Force-O De Mayo (May the Force Be Here Now)

by Chris McGinty of AccordingToWhim.com

Only once every 7 million years does National Star Wars Day and National Cerveza Day fall on Saturday and Sunday [editors note: give or take 7 million years], and you’re alive to experience it. Now maybe by the time you read this you’ll feel like the Day of the Dead warmed over. Yeah! Woot! High cinco, Bro!

Speaking of Bro, that’s how I celebrated May the Fourth Be With You Day was by showing my brother a video that breaks down the character arcs of “The Last Jedi,” which are all very impressively written. You see, my brother is in the camp of fans who believe that “The Last Jedi” completely sucked. I just don’t get it, but I might as well take this moment to officially blog about my theory about the band Oasis.

Oasis is the Star Wars of Brit Pop. In 1994, Oasis released their first album “Definitely, Maybe,” which gave a new hope to music lovers… ok, maybe I’m taking that a bit too far. But it was a very good album, and it caught people’s attention. In 1995, Oasis released “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory,” and seriously, it was an amazing album. Then much like the Star Wars movies from “Return of the Jedi” on, Oasis continued to release perfectly fine albums that fans just couldn’t accept as a unified group.

Listening to individual tracks from 1997’s “Be Here Now” I was reading the comments sections of the different songs, and I was wondering if the writers of the comments were hearing the same songs as I was. It seemed like half of the audience hated any given song while the other half loved it. I was highly amused when somebody pointed out, “If every song from this album is the only good song from this album then that means the whole album is good, right?”

The thing about Oasis is that they have die-hard fans who hate everything after the second album, which seems a bit insane to me. Then again, the Star Wars die-hards are a group of people who haven’t liked anything the franchise has done since 1981, and that seems insane to me as well.

Oasis has put out seven studio albums to date, with the most recent being in 2008, but I think that they’re missing a wonderful opportunity here. Oasis could release their own “The Last Jedi” for their eighth “saga” album (Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds could be like the stand alones). It would require that Oasis’s eighth album was a complete and total progressive rock album dripping with music theory, time signature changes, and deeply mathematic musical perfection, but it couldn’t sound like an Oasis album. Sure, it would be their voices, and there would be an occasional nod to The Beatles, but the fans would have to agree that they were not being true to their sound, and that it’s entirely possible that they were just trying to piss off their fan base.

Then there would be review after review on You Tube talking about how bad the album was, because it just wasn’t what Oasis was supposed to be. Soon after, there would be a bunch of elite music majors making videos explaining why it is that the album was musically correct in all ways, and the comments would be a bunch of fans saying, “It doesn’t matter if it was technically written well, it’s still awful!”

And this is my May the Fourth wish for the world, because you can’t exactly wish for world peace on Star “Wars” day, can you?

Anyway, on a final serious note; I’m saddened by the recent passing of Peter Mayhew. From what I understand, he was a super fan of Star Wars fandom, and truly embraced the fame that Star Wars brought him. It’s hard to believe, but there was a time when actors would try to distance themselves from sci-fi jobs they had taken in the past, so it’s nice to know that Peter Mayhew let his geek flag fly long before the mainstream said it was ok.

Chris McGinty is a blogger, and he’s one of those assholes who insists on enjoying the experience of watching Star Wars movies. He also wonders why National Star Wars Day isn’t on May 25th, but what does he know?