Standing on the Shoulder of Giants is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Oasis, released on February 28, 2000. In 1999, the year preceding the final release of this album, Oasis had lost two founding members (Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs and Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan) and hired a new producer (Mark "Spike" Stent) to replace Owen Morris. As a result of these changes, the album's tone was more experimental, with electronica and psychedelic influences. The darker feeling and psychedelic tone of this album was a noticeable departure from their straight ahead rock and roll style of the 90's.
Songs such as the Indian-influenced "Who Feels Love?", the progressive "Gas Panic!" and the electronica "Go Let It Out" were a departure from the band's earlier style. The album was the sixth fastest selling album in UK chart history, selling over 310,000 copies in its first week. Despite becoming their fourth number one album in the UK, it is also one of the band's lowest-selling albums, selling 3 million copies worldwide.
All tracks written by Noel Gallagher, except where noted.
"Fuckin' in the Bushes" – 3:18
"Go Let It Out" – 4:38
"Who Feels Love?" – 5:44
"Put Yer Money Where Yer Mouth Is" – 4:27
"Little James" (Liam Gallagher) – 4:15
"Gas Panic!" – 6:08
"Where Did It All Go Wrong?" – 4:26
"Sunday Morning Call" – 5:12
"I Can See a Liar" – 3:12
"Roll It Over" – 6:31
The album's title was taken from the words made famous by Sir Isaac Newton: "If I can see further than anyone else, it is only because I am standing on the shoulders of giants". Noel Gallagher saw the quote on the side of a £2 coin while in a pub and liked it so much he thought it would be a suitable name for Oasis' new album. He then wrote the name on the side of a cigarette packet while drunk. When he awoke in the morning, he realised he had written "Standing on the Shoulder of Giants — A bum Title".
Due to the departure of Bonehead and Guigsy from the band while the album was still in production, their parts had to be re-recorded, for legal reasons. Thus, the album only features the Gallagher brothers and Alan White. The sleeve of the album also features them.
The album's artwork features the photo of New York skyline made from the rooftop of the Rockefeller Center. Some famous bulildings can be seen here, for example - Empire State Building is seen in front and WTC is seen in the back. This photo has a very special effect - it's impossible to say during what time of day it was shot. To reach this effect, the photographer had to capture the same frame every half an hour in 18 hours during the whole day's course. Then the photos were digitally edited and united into the actual picture. No visual effects were used while creating it. All of the singles released from this album contained artwork that was based on the album artwork; the shot used for "Go Let It Out" can be seen above one of the buildings at the front.
In the April 2006 issue of Q magazine, the album was the only Oasis record to feature in a countdown of the "50 worst albums of all time". It was placed at number 46 and described as "the low point of their fallow years", despite the fact that the album had been favourably reviewed in the magazine at its time of release and featured in the magazine's "50 Best Albums of 2000" list. In response to the Q feature, Noel has said, "Even though it wasn't our finest hour, it's a good album born through tough times. I worked harder on that album than anything before and anything since."
A notable B-Side was "Let's All Make Believe". This song was on the "Go Let It Out" single and is said to be one of the bands finest songs. Q Magazine declared it the greatest ever "lost" track in the February 2007 issue and said that if it had been on the album it would have carried "an extra star" on the review, which would have boosted the album's rating to 5 stars.
A bootleg of demo sessions recorded for this album was leaked onto the internet in January 2000. Most of these songs were recorded by Noel Gallagher with the help of a couple of friends in his home studio at Supernova Heights and at Oasis' own Wheeler End Studios complex. All of the songs, apart from "Little James", were sung by Noel.
The track listing of the demo bootleg is:
"Carry Us All"
"Who Feels Love?"
"Fuckin' in the Bushes"
"Little James"
"Gas Panic!"
"Put Yer Money Where Yer Mouth Is"
"Sunday Morning Call"
"I Can See a Liar"
"Go Let It Out"
"Roll It Over"
"Revolution Song"
"Where Did It All Go Wrong?"
"(As Long As They've Got) Cigarettes in Hell"
"Just Getting Older"
"Let There Be Love"
At the time of the leak, four songs ("Carry Us All", "Revolution Song", "Just Getting Older" and "Let There Be Love") were not scheduled for release on either the album or as B-sides on the new single "Go Let It Out". These songs were also completely undocumented, apart from "Revolution Song", which had been mentioned by author Paolo Hewitt in his 1999 book Forever the People — Six Months on the Road with Oasis. As such, these four songs had made-up titles based on commonly-repeated phrases mentioned in the songs. Whilst "Carry Us All" and "Just Getting Older" were correctly guessed, the other two tracks were given titles which, in time, would prove to be incorrect. "Revolution Song" was given the title "Solve My Mystery" and "Let There Be Love" was given the title "It's a Crime". "Let There Be Love" was released on Don't Believe the Truth. Because Noel mentioned in a February 23, 2000 interview with Melody Maker magazine that "Revolution Song" had been demoed — but not released because Blur had recently released a similar sounding song ("Tender") — it can be assumed that these titles are correct.
Currently, only one song ("Revolution Song") remains commercially unreleased.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_Shoulder_of_Giants
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