Two brothers. Two eyebrows. A mountain of guitars. Several oceans of lager. And enough sibling arguments to keep the British tabloids employed for decades.
There have been bigger bands than Oasis.
There have been more technically accomplished bands than Oasis.
There have certainly been bands whose members appeared to like each other considerably more than Oasis did.
But has there ever been another band quite so British?
Probably not, mun.
Oasis didnโt simply become successful during the 1990s. For a few glorious, ridiculous years, they became part of the furniture of British life.
Their songs blasted from bedrooms, pubs, football terraces, student unions, nightclubs and battered car stereos. Liam Gallagherโs walk became instantly recognisable. Noel Gallagherโs interviews became almost as entertaining as the records. Parkas suddenly became acceptable clothing regardless of the weather.
And somewhere, at every house party in Britain, somebody inevitably found an acoustic guitar.
You already know what happened next.
๐ต Wonderwall.
But reducing Oasis to one enormous song does them a massive disservice.
Their story is one of ambition, brotherhood, arrogance, phenomenal songwriting, working-class aspiration, spectacular success, spectacular arguments, excess, reinvention, collapse and โ against seemingly impossible odds โ resurrection.
So rather than simply ranking their greatest tunes, weโre doing something different.
Weโre telling the story of Oasis through 12 songs.
Turn it up.
Grab a pint.
Put the parka on.
Weโre going back to Manchester.
๐ธ 1. SUPERSONIC โ THE ARRIVAL
1994
If youโre going to announce yourselves to Britain, you might as well swagger through the front door like you already own the building.
Thatโs essentially what Oasis did with โSupersonic.โ
Released as their debut single in April 1994, it contained virtually everything that would define early Oasis.
Huge guitars.
Liamโs unmistakable voice.
Noelโs instinct for melody.
Lyrics that somehow sounded profound even when you werenโt entirely sure what they meant.
And confidence.
Sweet merciful hell, the confidence.
This wasnโt a band politely asking whether there might be room for them in British rock.
Oasis sounded like theyโd already decided they were going to become the biggest band in the country and were simply waiting for everyone else to catch up.
Britain was about to.
โSupersonicโ didnโt immediately become some gigantic chart-conquering monster, but it introduced something British music desperately needed.
Swagger.
The grunge explosion had transformed rock music globally, but Britain was beginning to rediscover its own identity.
Oasis didnโt sound American.
They didnโt want to.
They sounded like Manchester.
And they sounded absolutely convinced that Manchester was about to conquer the planet.
๐ 2. LIVE FOREVER โ THE DREAM
If โSupersonicโ kicked the door open, โLive Foreverโ told us why Oasis mattered.
This was the moment the bravado revealed something underneath.
Hope.
Noel Gallagher wrote a song that rejected the bleakness surrounding much alternative rock of the era and replaced it with something almost ridiculously optimistic.
The idea was simple:
Life might be messy.
Britain might be grey.
You might be skint.
You might have absolutely no idea what youโre doing with your life.
But maybe โ just maybe โ something incredible could happen.
That feeling became central to Oasis.
Their audience wasnโt watching untouchable rock gods floating above ordinary life.
These were lads who looked like people youโd see walking down the street.
Then suddenly they were on television.
Then the charts.
Then arenas.
Then stadiums.
Oasis made ambition feel accessible.
โLive Foreverโ wasnโt simply a great song.
It became a declaration.
Weโre getting out of here.
And thousands of kids across Britain heard it and thought:
Maybe I can too.
โญ 3. ROCK โNโ ROLL STAR โ THE MANIFESTO
Most bands wait until theyโve actually become rock stars before announcing it.
Oasis couldnโt be bothered with that nonsense.
The opening track of Definitely Maybe essentially declared victory before the battle had properly started.
โRock โnโ Roll Starโ is Oasis mythology compressed into one enormous guitar tune.
Liam sounds utterly convinced.
Noelโs guitars are massive.
The whole thing walks around like it has just won ยฃ20 on a scratchcard and immediately spent ยฃ35 celebrating.
๐๐บ
And thatโs the magic of Definitely Maybe.
Released in August 1994, the album captured Oasis before superstardom changed everything.
Thereโs hunger in it.
Thereโs frustration.
Thereโs escapism.
Thereโs that unmistakable feeling of young people staring at ordinary life and demanding something bigger.
