Christmastime has more than a few classic songs. Festive momentum like this can be found in the staples of the period, the Slade or Wizzard stuff. Garden variety supermarket filler which still has its charm, somehow never ending despite the sonic waterboarding which occurs from November to January. Oasis covering the Slade classic Merry Christmas Everybody is an inevitability. For a band who spent most of their time hailing The Beatles and making it sound like cheap riffs on rock and roll, it was inevitable that their appropriation of Merry Christmas Everybody would be as unremarkable as the rest of their covers. And yet they top it off with one of their last releases. A cover album collection lost to time, but not to the hardened Oasis fan.
All Noel Gallagher can do here is what he does for every profound or performative thought he has. Slap an acoustic guitar in the mix and slow it down. Create heart where there already was one. Overtake the meaning of the original with a coy and insincere presentation as plain as the music the band were responsible for. It seems like Liam Gallagher was nowhere to be found for this piece and if he was present his additions to the context and refinement of the Slade classic are minimal at best. Perhaps he learned from The Beatles covers of the past that the brothers could add very little, if anything, to the classics. Context matters undoubtedly for why Gallagher may have chosen this route for Merry Christmas Everybody. But the post-Standing on the Shoulder of Giants recording session and the so-called instrumental comedown Gallagher suffered during the period after has stuck with him for over a decade.
It is not like this rendition of the Slade classic is any different from every other Gallagher song as of late. Merry Christmas Everybody works because of the beauty heard in the original, the lack of sophistication and depth to being jolly about the most wonderful time of year. Retrofitting some heartbreak and accordion in there for a reflective purpose is a fine idea but the execution is fairly pitiful. A monotone performance from a man trying to bring subtlety to a song made by a glam rock outfit. Those moments of grandma kissing Santa Claus, where Gallagher tries to recreate a studio accident equivalent to The Beatles discovering feedback is a tragic waste. If anything, it’ll cause those with tinnitus a bit of discomfort.
Though it may never be right to call a song or cover pointless, it is worth questioning what Gallagher had hoped for in covering this beyond throwing a bone to a Christmas album in need of a few big names. Those who want a sharper, mellower Christmastime need only turn to the likes of Jona Lewie, The Pogues or Mud for a slice of heartbreak on this festive occasion. The nail in the coffin for this Gallagher version is the repetition at the end, a charming and euphoric piece for Slade as they shift gear into the joys of festive spirit, but a dire and drab occasion for Gallagher. Unremarkable songs come and go and though nothing is played particularly wrong here, Gallagher fights a losing battle in trying to one-up the fundamentals of a Slade classic.
