This song is, in so many ways, Oasis-By-Numbers; the lyrics that reference well-known pop cultural artifacts in the middle of meaningless platitudes (“Love is a time machine/Up on the silver screen/Love is a litany/A magical mystery”) before going on to exhort something of the listener (“Come in/Come out/Come in/Come out tonight”), sneered against a wall of noise made up of every instrument seemingly being turned up to 11 and just played without any artifice or self-awareness. And yet, it works because of that, not despite of it. There’s no there there in this song, no hidden meaning or secret that you only discover after repeated listens – You either get this or you don’t. It’s thug music pretending to be hippie music, and that always been what Oasis is, deep down. It’s not even a “you’re either on the bus or you’re off it” thing; if you’re not on Oasis’ bus, they’ll probably accidentally run you over because they genuinely don’t give a fuck, and not even in the poserish “We don’t give a fuck” sense; it’s because they’re too dumb to think to do it. The work of idiot savants, “The Shock of The Lightning” even has a drum solo that, against all logic, may just be the best part of the song (Jump to 3:02 if you don’t believe me).
A song this bad becomes good, or at least appealing, true. But still: It really doesn’t deserve this amazingly good Julian House-directed video, which gets psychedelia far more than the band ever did.