Be Here Now is the third studio album by the English rock band Oasis, released on 21 August 1997 by Creation Records. The album was recorded at multiple recording studios in London, including Abbey Road Studios, as well as Ridge Farm Studio in Surrey. Although most tracks retain the anthemic quality of previous releases, the songs on Be Here Now are longer and contain many guitar overdubs. Noel Gallagher said this was done to make the album sound as "colossal" as possible. The album cover features a shot of the band members at Stocks House in Hertfordshire. It is the last Oasis studio album to feature founding members guitarist Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs and bassist Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan as the two left in 1999, and the first to entirely feature Alan "Whitey" White on drums, having joined the band two years prior.
Following the worldwide success of their first two albums, Definitely Maybe (1994) and (What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995), the album was highly anticipated. Oasis' management company, Ignition, were aware of the dangers of overexposure and, before release, sought to control media access to the album. The campaign included limiting pre-release radio airplay and forcing journalists to sign gag orders. The tactics alienated the press and many industry personnel connected with the band and fuelled large-scale speculation and publicity within the British music scene.
Upon release, Be Here Now was an instant commercial success, becoming the fastest-selling album in British chart history and topping the album charts in 15 countries. It was the biggest-selling album of 1997 in the UK, with 1.47 million units sold that year. As of 2022, the album has sold eight million copies worldwide. It has been certified 7× Platinum in the UK and Platinum in the US, being Oasis' third and final Platinum album in the latter country. It was supported by four singles, two of which – "D'You Know What I Mean?" and "All Around the World" – topped the UK singles chart.
According to co-producer Owen Morris, the recording sessions were marred by arguments and drug abuse, and the band's only motivations were commercial. While initial reception for Be Here Now was positive, retrospective reviews have been more negative, with many calling it bloated and over-produced. The band members have had differing views of the album: Noel has severely criticised it, while Liam Gallagher has praised it, calling the album his favourite Oasis album. Music journalists such as Jon Savage and Miranda Sawyer have pinpointed the album's release as marking the end of the Britpop movement. In 2016, the album was reissued with bonus tracks, including a new remix of "D'You Know What I Mean?"
Background By the summer of 1996, Oasis were widely considered, according to guitarist Noel Gallagher, "the biggest band in the world ... bigger than, dare I say it, fucking God." The commercial success of their previous two albums had resulted in media frenzy in danger of leading to a backlash.
Earlier that year, Oasis members holidayed with Johnny Depp and Kate Moss in Mick Jagger's villa in Mustique. During their last stay on the island, Noel wrote the majority of the songs that would make up Be Here Now.Harris (2004), p. 333. He had suffered from writer's block during the previous winter, and said he wrote only a single guitar riff in the six months following the release of (What's the Story) Morning Glory?. Eventually, he disciplined himself to a routine of songwriting where he would go "into this room in the morning, come out for lunch, go back in, come out for dinner, go back in, then go to bed." Noel said "most of the songs were written before I even got a record deal, I went away and wrote the lyrics in about two weeks."Oasis story – Mono – All Music TV (Italy) – broadcast 26 October 2008 Oasis producer Owen Morris joined Gallagher later with a TASCAM 8-track recorder, and they recorded demos with a drum machine and a keyboard.
In August 1996, Oasis performed two concerts before crowds of 250,000 at Knebworth House, Hertfordshire; more than 2,500,000 fans had applied for tickets. The dates were to be the zenith of Oasis's popularity, and both the music press and the band realised it would not be possible for the band to equal the event. By this time, infighting had broken out in the band. On 23 August 1996, vocalist Liam Gallagher refused to sing for an MTV Unplugged performance at London's Royal Festival Hall, pleading a sore throat. He attended the concert and heckled Noel from the upper balcony. Four days later, Liam declined to participate in the first leg of an American tour, complaining that he needed to buy a house with his then-girlfriend Patsy Kensit. He rejoined the band a few days after for a key concert at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York, but intentionally sang off-key and spat beer and saliva during the performance.
Amongst much internal bickering, the tour continued to Charlotte, North Carolina, where Noel finally lost his patience with Liam and announced he was leaving the band. He said later: "If the truth be known, I didn't want to be there anyway. I wasn't prepared to be in the band if people were being like that to each other." Noel rejoined Oasis a few weeks later, but the band's management and handlers were worried. With an album's worth of songs already demoed, the Gallaghers felt that they should record as soon as possible. Their manager, Marcus Russell, said in 2007 that "in retrospect, we went in the studio too quickly. The smart move would have been to take the rest of the year off. But at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. If you're a band and you've got a dozen songs you think are great, why not go and do it."
In 2006, Noel agreed that the band should have separated for a year or two instead of going into the studio. However, Morris later wrote: "It was a mistake on everyone's part, management very much included, that we didn't record Be Here Now in the summer of 1996. It would have been a much different album: happy probably." He described the Mustique demos as "the last good recordings I did with Noel", and said his relationship soured following the Knebworth concert.
