Watching Oasis' precipitous decline from Brit-pop superstardom has sort of been like watching the Yankees blow it last October: You knew they had it coming, but it was still kind of sad to see. Don't Believe the Truth, their seventh album, isn't the comeback fans have long been praying for, but it's the first Oasis album in years that doesn't sound like pale self-imitation. The bigger presence of guitarist Gem Archer as well as an increased emphasis on texture — including plenty of subdued psych-rock atmosphere — rescue confidently rockin' winners such as "The Meaning of Soul" from the kind of dunderheaded grand gestures Oasis had gotten increasingly worse at writing, and tracks like "The Importance of Being Idle" channel laid-back Sixties-pop cool. So: Now that they've fought off complacency and cocaine, can we get that Behind the Music episode?

“Everyday People”

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.