Robert Christgau's Music Criticism Blog - Expert Witness - MSN Music

Cotton Mather/Oasis

Oh--You Mean Those Beatles

By Xgau Apr 13, 2012 5:37AM

Cotton Mather: Kontiki (Deluxe Edition) (Star Apple Kingdom)

Pieced together in 1997 from impulsively conceived, doggedly recorded scraps of DAT and four-track by Austin mastermind Robert Harrison and a Memphis tape wizard who loved how Big Star the band was, Cotton Mather's second album caught the attention of some British Beatles fanatics d/b/a Oasis, who brought them over to open and even generated some U.K. sales. While allowing his vocal resemblance to "John Lennon with a Southern accent and a head cold," Harrison's extensive notes don't cite the Beatles much even though "My Before and After" resembles "Ticket to Ride" more than its supposed inspiration "(Reach Out) I'll Be There" and "Private Ruth" echoes "For No One" straight up. Harrison is no more a genius than Noel Gallagher, so though the lyrics aren't spaced-out gibberish or obvious pap, they're unequal to the music‑-which definitely beats, for instance, the last three songs on the first Big Star album, and even more remarkable, kind of makes you appreciate Oasis. (N.B.: I'm recommending the Deluxe because it's new and much cheaper, not because I expect ever to listen to its alternates and new ones for anything except the research I presume is now complete.)  B PLUS

 

Oasis: Stop the Clocks (Sony BMG '06)

One of the many things I never got about this band was where the Beatles were. Where was the ebullience, the wit, the harmonies, God just the singing, and, uh, the songwriting? Cotton Mather made me understand that when Oasis say they love the Beatles they really mean they love the post-Help!, pre-Sgt. Pepper Beatles. Since that span encompasses Rubber Soul and Revolver, many would say tally ho, but (a) not me 'cause I love the Beatles start to finish and (b) only if you're writing songs as good as, uh, "We Can Work It Out." Instead Oasis, meaning loudmouth bro Noel Gallagher, write songs that resemble "We Can Work It Out" in thickened texture and momentum but not depth or charm, then add arena size in the swagger of the drums and the bigged-up vocals themselves. This band-selected best-of‑-two discs lasting 87 minutes, like an old-fashioned double-LP except it's only 18 tracks‑-capture their sonic moment as fully as any freelance music historian needs. A 2010 package repeats 11 of these songs and adds 16 others‑-too many, I say. Also, it omits the opening "Rock 'n' Roll Star." If ever there were guys whose message to the world is summed up by an opener called "Rock 'n' Roll Star," it's these bigheads. B PLUS

 

267Comments
Apr 17, 2012 12:42AM
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'Spend more time listening to music in its variety, responding to it, and less calibrating it.'

Fu*k off! The polls have nothing to do with Xgau--bar showcasing many albums he has enjoyed and critiqued positively. And, as for putting off new users, give me some goddamn evidence--even, some statistics! Either take part or don't; don't be a dick about it.


I appreciate, that some people may find the lists boring. I find some of the topics of conversation on this board boring, too (often involving periods of time I have no knowledge of, or listing songs in lists, that have no meaning, or which make no sense to me [probably, my fault]). But, I would never ask anyone to stop, as I find that sort of behaviour dickish! Oh, no, let's not talk about this--or, don't say that--as it's boring. Fuuu*k oooff!


I enjoy making lists a. because I find it fun, b. because it opens up my ears even more, makes me listen harder, and I often realise I like/dislike something more, than I thought. I understand, that some people find sitting at their computer, inserting albums into a list, tedious.

Apr 17, 2012 3:49AM
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Fu*k off!


Same to ya, buddy. Haven't read more than the first sentence of your posts in months and haven't missed an important thing, far as I can tell.

