“The masterplan was, there was no masterplan. Except to write good songs. Oh yeah, and to be the biggest band in the world. A modest ambition, but it put Oasis on the road to greatness.”
OASIS - THE MASTERPLAN (1998)
Plus some more pics of Oasis albums we have at our stations, sent to us promotionally by Sony Canada on behalf of Creation Records.
Liner notes below the cut:
The masterplan was, there was no masterplan. Except to write good songs. Oh yeah, and to be the biggest band in the world. A modest ambition, but it put Oasis on the road to greatness. "Me mam always used to say, God loves a tryer," Noel Gallagher says. "And I went, 'Why? Has he got a car?' She went, 'No, a tryer-Not a tyre." So the Gallagher boys did try, and if you want proof of how hard they tried then hear these tracks - B-sides, all of them, made by a band who believe a B-side is no excuse not to care. Outside of Britain it hasn't always been easy to hear Oasis B-sides. But in Britain or anywhere else, they sound majestic played back-to-back.
We open heroically with ACQUIESCE which is one of those all-time "shoulda been an A-side" numbers. (Creation Records certainly thought so, and who could blame them?) The song is about friendship in the widest sense and not, as often speculated, about the Gallagher brothers themselves. Noel sings the chorus because, he claims, Liam couldn't reach the high notes. Or he was in the pub. Whatever, it was written on a slow train to Wales and made possible because Noel likes to travel with his guitar. It's no surprise that Acquiesce is present: via the Internet, Oasis fans were asked to vote on this album's choice of tracks.
But the inclusion of UNDERNEATH THE SKY might have been "influenced" by Noel, who cites this as a favourite song. Its happy-wanderer feel was inspired by a pocket-book of travellers' quotes he came across, and the jollity's enhanced by a four-handed piano part courtesy of him and Bonehead (who tackles the tinkly bits, apparently).
TALK TONIGHT is another self-selecting choice, from Noel's acoustic repertoire. Beautifully tender, its thoughtful air derives from a Texas studio session: Noel was back after his brief flounce from the band on a US tour: "Me and Liam had a disagreement, probably about what shoes he was wearing, so I'd fucked off to Las Vegas." It was an Oasis fan in San Francisco who talked him down off the ledge. The same reflective interlude gave us another song, in HALF THE WORLD AWAY (which is Paul Weller's favourite Oasis track). The pressure was already building, though, when Noel began writing (IT'S GOOD TO BE FREE, at the start of those troubled American dates. He finished it in Las Vegas: "Cocaine psychosis," reckoned producer Owen Morris, detecting a Fear And Loathing vibe in that sinister guitar feedback. Accordion expert Bonehead donates the breezy coda, which lends a misleadingly cheerful touch to what was a deeply fraught Oasis session: "Believe me, it was horribe. it wasn't funny at all." The Morse Code segment, by the way, is meaningless so far as anyone knows.
The oldest song here is GOING NOWHERE, written around 1990 before the band was signed ("It's about what we were going to do when we got a shitload of money off Creation"); it was not recorded until after the Be Here Now album, when there was a hankering for something less massive. Noel and drummer Alan White are the only Oasis members involved, with piano, brass and horn players to bring a vaguely Burt Bacharach atmosphere. Noel only wishes he knew another rhyme for "car" and
"Jaguar." Nearly as vintage in its origins, however, was HEADSHRINKER: recorded for Some Might Say in '95, it was written about three years earlier, during the band's punkier phase. It's also one of Liam's greatest vocals, partly because of the freedom from pressure that doing B-sides can offer. Although a load of drug references were binned from the lyric, a manic edge remains to this tale of an early girlfriend Liam could not shake off. It may start out like The Faces' Stay With Me, but Noel says he was thinking of The Rolling Stones at the time. And ROCKIN' CHAIR dates from Noel's days in Manchester, planning to leave his own girlfriend and dreaming of the good life down in London.
FADE AWAY first surfaced on Cigarettes & Alcohol, and was probably elbowed off Definitely Maybe in favour of Slide Away. Since then the chorus alone has guaranteed its popularity with Oasis fans: "The dreams we have as children fade away...
