Logo
DiS Needs You: Save our site »
  • Logo_home2
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • In Photos
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Search
  • Community
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • Blog
  • Community

THIS SITE HAS BEEN ARCHIVED AND CLOSED.

Please join the conversation over on our new forums »

If you really want to read this, try using The Internet Archive.

Beady Eye

BE

Label: Columbia Records Release Date: 10/06/2013

90726
DanLucas86 by Dan Lucas June 5th, 2013

In the game of rock-paper-scissors, rock blunts scissors, scissors cut paper and paper smothers rock. In this particular allegory, however, it doesn’t really matter which of the three represents super producer Dave Sitek, as rock paper and scissors are all drowned by the tidal wave of warm, brown, gushing shit that is Beady Eye.

It’s easy to make fun of Oasis and its various spin-offs, so this review should write itself. What’s not so easy however is appraising something so overwhelmingly awful and so lacking in merit as BE without sounding like one of the smug, condescending middle class intelligentsia. 'It’s proper music made with proper instruments, for working class lads by working class lads', the defendants say, hitting the critics with what is now known as The Kasabian Defence.

I’ve never believed that any good can come of class divisions in music, but if this is stuff for the proletariat then surely they deserve better than this. Why be Beady Eye when you can be Pulp or Joy Division? It can’t be passed off as enjoyable or simply 'fun' either. I’ve never been a fan of The Vaccines, but their set at this year’s Primavera festival showed what good clean guitar pop can be with the application of a little thought, talent, and generally giving a shit. Instead, BE comes across as a deliberate 'fuck you' to its audience. At its best the same bland and uninspired shite that Liam has spent his career peddling, at its worst genuinely unpleasant. It’s not so much music for people who don’t like music, as music for people who don’t deserve music.

Opening track ‘Flick of the Finger’ succinctly embodies every reason that BE, that Beady Eye, shouldn’t exist. The title alone should tell you exactly what those behind the record think of their audience. Sitek is presumably responsible for sticking in the brass instruments and distorted guitars that characterised much of his fantastic work with TV on the Radio, but the most notable thing before Liam’s trademark snarky vocal kicks in is the pounding drum. The album literally chugs into life like a Northern Rail train complete with clogged toilet, spitting teenager and faint stench of piss in the carriage. The sense of impending misery for the listener overwhelms every turd Sitek might try gamely to polish: it’s like Oasis took a hostage.

The 'upbeat' tracks on here are grotty, nasty pieces of work that sound like T-Rex might if Marc Bolan was a seedy, perverted sociopath, hanging around the areas of town that aren’t so much deprived as deliberately made nasty by self-imposed ruin. “Time for living” snarls Liam on ‘Face the Crowd’, a track that’s only saved from being the nadir by the sheer impossibility of such a concept on an album consisting entirely of lows. “So take today off and take yourfgfffnffnfsgsdsweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrfwdniwnd”.

The slower songs (read: the ones with the acoustic guitar) are... well, you remember ‘Songbird’? They’re ‘Songbird’. In fact, ‘Don’t Brother Me’ (I love a good pun as much as anyone, but FUCKing hell) is ‘Songbird’ for seven and a half stupid cornballing piece of shit minutes.

Oasis were, for a short while, capable of making disposable, derivative, nostalgia-inducing rock music that appealed to the masses. If BE accomplishes anything that Different Gear, Still Speeding didn’t, it is to finally confirm the notion that if not for the massive popularity of Oasis, no one in their right mind would ever, EVER have signed Beady fucking Eye.

  • 0
    Dan Lucas's Score
  • 8
    User Score
Log-in to rate this record out of 10
Share on
   
Love DiS? Become a Patron of the site here »


LATEST


  • Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024


  • Drowned in Sound is back!


  • Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Year: 2020


  • Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter


  • Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing


  • Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alternative must sees



Left-arrow

Boards of Canada

Tomorrow's Harvest

Mobback
90725
90736

Jagwar Ma

Howlin

Mobforward
Right-arrow


LATEST

    news


    Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024

  • 106145
  • news


    Drowned in Sound is back!

  • 106143

    news


    Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Y...

  • 106141
  • news


    Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter

  • 106139

    Playlist


    Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing

  • 106138
  • Festival Preview


    Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alterna...

  • 106137

    Interview


    A Different Kind Of Weird: dEUS on The Ideal Crash

  • 106136
  • Festival Review


    Way Out East: DiS Does Sharpe Festival 2019

  • 106135
MORE


    news


    The Neptune Music Prize 2016 - Vote Now

  • 103918
  • Takeover


    The Winner Takes It All

  • 50972

    Takeover


    10 Things To Not Expect Your Record Producer To...

  • 93724
  • review


    The Mars Volta - Deloused In The Comatorium

  • 4317

    review


    Sonic Youth - Nurse

  • 6044
  • feature


    New Emo Goth Danger? My Chemical Romance confro...

  • 89578

    feature


    DiS meets Justice

  • 27270
  • news


    Our Independent music filled alternative to New...

  • 104374
MORE

Drowned in Sound
  • DROWNED IN SOUND
  • HOME
  • SITE MAP
  • NEWS
  • IN DEPTH
  • IN PHOTOS
  • RECORDS
  • RECOMMENDED RECORDS
  • ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
  • FESTIVAL COVERAGE
  • COMMUNITY
  • MUSIC FORUM
  • SOCIAL BOARD
  • REPORT ERRORS
  • CONTACT US
  • JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
  • FOLLOW DiS
  • GOOGLE+
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • SHUFFLER
  • TUMBLR
  • YOUTUBE
  • RSS FEED
  • RSS EMAIL SUBSCRIBE
  • MISC
  • TERM OF USE
  • PRIVACY
  • ADVERTISING
  • OUR WIKIPEDIA
© 2000-2025 DROWNED IN SOUND