Breaking Down the Band: Oasis, Radiohead, and Pearl Jam

As I was getting ready for Pearl Jam Week in Chicago, a couple things dawned on me. One: I’ve seen this band more often than any other band (north of ten times, lost count). Two: I have opinions.

So, I thought I would take to the keyboard and throw down a few opinions. Then I thought of a couple other friends and their most-seen bands and I asked them to do the same. John Puccio will break down Radiohead and Stephen Barrigar does the same with Oasis.
Here goes. First up, Stephen with Oasis.

Stephen Barrigar
Artist – Oasis

Number of Times Seen in Concert

I’d have to guess 7. I saw them on the Definitely Maybe tour, when they didn’t know anything and couldn’t give a shit about the crowd. I saw them 3 times on the Morning Glory tour, when they were becoming rock gods and couldn’t give a shit about the crowd. I saw them once on the Be Here Now tour when they were rock gods and didn’t give a shit about the crowd. And then a couple times over the next ten-ish years. Noel Gallagher just had a tour this summer and while a bunch of my friends went, I’m of the mind I’m good. I’m too old and too grumpy and don’t really give a shit about the band anymore.

Here’s a link to them playing Glastonbury in 1994 before the debut album.

Best Song

I don’t know but sake of argument let’s say “Supersonic.” There’s something about it that is so confident. The video was made for 10 bucks, with all members of the band needing an eyebrow tweezing, some buddy who had access to a roof of a building and some stock footage… but at its core it’s great.

(Although It’s basically a rip off of Marc Bolan at the height of his powers.)

Who am I kidding, their best song is “Acquiesce.” The B-side to the not-as-excellent “Some Might Say.” The video for “Acquiesce” is another fine example of Oasis not giving a shit about their fans. But if I had to describe Oasis with a song, it would be “Acquiesce.”

Best Album

Definitely Maybe (1994) by a nose over (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (1995). Both albums are amazing, 5 stars, and must-owns if you enjoyed music in the mid-90s, but the top seven of DM:
“Supersonic”
“Live Forever”
“Slide Away”
“Rock n Roll Star”
“Cigarettes and Alcohol”
“Columbia”
“Shakermaker”

Are slightly better than MG:
“Champagne Supernova”
“Don’t Look Back in Anger”
“Some Might Say”
“Wonderwall”
“Roll With It”
“She’s Electric”
“Morning Glory”

Most Cliched Song (Or Overplayed Or Overrated)

“Wonderwall.” Good song, yes, but considering what was available, really, this is the song that broke them in America? His voice is super nasally, it’s just not great. Here’s a test I like to do: try listening to anyone sing it in karaoke. Even the most crap song is fun karaoke; except everyone tries to sing “Wonderwal”l like Liam sings “Wonderwall.” It’s unbearable. “Said maybeeeeeee, gonna be the one that saves meeeeeeeee.”

Not that I’m saying ugh, but I’m kinda saying ugh. And it’s definitely overplayed and overrated compared to the rest of the album.

Most Underrated Song

“Fade Away,” the unappreciated B-Side to “Cigarettes and Alcohol,” remains an excellent mix of noise, guitars, and messed up drumming. Honestly, listen to the speed of the drumming, it’s like he’s purposely trying to go faster than the lyrics.

Most Underrated Album

Definitely Maybe only went to #58 in the US and eventually would sell 1 million copies – what? That’s crazy. Get your shit together America, were you too busy buying “Bad Dog” t-shirts and listening to Deadeye Dick?

Best Song Released in the Past Ten Years

Well the band broke up 15 years ago, so we’re still waiting on the will they or won’t they, but here’s something from High Flying Birds that is good. What a Life.

Best Song from Their Worst Album

“D’you Know What I Mean.” In a collection of ridiculous coke-filled (supposedly) 5+ minute songs, “D’You Know What I Mean” remains a superb wall of guitars and swagger that the summer of 1997 needed. What a banger! This is the kind of video you release if you believe you are the biggest band in the world.

Be Here Now (1997) remains a perfect music example of being surrounded by “yes” men. Noone said, hey Noel, maybe not so many 7+ minute songs. “Hey Noel, everything is great and all, but where are the singles?” It actually makes me a little mad, because they released D’You Know What I Mean and I couldn’t be more excited. Radiohead had just released OK Computer and now here is another UK band about to release a juggernaut third album and it ended up being a turd.

Song of Theirs You Need to Hear Live

Winter 1995, they came out in a club of about 300 people and hit us with “Rock n Roll Star.” And my friends and I lost our shit.