It's about growing up but not growing old," says Noel, echoing a John Lennon belief that you won't get anything unless you've got the vision to imagine it. It's a classic Buzzcocks trick, this, placing a wistful lyric inside the most glorious rush of punk rock energy. That said, it was a relief for Noel to do a track like THE SWAMP SONG, which required no words at all. Alongside Roll With It, The Swamp Song was a warm-up exercise for the Morning Glory sessions; it was also used to set the sound levels at Glastonbury, which is where Alan White's thunderous drumming was taped. Later on, when Paul Weller turned up for Champagne Supernova, he added The Swamp Song's harmonica and duelling guitars: "Very rock'n'roll," chortles Noel, "but we didn't manage to stand back to back once, which I was very upset about!" Its working title "The Jam" was scrapped, tragically.
Contrary to previous credits, I AM THE WALRUS was not recorded at the Glasgow Cathouse, but at a conference of Sony executives, gathered to hear Creation's new signings. Oasis used to play it at gigs in Liverpool, as an act of bravado aimed at the local bands, even The Beatles never did this one live. Technical note: any "looseness" in Noel's guitar playing here is attributed to half a bottle of Sony-financed gin. Speaking of guitars, the soaring LISTEN UP used to boast a solo much longer than the one you hear in this version; Liam had wanted it shorter, so Noel had disagreed on principle ("If you don't argue with Liam he gets upset"). Four years later, Liam has got his way. The poppy STAY YOUNG, meanwhile, was first ear-marked to be "the Digsy's Dinner" of Be Here Now, until Noel wrote Magic Pie and dumped it. Stay Young wound up on D'You Know What I Mean?, and could have been another A-side if its composer had actually liked the song. But he doesn't. (Audiences, who have more sense than songwriters, all love it.)
But we end with a track that Noel Gallagher is definitely proud of. In fact he regards THE MASTERPLAN as his finest piece of work. Even Liam now wishes he'd sung it himself. The writing came easily, inspired in equal measure by a Japanese hotel corridor and a good, relaxing smoke. "I'm the best lyricist in Oasis, is how I like to say it," Noel shrugs. "But to me this sums up your journey through life. All we know is that we don't know." Is it, we might wonder, sung to Liam? ("Please brother let it be") Again the answer is No.
"We're all brothers and sisters," says Noel. And so we are, and so are Oasis whether named
Gallagher, McGuigan, White or indeed Bonehead. They're brothers and they're tryers, all five. They try for themselves and they try for the rest of us. No wonder God loves them.
keep thinking abt hoshina and mina GOD.. (spoilers for manga and kn8 bside)
given what hoshina said about his previous division treating him like a burden/parasite just because he can’t handle firearms and specializes in his swords… how tiring must it have been to have to work with those people each mission despite having a common goal?
and how tiring must it have been to be constantly told off by his own father for wanting to continue his family’s tradition, or to be told to give up on being part of the jakdf by his own teacher -
before mina, a high ranking commander personally reached out to him, to recruit him into her team?
the fact that she didn’t see him during joint trainings and think: why bother with that? why bother with blades when bigger kaiju will appear? when she personally deals with bigger kaiju herself.
but she instead saw him and thought: he can help me, he can cover my weaknesses (mina not being able to handle a vegetable peeler is hilarious) and he’s someone i can trust
she sees potential in him, she sees how he can excel within her division, she saw hoshina and as captain - has probably heard everyone talk shit about him but she was still certain that he’d be one of her division’s greatest asset
(and even when platoon leader ebina refused to let hoshina help out, mina stood firm on her decision and her claim that hoshina would be useful. when she asked him if he could take down the big kaiju, and he could only promise saving the child within it - she believed him, took his word for it and waited until he carried out his promise.)
and now hoshina is the vice captain, putting faith in a new recruit whom most people wouldn’t have believed in… full fucking cycle..
