After the last decade of dope opera, any sane person would be forgiven for breathing a sigh of relief at the news that Oasis have packed it in. Time Fliesโ€ฆ, which gathers up all the bandโ€™s UK singles, serves to remind us why, before the nonsense set in, we loved them so damn much. And how, after that first eruption of stardust-spattered majesty, theyโ€™ve drifted off into loud, defiant semi-irrelevance.

Oasis emerged from a Britain made gloomy grey by years of Thatcher and Major, and into a musical world dominated by the twin miseries of jittery trip hop and late-period grunge; their first single, โ€œSupersonicโ€, was released five days after Kurt Cobain killed himself. Driving a Day-Glo coach and horses through this swamp of paranoia and shoulder-shrugging introspection, the Mancs offered positivity, hedonism and skies as blue as a Man City shirt, all powered by heritage Lennon/McCartney melodies and rolling glam rock riffs.

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In 23 breakneck months between April 1994 and February 1996 Oasis released two unarguably great albums and 11 singles of luminous brilliance. These latter, from โ€œSupersonicโ€ through to โ€œDonโ€™t Look Back In Angerโ€, were the equal of any run that The Beatles, the Stones, The Who or The Kinks โ€“ the bands against whom Oasis so brashly measured themselves โ€“ ever put together. The young folks adored them; โ€œLive Foreverโ€ was that sod-everyone-else anthem that every generation needs to gird its loins for the road ahead. Old rockers lapped them up, the bandโ€™s respectful updating of The Canon affording them another chance to shake a joyous tail feather. With astonishing rapidity, they soon ruled the pop culture roost; you couldnโ€™t start an era-defining comedy (The Royle Family) or end an epochal drama (Our Friends In The North) without using their music. By 1997 they were as big as they always said theyโ€™d be; more amazingly, theyโ€™d made music every bit as marvellous as theyโ€™d sneeringly promised.

The masterplan (get nearly as big as The Beatles by sounding quite a lot like The Beatles) had worked. But, it turned out, the masterplan โ€“ or maybe Oasisโ€™ execution of it โ€“ had a long-term flaw. The bandโ€™s best early songs are about yearning and craving and striving. Once the lads had attained all of which theyโ€™d ever dared dream โ€“ stardom, adulation, girls, hot and cold running drugs โ€“ they never quite, despite all Noel Gallagherโ€™s enduring mastery of tune construction, mustered up the passion and desire that made Definitely Maybe and Morning Glory such magnetic brews. More importantly, their major influence changed. The groupโ€™s indebtedness to The Beatles had always been obvious and largely undisguised. Occasionally it reached surreal proportions โ€“ they were sued for plagiarism (over โ€œWhateverโ€) by Neil Innes, who, as the main songwriter for The Rutles, had himself made a tidy living aping the writing style of Macca and John L. After Morning Glory, all that changed. Instead of looking to the Fab Four for inspiration, Oasis were increasingly under the thrall of their own initial output. From the careless mess of the third LP (Be Here Now, tossed off, Noel has admitted, in a โ€˜fuck itโ€™ cocaine haze), through the remainder of the singles contained here, thereโ€™s a diminishing-returns search for heights once effortlessly scaled, for missing keys, for lost chords.

As if in recognition of these (inevitable, forgivable) declining standards, the compilers of Time Fliesโ€ฆ have been careful to avoid strict chronology. By sandwiching it between โ€œDonโ€™t Look Back In Angerโ€ and โ€œCigarettesโ€ฆโ€, they hope, perhaps, to bring glamour-by-association to the limp โ€œSongbirdโ€. By marbling them through the true classics, they believe, maybe, that weโ€™ll see some of the later, slightly wheezing, efforts in a new, more flattering, glow. And to some extent, this strategy works. What becomes evident is that though some of their newer creations are wan retreads of headier templates, Oasis rarely made bad singles, even if 2007โ€™s โ€œSunday Morning Callโ€, is only granted inclusion as a secret track on the second disc. The marathon โ€œFalling Downโ€, for instance, cut loose from its dreary setting in their final LP, sounds like one last tremendous kick against the dying of the light.

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If what youโ€™re really after is a Best Of, then the nearest youโ€™ll get is 2006โ€™s Stop The Clocks. That collection, put together by Noel and brutally biased toward the earlier vintage, is a proper monument. Time Fliesโ€ฆ, though fun, is no more than a handy place to nab all 27 Oasisโ€™ singles in one unfiltered, undiscerning grab.

Danny Kelly