The album became one of the defining British debuts of its generation.
Suddenly Oasis werenโt merely promising to become rock stars.
They were rock stars.
And Britain was paying attention.
๐ 4. SOME MIGHT SAY โ OASIS REACH THE TOP
Then came โSome Might Say.โ
Released in 1995, it gave Oasis their first UK No.1 single.
That mattered.
Because Oasis were no longer merely the exciting guitar band from Manchester.
They were becoming the band.
Britpop was exploding.
Blur were enormous.
Pulp were brilliant.
Suede had helped kick the doors open.
British guitar music was suddenly dominating the cultural conversation.
And Oasis were charging directly towards the centre of it.
โSome Might Sayโ has everything youโd want from peak-era Oasis: enormous guitars, Liam stretching vowels into entirely new geographical regions and a chorus designed to be yelled by several thousand people simultaneously.
But the success also marked something bigger.
The underground journey was finished.
Oasis had reached No.1.
Now things were about to become completely bloody ridiculous.
โค๏ธ 5. WONDERWALL โ THE SONG THAT ESCAPED OASIS
Right.
We need to talk about that song.
You know the chords.
Your neighbour knows the chords.
Your mate who bought an acoustic guitar three weeks ago knows the chords.
Some bloke called Dave currently sitting beside a campfire at a festival probably knows the chords.
๐ฅ๐ธ
Released in 1995, โWonderwallโ became something beyond Oasis.
It escaped.
There are successful songs, there are anthems, and then there are songs that become so embedded in popular culture that imagining a world without them becomes difficult.
โWonderwallโ is one of those.
It travelled far beyond Britpop.
Beyond rock fans.
Beyond Britain.
It became weddings, parties, pubs, buskers, karaoke nights, festival campsites and generations of teenagers discovering acoustic guitars.
And while Oasis fans may occasionally pretend theyโre fed up with hearing it, something funny happens when thousands of people sing it together.
Everyone knows every word.
Thatโs cultural immortality.
๐ป 6. DONโT LOOK BACK IN ANGER โ BRITAIN GETS AN ANTHEM
Then Noel stepped up to the microphone.
And somehow Oasis produced another song that became even bigger than the band itself.
โDonโt Look Back in Angerโ has evolved into something extraordinary.
It began as one of the defining songs from (Whatโs the Story) Morning Glory?
It became a live anthem.
Then it became something deeper.
A communal song.
Something sung at football matches, gigs, celebrations and moments when people simply needed to stand together.
There arenโt many songs that can survive being played millions of times and still make an entire crowd throw their arms around complete strangers.
This one can.
Put it on at a pub near closing time and watch what happens.
Someone raises a pint.
Someone points towards absolutely nobody in particular.
And suddenly the whole room is singing.
SOOOOO SALLY CAN WAITโฆ
There it is.
Britain in four minutes and change.
๐ 7. CHAMPAGNE SUPERNOVA โ THE SOUND OF PEAK OASIS
By 1996, Oasis had become enormous.
Not popular.
Not successful.
Enormous.
And โChampagne Supernovaโ sounds exactly like a band realising there may no longer be a ceiling.
Itโs sprawling, psychedelic and completely excessive.
In other words: perfect.
This is the Oasis of Maine Road and Knebworth.
Knebworth in particular has become part of British rock mythology.
Hundreds of thousands attended the two shows, while millions reportedly applied for tickets.
Think about that.
Millions of people wanted to watch a band that only a couple of years earlier had been fighting its way out of Manchester clubs.
It was one of those rare moments when band, audience and culture collided perfectly.
Britpop wasnโt merely popular anymore.
It felt like a national event.
And Oasis were standing on top of the mountain.
The problem with reaching the top?
Eventually youโve got to figure out where the hell you go next.
๐ 8. DโYOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN? โ WHEN EVERYTHING BECAME MASSIVE
The answer, apparently, was:
MAKE EVERYTHING BIGGER.
๐๐ฅ
1997โs Be Here Now arrived under a level of hype that would have crushed most bands before theyโd even plugged in.
Oasis were arguably Britainโs biggest band.
The media wanted more.
The public wanted more.
The record industry definitely wanted more.
So Oasis gave everyone more.
More guitars.
More overdubs.
Longer songs.
Bigger production.
More swagger.
