Oasis – ‘D’You Know What I Mean?’

11 July 1997

If ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ was the sound of Oasis going from Britpop to soft rock, ‘D’You Know What I Mean?’ is soft-rock Oasis kicking on to self-parody. Beatles references? It literally and randomly name-checks ‘The Fool On The Hill’ and ‘I Feel Fine’. Cartoonish aggro? There’s Liam bleating and sneering like a belligerent sheep. Landfill-indie guitars? Layers upon layers of them, churning away like a washing machine inside a washing machine.

I had great fun in the summer of 1997 reading the British music press desperately trying to parlay this bloated rubbish into ‘the greatest rock band in the world’, all because their original unfavourable reviews for previous Oasis long-player (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? got overtaken by that album’s popular success. ‘D’You Know What I Mean?’ and its parent album Be Here Now are what happens when a stadium-sized rock band has too much coke, too many yes-men, and no more good songs. The forward-swaggering momentum of ‘Wonderwall’, Blur vs Oasis and Knebworth saw this track and this album cycle over the line to number one, but in reality ‘D’You Know What I Mean?’ single-handedly killed off Oasis as a credible band. By the same time the following year Oasis were a tabloid-fodder punchline, propped up only by their standing army of obedient Liam-alikes. We’ll see them again at number one shortly, but we’ll also see Boyzone again at number one shortly.