Apr 15, 2012 2:21AM
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LOL, Danielle! I am not trying to brag; I just think this faking thing is a bit of a cliche, but, hay, maybe someone's faked with me--who knows? So cumming is fake; orgasming is real. Ah, OK, that makes COMPLETE, biological sense! I find it quite insulting, that girls can get away, with giggling about a man not being able, to make them cum--sorry, orgasm--while, if a man laughed, about a woman being poor in bed, they'd be a crude brute. Double standards. But, hay ho, we have to be men, and suck it up. Not like a man has feelings, Lordy! :p

Sorry, Joey, I thumbsed you down! (iPhone keeps doing this!!)
Apr 17, 2012 6:29AM
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Oh well, some people never grow up. You still got a few more years, buddy.
Apr 16, 2012 7:54PM
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 I intended my suggestion in that spirit, not as a some sort of rag on his CG reviews.
I'm sure. And forgive me, I just find endless polls on this blog tedious, off-putting to outsiders, boring to me, and a big jolt to poll-junkies who post here. Sure they work hard. So does every addict for a fix.

And yeah, patrick, you strike me as a poll junkie. Spend more time listening to music in its variety, responding to it, and less calibrating it.
Apr 16, 2012 2:20AM
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'Good point, Alex--please accept my apologies. This place can often get pretty careful in spirit, and you frequently make it more entertaining.'

Thank you, Patrick, I appreciate you as a member of this blog and, also, as a person. I'm guessing I miss-read your comment, anyway! Next topic of discussion: How many Nazis do we all know? Haha, I'm kidding! So, when's the next poll, eh, eh, eh?! Wink

Apr 15, 2012 1:51AM
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This has always puzzled me: Is an orgasm cumming, or is it something else entirely (movies often depict an orgasm, to be an other-worldly thing.) If it is, indeed, what females refer to as cumming, I don't think it's hard, to make a girl cum (but, hay, that's just me--haha).
To quote Bob Marley, "so much things to say right now." But where to begin???

For being so assured in your ability, you're awfully unclear on key points. So here's the deal: cumming is when a girl is faking it, whereas orgasm is when it's real. We're living in a century of fakers after all.
Apr 13, 2012 9:30PM
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I'll throw in my vote for Radio City as the easy best Big Star -- which bar Cam I'd've figured everybody around here thought -- because short of adequate detailed descriptors (like Wrens Pavement VU best Beatles 'tweens and the like, the sort of aural magic the Biggies conjured up defies imprisonment by English), I find it to be the most CONVINCING Big Star album. Turning up the ear focus, to me the teeny weenie boppy elements of #1 Record have always felt a little on the contrived side, whereas the arty fey baroquey aelements of thinner-than-the-rest Third have always rang a little too lightweight. Additionally, Chilton & his increasingly decreasing friends were always served best with a side of sarcasm; his straight-up sincerity only makes total sense for me when the melodies are supertriumphant, a la "El Goodo", so the meandery stuff on side two of #1 verges on the sorta-syrupy -- it's like much better Raspberries, which isn't good enough to beat rock 'n' soul paradise Radio City. And speaking of such stuff (syrup), for a record (3rd) that's supposedly all about quiet-storm/silent-sunlight subversion, "Blue Moon" epitomizes a throughline of sentimentality for which microscopic points oughta be docked. 3rd's music is hella (and often hellishly) beautiful, sure, but I know there's something to the fact that I find "I Am the Cosmos/You And Your Sister" considerably more harrowing than "Holocaust", and a far more (that word again) convincing evocation of strung-outitude than the boring (I said it!) "Big Black Car". (Now, "Dream Lover" outfreaks 'em all, but I don't count that one and neither should you! Where's your sense of discographical purity?!)

Apr 15, 2012 2:09PM
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'Hairy Irene schools Alex Wilson in re: S-E-X. How do we promote this titanic exchange???? New discrete users, here we come!!'