Best Cover Version of One of Their Songs

After me shitting on “Wonderwall” above and saying it’s meh, it’s kinda funny that I come back with a cover of “Wonderwall” as the cover. Ryan Adams’s version of “Wonderwall” is significantly stripped down and, dare I say, superior to the original.

Best Song That They Cover Live

I don’t know of any song they cover live, but isn’t “Whatever” just a ripoff of any Beatles song.? I do love this sound bite from George Harrison about Liam.

Best Concert

For me nothing will beat the first show, but I would assume that people who went to see them at Knebworth in 1996 are pretty happy about that decision.

John Puccio
Artist – Radiohead

Artist – Radiohead

Number of Times Seen in Concert

Eight, including the last time Radiohead performed live, five years ago in Philadelphia.

Best Song

Bodysnatchers is a song I described in ranking the Ten Greatest Songs of All-time. I stand by what I wrote in this space two years ago:

It begins with a sustained hard rhythm. The tempo steadily increases as the cacophony builds, the beat shifts, shifts again until it reaches a frenetic climax that leaves you exhausted. It’s then you realize, this song is the sonic equivalent to the greatest fuck you ever had.

Honorable mention: Fake Plastic Trees. For a band not known for their lyrics, this song is a haunting, poetic gutpunch. Gravity always wins.

Best Album

Why not ask me which is Bernini’s best sculpture!?!?

Difficult to say definitively, but you can narrow it down to four:

· The Bends (1995) the perfect rock album;

· OK Computer (1997) the perfect concept album;

· Kid A (2000) their most important/influential album and:

· In Rainbows (2007) the quintessential Radiohead album. The LP where the band reached the peak of their powers and brought everything together.

So for that reason, I’d say In Rainbows is Radiohead’s ‘best’ album. There is not one weak track on the LP and its 2nd disc is also full of some amazing songs.

But there is no wrong answer among these four. They are differently exceptional. It all depends on your taste and what you value most. The first two are far more “accessible” to the masses.

The sonic complexity of the later two require multiple listens to be fully appreciated. Many people can’t get past the clicks, blips and squishes. Radiohead can sound weird to the uninitiated. But that’s their loss. Having a Radiohead song unlock and reveal itself on that 3rd or 4th listen is a pretty remarkable thing to experience. And yes, I realize that sounds strange, but it happens! I digress…

PS: Apollo & Daphne is probably Bernini’s greatest work.

Most Cliched Song (Or Overplayed Or Overrated)

Karma Police is easily the most cliche Radiohead song. But it is an excellent track, so I wouldn’t say it’s overrated. Definitely was overplayed back in the day.

Most Underrated Song

Another easy one for me: Palo Alto. If this song was included on OK Computer (as it should have been) and/or released as a single with a video, it could have been a late-90s rock anthem. But it wasn’t, so few people know it. Thanks for asking, thanks for asking…

Most Underrated Album

Amnesiac. Unfairly overshadowed by Kid A. At its heart, it’s really a jazz album more than anything else. This band has no boundaries. Don’t believe me? Listen to Life In a Glass House.

Best Song Released in the Past Ten Years

Present Tense. A song that can actually be classified as ‘hopeful’ – a rarity in the catalog.

Best Song from Their Worst Album

Creep is universally loved, even by philistines who hate Radiohead. If in 150 years Radiohead is remembered, it will be for this song. Ironically, it’s on their first and worst album Pablo Honey.

Song of Theirs You Need to Hear Live

The National Anthem and Paranoid Android are borderline religious experiences.

Best Cover Version of One of Their Songs

Creep has been covered countless times in countless ways. I like the Postmodern Jukebox version. But what if Frank Sinatra sang it???

Best Song That They Cover Live

I’m not sure I have ever heard Radiohead cover another artist live. But they did cover Carly Simon’s Nobody Does It Better back in the 90s, and it’s really good.

Best Concert

The next one. If there is a next one.

Dave Van de Walle
Artist – Pearl Jam

Number of Times Seen in Concert

I guess 10, but that might be an exaggeration. There was Chicago at (The Stadium Formerly Known As) Soldier Field (more on that below), and United Center (maybe just once before 2023). 4 of 5 Wrigley Field shows. Once in Troy, Wisconsin. Once in the outskirts of Indianapolis – great show, traffic management makes Burning Man look okay by comparison – and once in Saint Louis. Oh and Summerfest in Milwaukee.

Okay, maybe it is 10. Fitting, right? (But that was before this week. So now it’s 12.)