tldr: it makes me rly fucking emotional to think about how hoshina was given a reason to continue improving with his swords after being told to give up all this time… and how mina had never once thought his abilities were useless 👍
also makes me crazy how protective he is of his position as vice captain, as the person who stands by captain ashiro’s side…
Bad has so many reasons to be cautious, even paranoid, as anyone else on the island. From Federation nonsense to Dapper being kidnapped to the whole purgatory nonsense to whatever fuckass suit of armor “old friend” was setting up cameras in his house. But it compounds on his regular overly aware paranoid self to this state of hyper-paranoia. And as a demon who can and usually will lie, cheat, steal, and use sneaky underhanded tactics, he expects the craziest extent because he thinks of it, realizes it’s possible, and would use it himself. We saw this very obviously in purgatory - when he thought greens desperate last ditch effort to balance the scale was a super planned out tactic to tip the scale, so he did it first, all the hardcore base hunting, the spawn killing, there’s a reason every other tactic he used usually followed a main channel qsmp post with updated rules - all usually things he was surprised no one else thought of. But then this also piles onto the fact that he has to have things go his way, all the time, and that he’s argumentative as all get out, which led to the debate between him and Bagi yknow. Especially because he’s not just doing it for the sake of being right, he doesn’t think he’s paranoid, but that he’s exercising the right amount of caution.
So like. Listen dude. Yeah he’s got reasons to be paranoid. But his thought process around building vaults for separate cookie caches like they locked up the risus pills, only to scrap it because it’s not perfectly impenetrable, is extreme. His character has hardly been a leading example in someone who has reasonable reactions to things. And even when there isn’t his own children’s livelihoods potentially on the line, he has a need for control, and the most control he has is if he keeps the cookies in his inventory at all times. If he makes himself the sole point in which the others can get ones in a case of emergency, then he can control the variables. The problem is he’s unreliable about himself when he’s at his most rational and healthiest, and he’s far worse with the current memory and health issues he’s been mostly unaware of.
I dunno it’s like. There is never going to be a purely impenetrable base. And it’s not just a case of “Bagi just hasn’t lived through __ yet!”. Bad’s own logic about keeping the cookies on him at all times is flawed under his own logic, because Bagi is right - if someone has enough drive to break into separate secured cookie caches purely for the downfall of eggs, they more than certainly have enough drive to find a way to kill Bad and just take them from his inventory, or to just kill the eggs themselves. All it truly does is give Bad a sense of control, and soothe his paranoia.
I might be seeing some online friends for the first time ever later this year ahhhhhhh!!! I’ve known one of them for 11 years, it’s so long overdue. I’ve been feeling so sad lately, having an awful day, and this is such a light at the end of the tunnel! Like not only has this cheered me up immensely but now I have something to look forward to and work towards. Also it’ll be a holiday in a country I’ve always wanted to visit!
Tf2 fan draws a shirtless heavy without any body hair and I am immediately rushed to the ICU and put on life support because of the damage I suffered from such a sight
this is a totally random psa but !! one thing to keep in mind about me is that im always gonna support ur guys’ selfships and ocs and regular ships and etc !! I love to see yyh content in general and I love to see how u guys interact with the world too ♡
I feel like when ppl say tim is neglected it makes his story more boring but I also acknowledge my interpretation of it is like. More ‘what feelings would make sense based on what happened’ as opposed to ‘how can I justify the abandonment issues I see everyone else saying he has?’
how i look when i wanna relapse but i’m totally over that but i feel like shit but even if i REAAALLYY wanted to i 1. don’t have a blade ANYWHEREEE and 2. really really don’t wanna relapse
Part of the reason I started crying more was bc I was trying to plan a hang out with my bf but he texted me back and said he has to do this and that and this today
And then he sent another text and said I can text him when I’m ready and he’ll let me know what he’s up to and then I can decide if I want to come over
Yesterday he said something similar, “I’m welcome to come over if i want…”
At least today he texted me that he’s sorry he’s been so short on time BUT then he followed it up with “but I HAVE to do these things”
Which like I get it he’s extremely busy rn. But I texted him at the beginning of the weekend I had a lot of work to do as well if he wanted to be work buddies this weekend — didn’t acknowledge that. Then never texted me beforehand trying to set up time for us to work together, it’s always been a “I’m doing xyz and you can tag along if you want”
I told him he can just do what he needs to do today, which is what I told him yesterday. I haven’t seen him since last Saturday. This is the first week since we’ve started dating where I haven’t seen him and it feels really terribly bad :(