Probably more substances than anyone involved would recommend.
โDโYou Know What I Mean?โ is the perfect snapshot of that era.
Itโs gigantic.
Itโs bombastic.
Itโs ridiculous.
And itโs bloody brilliant fun.
For years, Be Here Now became shorthand for Britpop excess.
But revisiting it now is fascinating.
It sounds like a band trapped inside its own success, attempting to build something large enough to match the mythology surrounding them.
Nothing could.
Peak Oasis had become bigger than Oasis.
๐ผ 9. THE MASTERPLAN โ WHEN THE B-SIDE IS BETTER THAN MOST BANDSโ A-SIDES
Want proof of how absurdly productive Noel Gallagher was during Oasisโ imperial phase?
โThe Masterplanโ was originally a B-side.
A B-SIDE!
Cโmon, butt.
Most bands would sacrifice a drummer for a song that good.
โThe Masterplanโ represents another enormous part of the Oasis story: the treasure chest of songs lurking beneath the obvious singles.
โAcquiesce.โ
โTalk Tonight.โ
โHalf the World Away.โ
โRockinโ Chair.โ
The bandโs B-side catalogue became legendary because Oasis werenโt simply producing good singles.
For a period, Noel appeared to have melodies falling out of his pockets.
โThe Masterplanโ eventually became recognised as one of Oasisโ finest songs.
And rightly so.
It also represents the moment fans began looking beyond the singles and discovering just how deep the catalogue really was.
๐ 10. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING IDLE โ OASIS REFUSE TO DISAPPEAR
Thereโs a lazy version of Oasis history that goes something like this:
Great in the 1990s.
Then nothing.
Then split up.
Absolute rubbish.
Oasis remained capable of producing brilliant music throughout the 2000s.
There were personnel changes.
There were shifting musical trends.
There were, naturally, Gallagher arguments.
But Oasis survived.
And โThe Importance of Being Idleโ is one of the finest examples of their later-period brilliance.
Released in 2005, it showed Noel Gallagher moving away from the gigantic wall-of-guitars formula and embracing something more playful and distinctly British.
It reached No.1 in the UK.
More importantly, it proved Oasis werenโt simply touring nostalgia.
They could still produce songs capable of standing alongside their classics.
The swagger remained.
It had just grown slightly older.
Possibly with a better coat.
โก 11. THE SHOCK OF THE LIGHTNING โ ONE LAST BLAST
By 2008, Oasis had been through almost everything.
Fame.
Fortune.
Britpop.
Tabloid warfare.
Line-up changes.
Critical backlash.
Comebacks.
Sibling arguments.
More sibling arguments.
And then some additional sibling arguments just in case everyone had forgotten they were brothers.
Their final studio album, Dig Out Your Soul, arrived in 2008.
Its lead single, โThe Shock of the Lightning,โ sounded urgent.
Fast.
Heavy.
Alive.
There was still electricity running through Oasis.
But behind the scenes, the relationship between Noel and Liam had deteriorated.
Then came Paris.
August 2009.
Oasis were due to perform at the Rock en Seine festival.
They never made it onto the stage.
A backstage confrontation between the brothers became the final fracture.
Noel left Oasis.
And suddenly one of Britainโs biggest bands was finished.
No farewell tour.
No giant emotional final concert.
No cinematic goodbye.
Justโฆ
Gone.
After years of threatening to implode, Oasis had finally done it.
๐ค 12. ACQUIESCE โ THE SONG THAT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING
There was only one song that could finish this story.
โAcquiesce.โ
Not โWonderwall.โ
Not โLive Forever.โ
Not โDonโt Look Back in Anger.โ
โAcquiesce.โ
Because if you wanted to explain Oasis to somebody using one track, this might be it.
Liam sings.
Noel sings.
The brothers occupy different parts of the song, yet somehow everything works when theyโre together.
And thatโs Oasis.
Two personalities constantly colliding.
Two brothers capable of driving each other completely mad.
Yet when Liam Gallagherโs voice met Noel Gallagherโs songs, something happened that neither could completely reproduce separately.
After the 2009 split, both continued making music.
Liam eventually established a hugely successful solo career.
Noel formed Noel Gallagherโs High Flying Birds.
Both played Oasis songs.
Both filled enormous venues.
Both demonstrated that they absolutely did not need Oasis to remain successful.
