Oasis’ much-vaunted comeback will obviously and inevitably be a risible exercise in meticulously stage-managed, money-grabbing nostalgia, and yet, despite my avant-garde cynicism, it remains somehow meaningful to me. I grew up a mere 25 miles from Manchester, and I was but 12-years-old when Morning Glory was released in 1995, so Oasis’ impact on my embryonic taste in music was inestimable. For a few years, they were simply inescapable and, though I was loathe to admit it from beneath my layers of self-consciously countercultural black eyeliner, they were irresistible. Revisiting their oeuvre from the perspective of a grizzled 40-year-old curmudgeon has been a little sobering, if I’m honest, but nonetheless, the sheer profusion of great songs from across their 15-year lifespan remains striking, even if there are some brain cell-corroding lows to go along with the decade-defining highs.
Definitely Maybe (1994)
Noel Gallagher himself described this as a punk album, and indeed, the overall mood of swagger and aggression brings to mind a melodious, Mancunian iteration of the Sex Pistols. But instead of Johnny Rotten’s AS-Level Government and Politics-worthy brain rot, we have wilfully obnoxious northern bluff about being on the dole, homemade lasagne, and above all, escaping a dead-end, post-industrial, post-Thatcherite hellscape to realise the impossible dream of rock’n’roll superstardom. And yet, for all the bravado and glower of songs like “Rock’n’Roll Star”, “Cigarettes and Alcohol”, or “Columbia”, Definitely Maybe is punctuated by unexpected moments of vulnerability: the fragile and soaring “Live Forever”, the crashing distress of “Slide Away”, and even “Supersonic”, with its affecting combination of defiance and resignation. Oasis’ debut album is a splenetic and touching masterpiece that, if we’re being honest, they have never since threatened to surpass.
Rating: * * * * *
Standout track: “Live Forever”
(What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (1995)
After Definitely Maybe made them everybody’s darlings, it was only to be expected that Oasis would reach for the crown of “biggest band in the world” and write a bunch of lighters-aloft rock ballads to be played at rain-drenched British music festivals. So I, for one, forgive them for Morning Glory, because it would be tiresomely po-faced to deny that there is an appropriate time, place, and Class A-substance for collective experience-facilitating singalongs like “Wonderwall”, “Don’t Look Back in Anger” and “Roll With It.” But the nagging feeling that this is all a bit idiotic cannot quite be exorcised, especially if you make the mistake of actually paying attention to the shockingly nonsensical lyrics. Tellingly, Morning Glory’s best moments come when Oasis channel the waspish belligerence of Definitely Maybe, such as on the scowling opener “Hello”, and particularly on the militant, careening title track.
Rating: * * * *
Standout track: “Morning Glory”
Be Here Now (1997)
Morning Glory was ubiquitous, but the pressure to write a follow-up, coupled with the relentless touring, abundant drugs and booze, growing enmity between the band’s sibling protagonists… well. The outcome was never going to be pretty. And indeed, for half of its running time, Be Here Now is a sludgy, cacophonous mess, with meandering, forgettable, overly long songs like “It’s Getting’ Better (Man)”, “I Hope, I Think, I Know”, and the interminable title track all illustrative of a band cracking under the pressure. Nonetheless, Be Here Now remains solidly located within Oasis’ imperial phase; “Stand By Me” is as triumphantly anthemic as anything on Morning Glory; “All Around the World” is bloated Beatles cosplay but it’s a tune nonetheless; while opener “D’You Know What I Mean” features some of Noel’s best lyrics and sounds delightfully “cocky as fuck”, to quote Alex Turner. Returns are clearly diminishing, but the tank is not yet empty.
Rating: * * *
Standout track: “D’You Know What I Mean?”
The Masterplan (1998)
Technically The Masterplan should not be featured in an Oasis deep dive; it’s not a studio album, it’s a collection of B-sides, covers, and live recordings, released in 1998 to plug a gap while the Gallaghers got their acts together after five years of embodying every rock’n’roll cliché imaginable. But it warrants inclusion here because it’s a gem of a record that features some of Noel’s best songs, clearly written at the height of his powers and tossed away as B-sides in the mistaken belief that the fickle muses of songcraft would remain forever on his shoulder, rather than deserting him for an anaemic twat like Chris Martin. It remains nonetheless bewildering that Noel didn’t see fit to construct a studio album around the monumental barrage of “Acquiesce”, “Underneath the Sky”, “Going Nowhere”, “Listen Up”, “Talk Tonight”, “Stay Young”, and particularly the stately, rousing, melancholy title track, which in retrospect sounds almost like an elegiac farewell to the band’s imperial phase.
Rating: * * * *
Standout track: “The Masterplan”
Continued in part II.