality of the albums. neither did Bono's Nobel Peace Prize nomination, and neither does Noel's or Liam's unsavory personalities. i understand if people don't like Oasis' catalog, but them being pricks is a footnote at most. i think their egregious personalities are to some extent just an act. they've always talked big, but they became known as loudmouth bastards and i think they always tried to live up to that reputation, for better or worse.



edit: also, that video of Live Forever is great, Liam's voice up until 1997, but especially before 95, was great.
 
This is a surprisingly hard choice.

Blur -- I admire Blur for several things: 1) being creative and dynamic in style (much like U2) when their peers were reinventing the same wheel over and over; 2) having a really good guitar player (Graham Coxon); 3) being survivors -- the British music press (surprise, surprise) wrote them off in 1993, and again in 1996... but they always came back stronger; 4) not feeling any particular need to break in the US-market -- not that there's anything wrong with doing so, but I like that Blur didn't ever pander to MTV or American stadium rock expectations (Liam Gallagher, by comparison, posed on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine in the US after Albarn refused to do so).

Now, for the prosecution: 1) Although they were creative, Blur were never original. They started out as Baggy scene-jumpers, then became 60's-style Kinks Brit commentators, then became post-everything low-fi indie rockers... Albarn always seemed to be looking for a new style to copy; 2) Damon Albarn -- the most pretentious of all 90s' Brit stars? (and that's saying something.) I cannot stand him. Saw him recently on Canadian TV -- he was more pretentious than ever, and seemed even more self-obsessed and defensive. 3) Albarn's voice -- I cannot stand his shrill voice on many Blur tracks, though occasionally he gets it right when he tones down the hammy histrionics; 4) Blur's songs are very hit and miss. You maybe get 1/2 good tracks and 1/2 crap on the average over-long Blur album.

Oasis -- Oasis are the one whose catalogue I'm most familiar with (I also saw them live in London in 2000). The first album is very good, but not brilliant -- largely because it lacks any diversity and every song sounds exactly the same. The second album is weaker, but still very enjoyable in a dumb kind of way with big tunes and hits -- it even broke down the US market. At that point they became the uber hype of Britain for all of 1996 and 1997, and the third album is a stinker -- 4-chord songs with unimpressive playing that drag on for 7 minutes, and the worst lyrics of any LP I've ever heard. At that point, the original line-up was pretty much done and thereafter Oasis became a caricature of themselves, something that they seemed to enjoy (perhaps showing how insincere and false they were in the first place). Mediocre LPs like Don't Believe the Truth (oooh! clever title!) are fawned over by their Dad-rock fan base who think anything vaguely in tune and in time and with a 60s' flavor must be classic Oasis.

Oasis did what they did very, very well -- they did loud, anthemic dumbed-down no-funk, no-swing rock'n'roll songs, all in exactly the same style. If that floats your boat, they're for you because nobody else does that better than them. But that is all they do.

(The) Verve -- The Verve have the most American-friendly sound of the three, I think, and also the best singer. Their first two albums are very interesting, and then the third is a lot more song-based and was deservedly a massive international hit. After that, they were more-or-less cooked, but of course they've had a little comeback. It's harder with The Verve to identify what exactly they do, because their first three albums (the "real" ones, if you will) are all quite different. The first one is way out there in artiness, the second more cohesive but still arty, and the third is almost a Richard Ashcroft solo album backed by The Verve and has succinct, tightly-written rock/pop songs. I like what they did but they didn't really do a lot, I suppose.


So, in conclusion, I can't answer the question.
 
LemonMelon said:
Blur by miles.
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I feel like you're the musical me from a parallel universe. Always in the same atom, but you're always the electron to me being a proton.

(You're so negative, that's why you're the electron)

(I'm the proton because I'm clearly 1000 times more massive than you are)

(You're the election because I can predict with some certainty what you'll do next)

(I'm the proton because I'm repulsed by folks of my own kind, yet forced to be around them all the time)

(I guess this means we are attracted to each other...)

(I'm quarky)

(End of atomic jokes)
 
None. I used to listen to Oasis a lot. But haven't much in years. Never really cared for either of the others though.
 
This year's reissues of The Verve's first two albums are reminding me of just how fucking good a psychedelic shoegaze band they were.

"Gravity Grave" really was otherworldly live.
 
Never entirely got into The Verve, not in a dedicated way, but I knew A Northern Soul relatively well at one time. 'History' is stunningly good, of course.

If this is really a thing, it's Blur first only on account of their profligacy if that's the word. If the Verve kept it together better, I suspect they'd be ahead by a country mile. Oasis are barely worth talking about. I do quite enjoy Don't Look Back In Anger though, but not as much as I enjoy Look Back In Anger.
 
I always favored Blur for their evolution and experimentation. Verve were great. I guess Oasis would fall into third place for me. When they were good they were great.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference
 
Noel at his best is a better songwriter than Bono and The Edge. Unfortunately for Oasis, he was very lazy and this was something that u2 were not during their most prolific years. Oasis are better than the other two groups mentioned by some distance and could have been better than u2 as well if they weren't high all the time and spent more time on their music.
 
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