Beady Eye debut - worth every penny

So, a year and a bit after the spectacular, already legendary guitar smashing fight that brought about the end of rock giants Oasis, we have the first slice of, and i use the word with caution, original music from a former member. The sensible money was on the brains of the operation, Noel, pursuing a solo career more or less straightaway. that didn't happen - one charity gig where he did some Oasis numbers on an acoustic guitar is all we've had. Noel's also let it be known that he's more interested in parenting than making music at the moment, which is fair enough.

It's a statement which has also left the stage open for Liam to step out of the shadow of the band with his seperate venture. Considering that Liam has been (a) busy with clothes labels, making films and accepting awards and (b) let's face it, prone to delivering vast sums of bulls*** from his mouth, no one really expected him to get organized enough or find the time to do a band or record. Credit where it is due though, for he and the remnants of the last standing version of Oasis have unleashed upon the world a new band, Beady Eye.





Going one further than just simply forming a band for the sake of it, Liam and his chums have even gone and recorded something, a song called Bring The Light. Mindful of buzz and publicity being more valuable (sadly) than singles sales these days, the band have decided to give the song away for free on their website. A nice gesture to the fans it may be, but the title of this post has been worded very carefully.

Now, consider yourselves warned - this review shall indeed feature Oasis comparisons and references. It would be stupid not to - if no Beatle could ever escape comparison to what they did as the Fab Four, what hope either Liam or Noel?

so, how does it sound?

Bring The Light somehow conspires to get very monotonous very quickly into the three and a bit minutes it exists for. It's a basic rock song of limited musical interest. It features an absolutely horrid attempt at a guitar solo from Andy Bell, a man Alan McGee compared to Jimmy Page. It features Liam straining to sound like a Marlboro overloaded John Lennon even more than he was ever allowed to on an Oasis record. The lyrics are of a standard that the most ardent of Liam-haters shall relish, for they are awful. Even the swearing Liam brings into it all just sounds plain dull. The financial implications of just recording it and giving it away for free must have been just ever so slightly less than going to the extent of pressing any actual physical copy that few who had heard it beforehand would contemplate handing money over for.

Oh dear. The tragedy here is that the music world is so stale and dull these days that you really need someone like Liam, a figure hated and loved in equal measure for over 16 years, to succeed. You want him to get things mixed up, get everyone at it, make it all interesting again. It's a shame to see him present something that will do nothing but give ammunition to the many Oasis / rock haters out in the world.

The only bit of hope here is that Beady Eye are being delayed by Liam's numerous side ventures, and this is literally the best they could manage to record with limited time. With some luck, as and when the Beady Eye debut album comes into being this will be shown up as the worst track they've done. If it turns out to be their best, expect their debut to be their departure too.

Of course, there's the small matter of how Liam will deal with anyone being critical of what he's released. I dare say he shall respond with the usual charm and sophistication we've come to expect from him. Something like this, I imagine....





The interesting thing about the Oasis split is that the fans, on the whole, wish to see neither brother fail. We're pretty much guaranteed that Noel will deliver superb songs, whereas Liam will deliver basic rock with a million entertaining stories to go with it. To this end, I suppose that Bring The Light is just slightly worse than what we could have expected from him, really.

Beady Eye's debut might very well be better than an awful lot of the fabricated, plastic, sampled rubbish out there at the moment. That, however, is not enough to make the song a masterpiece.


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!