Like most fans of rock ‘n’ roll, I gravitate to works from the vicinity of Greater Manchester intuitively, involuntarily. Even as someone who’s never once set foot in Great Britain, I’ve always felt I could viscerally relate to exactly where bands from the north of England were coming from. While I might not quite relate to football clubs or bangers and mash, I do hail from America’s Rust Belt, and more specifically, the inner outskirts of a battered old industrial city that was once bustling and systemically significant to national prosperity, but that eventually ended up more or less betrayed and forsaken. Manchester and its nearby municipalities in the United Kingdom have been as mistreated and abused by posh toffs in London as my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, has been pummeled in the United States by, as the viral hit puts it, rich men (and women) north of Richmond.

Consider the effect that small region of the world has had on our soundscape. There’s the Fab Four, of course, and legendary acts of more recent vintage such as Joy Division/New Order, Happy Mondays/Black Grape, The Stone Roses, and The Verve. And then there’s Oasis, currently on its triumphant global reunion tour. 

Oasis isn’t my absolute favorite northern English band of its era, but they’re up there, and they have to be considered the scene’s greatest of modern times. Noel Gallagher was never as dazzlingly creative a songwriter as Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays et al., and while he could be quite an emotive guitarist, peak Oasis played like an above-average bar band compared to the almost telepathic chemistry of The Stone Roses and The Verve. But those other bands didn’t record “Live Forever” or “Wonderwall” or “Champagne Supernova,” nor manage to conquer the elusive American market to anywhere near the same extent. However often Richard Ashcroft might declare “Bitter Sweet Symphony” the........

© Washington Examiner