Is Be Here Now the most divisive Oasis album? Emerging after two skyscraping records in a haze of cocaine to an overly-rapturous press response before the realisations set in, it's now seen as bloated, glorious, misguided and majestic in equal measures. Now its 25-year anniversary allows for more reflection.
In 2016, the album's mastermind Noel Gallagher decided he could fix at least some of his own perceived issues with the record for that year's Chasing The Sun reissue edition, remixing / rethinking the album's lead single and opening track D'You Know What I Mean? into a leaner guitar approach while bolstering it its orchestral elements. It was a success, but then he got bored.
“As the years went by I’d started to accept that the songs on Be Here Now were in fact insanely long… too long!” Gallagher said at the time in a press release. “Someone (I can’t remember who) had the idea that we re-visit, re-edit the entire album for posterity’s sake. We got as far as the first track before we couldn’t be arsed anymore and gave up… it does sound f**king mega though!”
Now ahead of another Be Here Now reissue, this time for its 25th anniversary, we have a lyric video for Noel's 'rethink' above.
So it's a case of what could have been. And we wonder if he would have addressed some of the song lengths, but as it stands, Be Here Now has some excellent slices of Gallagher and the classic lineup; Stand By Me, My Big Mouth, It's Gettin; Better (Man!!), I Hope and the Johnny Depp-guesting swamp blues of Fade In-Out could all sit in a reunion tour set and hold their own.
Just listen to the higher tempo live version of the latter from 1997 below for proof.
We'll skip the nine minutes 20 of All Around The World (and it's reprise) and seven-minute Magic Pie though, thanks.
Be Here Now's 25th anniversary reissue will be released on 19 August as a double picture disc and cassette, all with remastered audio. Preorder here.