Recording and production
Recording began on 7 October 1996 at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London."Be Here Now ". oasisinet.com. Retrieved 23 June 2007. Morris described the first week as "fucking awful", and suggested to Noel that they abandon the session: "He just shrugged and said it would be all right. So on we went." Liam was under heavy tabloid focus at the time, and on 9 November 1996 was arrested and cautioned for cocaine possession at the Q Awards. A media frenzy ensued, and the band's management made the decision to move to a studio less readily accessible to paparazzi. Sun showbiz editor Dominic Mohan recalled: "We had quite a few Oasis contacts on the payroll. I don't know whether any were drug dealers, but there was always a few dodgy characters about."
Oasis's official photographer Jill Furmanovsky felt the media's focus, and was preyed upon by tabloid journalists living in the flat upstairs from her: "They thought I had the band hiding in my flat." In paranoia, Oasis cut themselves off from their wider circle. According to Johnny Hopkins, the publicist of Oasis's label Creation Records, "People were being edged out of the circle around Oasis. People who knew them before they were famous rather than because they were famous." Hopkins likened the situation to a medieval court, complete with kings, courtiers and jesters, and said: "Once you're in that situation you lose sight of reality."
On 11 November 1996, Oasis relocated to the rural Ridge Farm Studio in Surrey. Though they reconvened with more energy, the early recordings were compromised by the drug intake of all involved. Morris recalled that "in the first week, someone tried to score an ounce of weed, but instead got an ounce of cocaine. Which kind of summed it up." Noel was not present during any of Liam's vocal track recordings. Morris thought that the new material was weak, but when he voiced his opinion to Noel, he was cut down: "[So] I just carried on shovelling drugs up my nose." Morris had initially wanted to transfer the Mustique demo recordings and overdub drums, vocals and rhythm guitar, but the 8-track mixer he had employed required him to bounce tracks for overdubs, leaving him unable to remove the drum machine from the recordings.
Noel, wanting to make the album as dense and "colossal" feeling as possible, layered multiple guitar tracks on several songs. In many instances, he dubbed ten channels with identical guitar parts, in an effort to create a sonic volume. Creation's owner Alan McGee visited the studio during the mixing stage; he said, "I used to go down to the studio, and there was so much cocaine getting done at that point ... Owen was out of control, and he was the one in charge of it. The music was just fucking loud." Morris responded: "Alan McGee was the head of the record company. Why didn't he do something about the 'out of control' record producer? Obviously, the one not in control was the head of the record company." He said that he and the band had been dealing with personal difficulties the day and night before McGee visited the studio.
Songs As with Oasis' previous two albums, the songs on Be Here Now are generally anthemic. The structures are traditional, and largely follow the typical verse – chorus – verse – chorus – middle eight – chorus format of guitar-based rock music. Reviewing for Nude as the News, Jonathan Cohen noted that the album is "virtually interchangeable with 1994's Definitely Maybe or its blockbuster sequel, (What's the Story) Morning Glory?",Cohen, Jonathan. "Oasis: Be Here Now". Nude As The News. Retrieved 26 June 2007. while Noel had previously remarked that he would make three albums in this generic style. Yet the songs on Be Here Now differ in that they are longer than previous releases; an extended coda brings "D'You Know What I Mean?" to almost eight minutes, while "All Around the World" contains three key changes and lasts for a full nine minutes. When "D'You Know What I Mean?" was released as the album's first single, Noel Gallagher expected to be asked to reduce the length of the song by two minutes. However, nobody had the courage.Barfield, Sebastian. "Seven Ages of Rock: What The World Is Waiting For". BBC, June 2007.
The tracks are more layered and intricate than before, and each contains multiple guitar overdubs.Southall, Nick. "Oasis: Don't Believe The Truth ". Stylus Magazine, 31 May 2005. Retrieved 30 June 2007. While Morris had previously stripped away layers of overdubs on the band's debut Definitely Maybe, during the production of Be Here Now he "seemed to gleefully encourage" such excess; "My Big Mouth" has an estimated thirty tracks of guitar overdubbed onto the song.Harris (2004), p. 334. A Rolling Stone review described the guitar lines as composed of "elementary riffs".
There was some experimentation: "D'You Know What I Mean?" contains a slowed down loop from N.W.A's "Straight Outta Compton",Kessler & MacBain (2025), p. 163. while "Magic Pie" features psychedelically arranged vocal harmonies and a Mellotron. According to Noel, "All I did was run my elbows across the keys and this mad jazz came out and everyone laughed."Sutcliffe, Phil. "'Of course, me and Liam had a row about it ...'" Q, September 1997. The album's production is dominated by top-end high frequency tones, and according to Uncuts Paul Lester, its use of treble is reminiscent of both late 1980s Creation Records bands such as My Bloody Valentine, and the Stooges' famously under-produced Raw Power (1973).