On rock radio, the summer mantra has begun: “All my people right here, right now, d’you know what I mean?” It’s the chorus of Oasis’ latest single, “D’You Know What I Mean?,” a throbbing tangle of massive drums and psychedelic guitars spread over a leisurely 6 1/2 minutes.
It would be audacious for most bands to release a single of that length to commercial radio, where the three-minute jingle is the norm, but then Oasis isn’t most bands. The quintet is a multimillion-selling juggernaut that has proclaimed itself the “new Beatles,” the kings of Britpop and the UK rock band most likely to conquer America.
Yes, the third British Invasion — following the Beatles’ conquest of 1964 and the Duran Duran-led synth-pop incursion of 1982 — has finally landed. For years, tuneful guitar-based Britpop ruled in England with bands such as Oasis, Blur and Suede. At the same time, psychedelic dance parties called raves were being orchestrated across Europe by a new wave of electronic artists such as Prodigy and Orbital. Young Americans, meanwhile, spent their cash on Seattle grunge and gangsta rap.
All that began to change last year when Oasis shook down Yankee wallets with the single “Wonderwall.” Now the commercial pump is being primed for the group’s third album, “Be Here Now” (Epic), due out on Aug. 26. It seems destined to duplicate the success of Prodigy’s latest album, “The Fat of the Land” (Mute/Maverick), which made its debut at No. 1 on the pop album chart a few weeks ago and signaled a breakthrough for British rave music.
Although these bands represent the commercial twin peaks of the new British sound in America, the freshest and most adventurous music in the United Kingdom is being made in the valley below the top of the pops, on the new albums by Radiohead and Primal Scream. Whereas Oasis’ chord changes and Prodigy’s techno beats cater to the demands of commercial radio and arena rock, Radiohead’s “OK Computer” (Capitol) and Primal Scream’s “Vanishing Point” (Reprise) stake out the future with their visionary blend of electronic texture and pop songcraft.
Like Oasis, Brit popsters Radiohead have also released a 6 1/2-minute song, “Paranoid Android,” as the lead track and video from their latest album. But unlike the Oasis track, which finds its groove and then pummels it, the Radiohead song twists through four major permutations: a folkish strum, a disconcerting amble, a hymnlike chant and a fractured guitar romp.
On album, the song is part of a lush sonic tapestry, with songs melting into one another, a melding of the pure-pop guitar world of Oasis and the techno-inferno universe of Prodigy. Guitars sound notes that glimmer like far-off satellites on “Subterranean Homesick Alien” and smash the furniture on “Electioneering,” while singer Thom Yorke burrows into the neo-operatic drama of “Exit Music (For a Film)” and subverts the lovely lullaby melody of “No Surprises” with a suicidal plea. On “Lucky,” his voice takes a sad hymn and turns it into a heartbreak anthem with a single leap up an octave.
The album is a bold leap for Radiohead, as well. On its 1993 breakthrough American hit, “Creep,” Radiohead trafficked in the kind of one-dimensional anthem that has become Oasis’ signature. But the band began to explore more adventurous territory on its 1995 release, “The Bends,” and “OK Computer” is denser still, the type of album that can be enjoyed instantly but not fully appreciated until it is heard several times.
Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood says the band felt rushed to record its debut album and that “Creep” was an aberration rather than a template. “With the new album we wanted to get away from the studio clock into a more informal environment,” he says of the band’s decision to record in an apple shed and a house outside Bath in England. Radiohead tinkered with new computer equipment, developed arrangements in loose-limbed jam sessions and then refined songs during two brief 1996 tours.
“Eighty percent of the album is live, with us playing in a room together, but some of the songs, like `Paranoid Android,’ are live bits glued together,” Greenwood says. “The inspiration was everything from the Beatles on `Abbey Road’ to DJ Shadow,” who uses some of the same techniques on his cut-and-splice hip-hop recordings.
The studio-as-instrument approach is even more pronounced on Primal Scream’s “Vanishing Point.” In the past, the group has dabbled with a blend of classic rock and funk influences (Stones, P-Funk, Byrds) and rave-culture beats and textures. But the fusion is complete on this audacious album, as the groove mines everything from dub reggae to techno trance.
“If you could see what I see/Feel what I feel/When my head is on fire,” Bobby Gillespie sings on the opening “Burning Wheel,” a seven-minute carnival swirl that envelops the listener. Vocals are sublimated to the hammering ebb-and-flow subway ride that is “Kowalski,” while “Motorhead” turns the marriage of rock and techno into a head-on collision with its slashing guitars and gouging beats.
It is this sort of daring that distinguishes the music of Primal Scream and Radiohead from their more celebrated British contemporaries. While Oasis and Prodigy own the pop universe at the moment, Radiohead and Primal Scream are busy building the next one.
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Radiohead headlines Thursday at the Riviera.
