As I have often shared here on B&V, I got married later than most of my friends…after a life of misadventure. I got married in my late 30s and by then I’d pretty much settled on the group of people I considered “friends.” My attitude was simple… I had enough friends, I didn’t need any more. I admit, it was a short sighted attitude to take at the time. Most my friends are parents now and have disappeared into what I call the “parent tunnel.” Thank God my friend Doug is still around for the stray beer every now and again (and yes, we’re overdue for one of those).

I met my wife during this period of thinking I had enough friends. And, like me, she brought her own group of friends with her into the relationship. I’m sure it’s the same for people who get married in their 20s or in their 60s for that matter. Your partner always brings their own set of friends with them. I wasn’t really emotionally prepared for that. I was a bit of a loner. I went from hanging out with people who were as comfortable to me as an old Stones’ concert T-shirt to meeting all of these new people. Don’t get me wrong, I liked a lot of those people… the late, great Nancy springs to mind (The Rock and Roll Drinking Songs iPod Playlist (for Nancy, my friend)), as does the dynamic duo of J&P. I generally think of most of my wife’s friends as my own friends now… although in truth they only put up with me because of her.

The hardest part of getting to know my wife’s friends was the “hanging out as couples” thing. Suddenly I was expected to join her and her gal pal and the gal pal’s husband for dinners where I was expected to show up sober and converse like an adult. I was given strict instructions to talk about things other than rock and roll… grrr. I never realized how hard it was to find another couple that you both enjoy hanging out with. One of the early exceptions to this rule was this wonderful couple my wife had known for years, who I’ll call Tracy and Rich, because well, those are their names. When we moved into our house together, the Rock Chick and I started throwing parties. I would labor for hours to put together a playlist for these parties. Stuff that was rocking but not any melt-your-face metal… nothing too obscure, no B-sides, no Allman Brothers’ “Mountain Jam” (which goes on for thirty minutes). It was hard work, but I felt good about it. Invariably, we’d be at the party, me glorying in the majesty of my playlist when Rich, from the aforementioned couple, would approach me and say, “Hey man, can you put on that new Oasis album?” The next thing I’d know, my playlist was on the scrapheap of history and we were jamming on Don’t Believe The Truth. Sigh.

Oasis was a band that I had largely ignored during their heyday. They were in that post-Nirvana wave of rock bands that didn’t catch my attention the way Pearl Jam, Soundgarden or Alice In Chains did. I vaguely remember hearing them described as Brit-pop but that might be wrong. I do remember seeing them on MTV and despite speaking English, the channel had to use subtitles. I remember the lead singer Liam Gallagher, when he’d heard some criticism leveled at Oasis by George Harrison, saying that Harrison was “a nipple.” Dude, its George fucking Harrison? What is a nipple? I mean, I know what a nipple is, but why would you call someone that?

But, as I was to learn quickly, like the group of friends that your significant other brings into a relationship, there’s a host of music coming with them too. And, at my age, I’d already pretty much determined which bands I was going to listen to. For the most part my wife and my musical taste are that perfect Venn Diagram, with a tremendous overlap in the middle. She’s turned me onto some great bands over the years. Green Day was one she brought me back to. And, like Rich, she loved Oasis. I will admit, their last few albums were fantastic – Don’t Believe the Truth and Dig Out Your Soul are the type of albums this blog was founded to talk about. We actually saw Oasis at Red Rocks in Denver on the tour for Don’t Believe the Truth and somehow we scored first row tickets. I made the mistake of playing air-guitar and Liam not only saw me, the nipple mocked me. They certainly make it hard to slip onto the bandwagon.

I followed, or actually the Rock Chick followed Liam into Beady Eye after Oasis broke up. After their first album, I lost interest. Then Liam went solo and in 2017 released As You Were and I’ll admit to being extremely, pleasantly surprised (LP Review: Liam Gallagher, ‘As You Were’ A Pleasant Surprise From an Unpleasant Man). That was truly a great album. The song “Chinatown” is still in high rotation around here. I was doing some musical spelunking a few Friday’s ago and discovered Liam was back with a new album, Why Me? Why Not. 

I’ll start off by saying, I really like this new album. He brought back the same producers from As You Were, Greg Kurstin and Andrew Wyatt and they have again crafted a great Oasis-like album. Liam may miss his brother Noel’s songwriting a bit but he’s found some perfect collaborators and he’s making some of the best music of his career. I will say, overall, this album is not as fabulous as his first record, but it’s a very strong sophomore effort. Maybe my expectations were just higher after that first record? As the Rock Chick said, while generally being positive about the record, “There’s just no “Chinatown” here, babe.” Harsh? Liam, along with his producers have found a way to make music that sounds fresh/new at the same time as sounding “retro.”

The album kicks off with the first single, a rocking tune, “Shockwave” that starts with guitar riffs and harmonica, hell yes! It fades into my favorite track here, the shimmery, acoustic “One of Us” where Liam’s voice just soars. The first true ballad on the album is up next with the beautiful “Once.” I’m very impressed with the wealth of emotions Liam expresses in this group of songs. He’s upbeat (almost too much so) on tracks like “Now That I’ve Found You” and darker on “The River” and even sad on “Meadow.” His voice is the key to tying all of this together.

I will say, there are a couple of moments where he veers too far into “pop” territory. The aforementioned “Now That I Found You” which the Rock Chick didn’t like but I did is an example. I feel there’s a little vulnerability underneath the happy bluster of that track and it pulled me in but it is very pop. The only track I didn’t like was “Halo” as its almost, dare I say, “jaunty.” I don’t do jaunty. It has someone hammering on the piano like it’s “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and not in a good way. The final track “Glimmer” is another poppy track that sort of lost me…

That said, there are a lot of songs I like here… “Gone” almost sounds like it’s from the soundtrack of a “spaghetti western” and I mean that as a compliment. “Alright Now” is a beautiful, wistful track. “Be Still” has a great riff which almost reminds me of “Downbound Train” (only at the very beginning, and the Rock Chick says I’m nuts). Even on first listen each song seemed to open up and reveal something special to me. I credit Kurstin and Wyatt for that effect…

I highly recommend this record and I’ll say it now, you can expect this record to be on my “best of” albums of the year. I highly recommend checking out Why Me? Why Not. even if Liam can be a bit of a nipple now and then…and yes, I still play air guitar Liam… deal with it.

Cheers and Happy Autumn, folks!