Hahaha! Open-mouthed I guess it was a little graphic, but who gives a f*ck?! I was sure there wasn't a difference between the two words. I, now, have been reaffirmed, so case closed! Smile


Danielle, it is, really, in the way I specified, a double standard (and I never said it was a terrible double standard). In the case of people being sh!t in bed in general, that's nobodies fault but their own (but, still, not really if you know what I mean). You carry on to implement, the same double standard I was talking about (I'm not attacking you, here). Women can go crazy, about how bad a guy is in bed, but, if I said, 'this girl can't do yadda, yadda for sh!t,' that wouldn't been seen in a very nice light. IE, women might say, 'why break up with her, if she's bad in bed?', while the same might not be, explicitly, true for visa versa. Although, I'm working in very small percentages now. Anyway, IDK why it irks me but hay. Too much time on my hands, I suppose (bar the 72 hours I do a week--I know how you feel, Ryan!).

Apr 14, 2012 1:16PM
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Sh!t, Cam, I thumbsed you down! Confused I apologise! Tongue out

Nick, do you mean pretty songs in general, or ones designed, to be played to a significant other (while having sex at a picnic)? I'm gonna go with just beautiful songs in general, if you don't mind!
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Given that most of this blog's readership is made up of mild-mannered, good citizen, left-leaning dudes
Irene, I think you just friend-zoned EW's entire male readership.

EDIT: Also, a year's worth of Alex's posts are awaiting your scalpel.
Apr 15, 2012 12:32AM
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'Now, if we're talking time taken for the whole shebang, 7-9 is NOT acceptable.'

Well, if you have this attitude...! (Isn't the average penis size 6 inches [at least in Britain]? Why am I debating penises? Not like half an inch matters!)


Edit (moar penis stuff):

'A review published in the 2007 issue of BJU International showed the average erect penis length, to be 14–16 cm (5.5–6.3 in), and girth to be 12–13 cm (4.7–5.1 in). The paper compared results, of twelve studies conducted on different populations in several countries.'
Apr 15, 2012 12:52AM
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Even moar penis stuff (someone's getting nervous!):
'44% of men say their female partners always have orgasms, when they have sex. 22% of women say they always have orgasms, when they have sex.'
This has always puzzled me: Is an orgasm cumming, or is it something else entirely (movies often depict an orgasm, to be an other-worldly thing.) If it is, indeed, what females refer to as cumming, I don't think it's hard, to make a girl cum (but, hay, that's just me--haha). Are we including squirting here? Stop me, when you've had enough. Anyone eating their cereal yet? I think I've mistaken this for a lad's forum!
Apr 14, 2012 4:06PM
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OH GOD NOW WE KNOW IT TAKES ALEX WILSON BETWEEN SEVEN AND NINE SONGS TO CLIMAX WHY
Apr 13, 2012 3:05PM
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 I'm behind on EW, so I just wanted to respond to Jason from early in the prior thread:
It was a tough realization for this indie/punk lifer that the guitar kids just weren't doing it for me these days, but it's undeniable that there's some mild crisis point ongoing in that world, which I see very little evidence of changing anytime soon
 First, I've NEVER liked the term "indie" and refuse to use it, though I know what you mean.  As near as I can tell, all "indie" is is an attempt to avoid calling the music "alternative" and a borrowing from the world of film to refer to the mode of distribution.  So was James Brown "indie"?"

 So we're really talking about (mostly white) rock that's usually smaller group, usually guitar based, and inspired by the punk movement or "outsider" white rock dating back to the 1960s.  It had a 20 year run (late 1970s through late 1990s) and then the world was ready for something different.  The greats from the 1980s were "rebels" and the greats (and fakes) of the 1990s could hope for massive radio play, huge album sales, and big crowds at shows if they were successful. 

