Plays the Music of Oasis
Plays the Music of Oasis is an album by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, released on 21 October 1997 on the Music Club label. It contains the Orchestra's instrumental renderings of songs by the English rock band Oasis. Critical reception. "Plays the Music of Oasis" received largely negative reviews. Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave it 2.5 stars out of 5, writing, "The Royal Philharmonic's series of orchestral interpretations of pop music is of dubious merit -- no matter how good the source material is (Beatles, Dylan, Prince), they are albums that were made strictly for their  novelty value and "Play the Music of Oasis" is no exception." J. D. Considine was also highly unfavorable in his review of the album, which he described as "a dozen Oasis songs in dreary, elevator music-style orchestrations". In another negative review, Brett Milano compared "Plays the Music of Oasis" to similar albums released in the 1960s that consisted of orchestral versions of Beatles songs. Milano wrote, "...it's good to know that some things never change, because the "tribute" by the Royal Philharmonic sounds just as clumsy as any rock/classical crossover that Arthur Fiedler or the Hollyridge Strings  ever attempted." Similarly, Mark Jenkins wrote in "The Washington Post" that "[d]espite the presence of the orchestra, this is just banal instrumental rock." Scott Bacon of "the Indianapolis Star" was more favorable in his review of the album, giving it 3 out of 4 stars and stating, "The RPO's timeless take on these numbers made it seem like they really could have been penned by the Beatles". Another relatively favorable review came from Tom Latham, who gave the album a B grade and wrote that "the overall tone of "The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Plays the Music of Oasis" is  so playful, so reverent of brother Noel’s Beatlesque muse, the set actually works." Track listing. All tracks written by Noel Gallagher, except where noted.