A young
Noel Gallagher at the height of
Oasis' popularity in the mid-'90s declared that the band would not release a compilation CD until the end of their career, since such compilations implied that a band's career was indeed over. A decade later, an older, presumably wiser
Gallagher realized that if you're about to leave your longtime label and that label will release a compilation whether you participate or not, it's better to write your own draft of your band's history than having the label do it for you. And so
Gallagher designed the first
Oasis hits compilation, 2006's double-disc, 18-track
Stop the Clocks. As he so often has done in his career, he looked to
the Beatles for guidance, choosing their two 1973 hits comps
1962-1966 and
1967-1970 -- better known as
The Red Album and
The Blue Album -- as a template for
Stop the Clocks. Those records mixed up hits with album tracks and B-sides to offer an overview of the band's identity, and so it is with
Oasis' double-disc set, as it overlooks big hits -- "Roll with It," "D'You Know What I Mean," "Stand by Me" -- in favor of things that were tucked away on albums or singles. Where the
Beatles albums sampled more or less equally from each phase of their career,
Gallagher is a bit more ruthless in rewriting his own history, thoroughly excising 1997's
Be Here Now from the band's past -- an overreaction that's nevertheless perfectly in line with everything regarding their overblown third album.