 What's the pay-off for a new group playing that style now?  To have some 20 year-old college kid who's never paid for music in his life download their leaked (or released) album off rapidshare or a bit torrent site?  To waste a lot of time, energy, and $ touring so that they can play to an average of- if they're REALLY lucky- a few hundred people?  A few hundred people who will then download their current or next album for gratis?  No wonder the music's dead: you'd have to have zero ambition and no life plan to want to bother in most cases.
Apr 16, 2012 10:21PM
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I submit….

 

the Poorly Hidden Pregnancies

 

Runners-up: Farley Granger & the Celluloid Closets, Skronk Merchants, the Aw Shucks, Ready Set Forget, the LBJ Pez Dispensers, Hee Ha Ho Ha, She Fakes He Doesn’t, Mitch McConnell, Poll-Override [math-rock], the Hesitation Wounds and Give It To Me Dr. Murray

 

Possible black metal battle of the bands: Kristallnacht v. Dachau Deathstar

Apr 13, 2012 10:19PM
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Favorite Big Star?  One of the final five albums I cut from my 25 Favorite of All Time was Radio City, nearly included for being packed enough to overwhelm me but brief enough to always make me consider just straight up playing it a second (third?) time.  An under-recognized fave: "Life Is White," where every strum of the guitar swiftly jabs at my gut.

Along with Dookie, it was probably the last album I was thinking about before I voted.  Favorite line: "She's a schemer, and she makes me mad."
Apr 14, 2012 2:50PM
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So this B+ for Stop the Clocks is too low. Not that I've ever been fan enough of Oasis to listen to their albums. It's just--I remember almost every one of these tracks as "the best song in the Top 40" from the time they were in the Top 40, or roughly most of my impressionable childhood. And there's a damn good reason I remember all of them: they're all easy to distinguish from typical radio fair: weird, textured (here not an insult), great singing, and unforgettable--sorry, but yeah--melodies. Could be I saying all of this only because I--I think unlike most of you--listened only to the radio in the 90s? Yeah, probably. But, I had no other options as a kid. This stuff was simply the best I heard. 

I want to play this fcuker on repeat, and remember what it was to be seven. I had those light up heel shoes and neon pink/blue spandex-waist jorts, both to the surprise of everyone who thought at a 5'7" boy must surely be a lot older than seven. 

Also, I'm happy to note: listening again to The Importance of Being Idle (the best track here) finally puts to rest the biggest issue I had with lyrics as a kid. Turns out Gaallagher's not actually saying "I'll be fine if you gimme a lemon / a man's got a lemon." 

Thought forever the first song on Kid A was an allusion to the lemon thing. Yuck, what am I doing here? Outing myself as a britcrit? 


Apr 14, 2012 12:14PM
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if you wanted to make a mix tape for your significant other that could help produce and then accompany sweet sunshine picnic sex, what would you fill it up with (lol)?
I'm pretty sure I've already shared this a long time ago, but this is what I made my wife for her birthday. And look who's on there!

Hey, I Made You A Mixtape!

I Wanna Know Girls Portastatic
In My Secret Life Leonard Cohen
God Only Knows Petra Haden
I'd Die Without You PM Dawn
Wonderwall Oasis
U Got The Look Prince & Sheila E.
To Sir With Love Marti Jones
I Fell In Love Last Night Heavenly
We Could Send Letters (7" version)  Aztec Camera
Finding You (7" Version) The Go-Betweens
Umbrella Rihanna
You're My Favorite Waste of Time Freedy Johnson
Oh! Caroline  Matching Mole
Share Your Love With Me The Band
Tonight Tony Sherman
There She Goes The La's

Apr 17, 2012 7:20AM
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LOLOLOLOLOL EW's biggest crank vs EW's biggest doofus. WHO WILL REIGN SURPREME???
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about the blogger

Robert Christgau

Starting in 1967, Robert Christgau has covered popular music for The Village Voice, Esquire, Blender, Playboy, Rolling Stone, and many other publications. He teaches in New York University's Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music, maintains a comprehensive website at robertchristgau.com, and has published five books based on his journalism. He has written for MSN Music since 2006.

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