And yetโฆ
People kept asking.
Will Oasis ever reunite?
Year after year.
Interview after interview.
Rumour after rumour.
For a long time, the answer appeared to be a resounding:
Absolutely not.
Then, in 2024, the impossible happened.
Oasis announced they were returning.
The reunion became one of the biggest music stories in Britain, with demand demonstrating something remarkable.
The band hadnโt simply survived culturally.
They had crossed generations.
People who saw Oasis during the 1990s wanted tickets.
People who were children during Britpop wanted tickets.
People who werenโt even born when Oasis split wanted tickets.
The songs had done what the brothers once promised.
Theyโd lived forever.
๐ฌ๐ง WHY OASIS MATTERED
Oasis are sometimes discussed as though they were merely a product of Britpop.
They werenโt.
Britpop was the explosion.
Oasis survived the blast.
Their music travelled through generations because beneath all the headlines, arguments, swagger and nonsense were songs people wanted to sing together.
Thatโs the secret.
Oasis songs work in enormous stadiums.
They work in tiny pubs.
They work around festival campsites.
They work when 80,000 people are singing them.
And unfortunately, they also work when your mate produces an acoustic guitar at 2am.
๐ธ
The band captured something deeply British: the ability to combine enormous ambition with complete piss-taking.
They wanted to become the biggest band in the world.
But they still sounded like blokes youโd encounter arguing about football outside a pub.
There was glamour without sophistication.
Confidence without restraint.
Emotion hidden underneath swagger.
And sibling rivalry on a scale that made Christmas dinner in most families look peaceful.
๐๏ธ FROM MANCHESTER TO KNEBWORTH โ AND BACK AGAIN
The Oasis story shouldnโt really have happened.
A working-class Manchester band emerged during the early 1990s, released one of Britainโs defining debut albums, followed it with one of the biggest albums of the decade and became stadium-filling superstars almost overnight.
Then they survived long enough to become an institution.
Then they destroyed themselves.
Then the music refused to disappear.
Thatโs the remarkable bit.
Years passed.
Britpop became nostalgia.
CD collections went into lofts.
Parkas somehow remained fashionable.
New generations discovered Definitely Maybe and (Whatโs the Story) Morning Glory?
Festival crowds kept singing the songs.
Football crowds kept singing the songs.
Liam kept singing the songs.
Noel kept singing the songs.
Britain never really stopped waiting for Oasis.
And eventually Oasis came back.
๐ธ THE RIFF REPORTโS OASIS STORY IN 12 SONGS
- Supersonic โ The arrival
- Live Forever โ The dream
- Rock โnโ Roll Star โ The manifesto
- Some Might Say โ The first No.1
- Wonderwall โ The global phenomenon
- Donโt Look Back in Anger โ The national anthem
- Champagne Supernova โ Peak Oasis
- DโYou Know What I Mean? โ Maximum excess
- The Masterplan โ The incredible B-sides
- The Importance of Being Idle โ The 2000s resurgence
- The Shock of the Lightning โ The final chapter
- Acquiesce โ The Gallagher brothers in one song
๐ค ONE BAND. TWO BROTHERS. MILLIONS OF VOICES.
Maybe thatโs ultimately why Oasis became such a phenomenon.
It wasnโt the parkas.
It wasnโt Britpop.
It wasnโt the Gallagher interviews.
It wasnโt even the arguments.
It was the moment when the songs stopped belonging exclusively to Noel and Liam Gallagher and started belonging to everyone else.
โLive Forever.โ
โWonderwall.โ
โDonโt Look Back in Anger.โ
โChampagne Supernova.โ
โSupersonic.โ
Put one on in the right place and something happens.
People sing.
Young people.
Older people.
Indie fans.
Rock fans.
Metalheads whoโll swear blind they donโt like Oasis before somehow knowing every bloody word.
๐๐ค
Few bands become genuinely woven into the culture of the country that created them.
Oasis did.
They were loud.
They were arrogant.
They were occasionally ridiculous.
They were frequently brilliant.
They fought.
They conquered Britain.
They conquered stadiums.
They imploded.
And somehow, after everythingโฆ
they lived forever.
๐ฌ๐ง๐ธ๐ฅ
Proudly Welsh. Proudly Loud. Zero Apologies.
The Riff Report Blog