Best Song

This will surprise no one who knows me: the list starts and finishes with “Corduroy.” I wrote about it when we did our bit on Rolling Stone’s list of the best songs ever. I stand by my decision. But I respect those who have other opinions: tons of iconic songs could be considered their best-ever.

Best Album

Vitalogy (1994) gets mentioned as their best – I see the argument – but for my money it’s a tie between Ten (1991) and Vs. (1993). And those two are up there for a cross between sentimentality – Ten dropped my Senior year of college; Vs. was released on the very day I started my first-ever Chicago gig – and pure numbers, as Ten had six singles that charted in the Top 40 on the US Mainstream Rock charts while Vs. had five.

Most Cliched Song (Or Overplayed Or Overrated)

This is a tough one for me. The only song of theirs that I truly, truly dislike is “Last Kiss,” and that’s not even their song. So I run to the bathroom if they play that live.

Overrated? Not sure. Cliched? Not sure there, either; “Alive” kinda became a cliché right after the death of Kurt Cobain, but it’s actually my “gateway” PJ song and takes me back to college.

So, I’m going to go with “Overplayed.” And not in a bad way: “Even Flow” has been played more often in concert, according to stats from setlist.fm, than any other PJ song.

This video remains cool as heck. I’ll go with “Even Flow.”

Most Underrated Song

In 2006, the band released the self-titled “Avocado” album, and the sublime “Army Reserve” never gets radio airplay, it seems, but it’s outstanding.

Most Underrated Album

Yield (1998) is a sentimental hit for me because it was one of the cassettes that was in the car when we brought our eldest daughter home. But it’s also an album that is top-to-bottom rock-freaking-solid. (Enjoy “Do the Evolution.” “Admire me, admire my home/Admire my son, he’s my clone.”)

Best Song Released in the Past Ten Years

Gigaton (2020) won the Bad Timing Award for 2020 – tying with every NCAA basketball program – as it was released on March 27, 2020. “Dance of the Clairvoyants” is a great, dance-ish, rock-and-roll tune.
Best Song from Their Worst Album

No Code (1996) is considered their worst album and it’s…not bad. And, to be honest, I would actually consider “Hail Hail” one of their most underrated songs. (But it’s not completely underrated, as evidenced by the fact that David Letterman had the band perform it during his “commercial-free” program in the 90s. (British folks would respond with “oh, so a typical BBC program.”)

It’s darn amazing in the 21st century, too, here’s a version from a concert in Vienna.

Song of theirs You Need to Hear Live

“Better Man.” Not really because I like the song, but because there’s something about the crowd singing most of the first couple verses while Eddie lets them take center stage.

Best Cover Version of One of Their Songs

Did you know that Aaron Lewis from Staind once covered Black? It’s darn good. And it happened ages ago, during something called The Family Values Tour.
Best Song That They Cover Live

The band loves The Who. Baba O’Riley, live, often when the lights are up and it’s just about time to go home, is an experience.

Best Concert

This one is a tie: (1a) Soldier Field, July 11, 1995 (!). Before Soldier Field became That Spaceship from V That Landed On Top of Soldier Field.

Cue Stefon from Saturday Night Live.
“This show had everything.
The stage from the last show Jerry Garcia ever did, complete with discarded joints
Security shooting water from water cannons at spectators because it was 100 degrees
Eddie telling the crowd that the billboards for the Alternative station that read ‘This Is Not For You’ were ironic because the song ‘Not For You’ was ‘not for them.’”

(1b) Wrigley Field, August 20, 2016. The first of two sold-out shows in a stadium that would become Eddie’s home away from home during the Cubs’ World Series run that Fall.

Again, here’s Stefon. “This show had everything:
Me getting a fist bump from Tom Ricketts (after seeing him come up the aisle and saying ‘Hey, Tom, how bout a fist bump?’)
Me bawling while superfan Steve Gleason takes the stage to tell us ‘I feel fucking awesome’
Dennis Rodman.”

Also, the winners of the Great Timing Award for 2016 would be absolutely everyone associated with this show and the Just Play Two movie that came out, documenting the shows and the Cubs’ World Series Championship (which, we need to remind you, definitely happened).

Humblebrag: my wife and I were at Game Five (our view for part of the game is below). So was Eddie, who didn’t really sing the 7th Inning Stretch, but turned it over to a tape of Harry Caray singing the 7th Inning Stretch.

There You Have It…

Three iconic bands. Two experts and…well, me. Your thoughts are welcome.