Long before Oasis flamed out in 2009 following nearly a decade of lackluster music, tabloid-fodder soundbites, physical altercations, and competent but predictable live shows, a late ‘90s critic remarked that “one day we might look back, possibly in anger,” and wonder why the Gallagher brothers were once among the most popular rock bands in the world.
Back then, it was much easier to forget how Liam and Noel’s Beatles-loving, Manchester, U.K.-based combo sneered their way to superstardom with their iconic 1994 debut, Definitely Maybe, which helped usher in the Britpop revolution and made sudden stars out of colleagues such as Blur, the Verve, and Pulp. By the following year’s (What’s The Story) Morning Glory, Oasis were a full-scale phenomenon of ego and excess, their obnoxious behavior a small price to pay for classic songs such as “Wonderwall,” “Some Might Say,” and “Champagne Supernova.” The album sold an astonishing 23 million copies worldwide.
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Sure, the 1997 follow-up Be Here Now was a mixed bag of big ideas, baffling guest appearances, and bad lyrics that still moved 10 million units, but Oasis never recovered, and their subsequent four full-lengths seldom came close to reaching those soul-satisfying early peaks. With their antics no longer funny and their music consistent but rarely exciting, Liam and Noel became the very thing they mercilessly mocked in the first place: just an ordinary band.
History, however, has been more kind to the Gallaghers’ output and despite Noel’s longtime public proclamations to the contrary, a reunion was inevitable, even if it was purely motivated by dollars and cents (or, in Noel’s case, a rumored costly divorce). The news was finally confirmed earlier this week when Oasis announced more than a dozen massive comeback U.K. shows for summer 2025, days before the release of an expanded 30th anniversary edition of Definitely Maybe. Expect every single one of the million-plus available seats to sell out within moments.
“I used to meet guys back in the ’90s who were 15, who had just started bands because of Oasis,” Noel told SPIN in 2005, acknowledging the multi-generational appeal of his band’s music. “And now I meet guys who are 25, who sold a million records because of Oasis. It makes me feel pretty good.” In honor of all the hubbub, SPIN assesses the seven studio albums in the Oasis discography as well as the b-sides collection The Masterplan, but more on that in a moment…
8. Don’t Believe the Truth (2005)
“Come on, turn up the sun / turn it up for everyone,” Liam growls nonsensically on the first track of Oasis’ sixth album, and things don’t improve much over the 40 subsequent minutes. There are Lou Reed ripoffs (“Mucky Fingers”), humdrum, acoustic guitar-driven pap (“Part of the Queue” and “Lyla,” a being for whom Liam has waited “a thousand years” to “come and blow me off my mind,” or something…), and songs that are as confusing metaphorically as they are musically (is Liam really comparing himself to Biblical king of pain Abel, who was, naturally, murdered by his own brother?). Zak Starkey capably takes over the drum chair here for longtime member Alan White, and the Liam/Gem Archer co-write “Love Like a Bomb” demonstrates their gradual, workmanlike improvement in the songwriting department. Still, “the lack of urgency makes it feel like we’re eavesdropping on a well-heeled Britpop Survivors Group rather than the site of fresh rock’n’roll alchemy,” proclaimed Uncut. “It’s Oasis’ attempts to capture former pinnacles, from trying to re-create the simple sunny-side-up pleasures of ‘Live Forever’ to trying for another album-ending mountain like ‘Champagne Supernova,’ that keep their latter-day output so entirely forgettable,” wrote the Village Voice.
7. Dig Out Your Soul (2008)
You’d be forgiven if you cranked up Dig Out Your Soul’s solid first single, “The Shock of the Lightning,” and wondered whether you’d inadvertently time-warped back to Tony Blair’s 1994 – that’s how similar it sounds to the driving, attitudinal, meat-and-potatoes Oasis music of that era. And that, friends, is the perpetual agony and ecstasy of a band that unceremoniously broke up on the tour in support of this release. You won’t find anything new or unexpected here, and Noel even told the press ahead of time that he’d “literally got nothing left to write about” aside from the psychedelic trips he took as a younger man. So, what we receive instead is everything from a strange, gloomy stomp-and-clap with hardly any lyrics (“(Get Off Your) High Horse Lady”), a bunch of slow-footed whatevers (“Waiting for the Rapture,” “Bag It Up,” “The Nature of Reality”), and several songs that sound like inferior versions of the younger, better Oasis of yore (“The Turning,” “I’m Outta Time,” “Falling Down”). Dig Out Your Soul is not exactly a whimper of a final salvo from Liam and Noel, but it’s certainly another disappointment amid a nearly decade-long series of subpar offerings. “An almost comically generic Oasis release,” opined Rolling Stone’s Jody Rosen. “This sounds like a tired band that had already gone through the motions before it even started,” added Paste’s Rob O’Connor.
6. Heathen Chemistry (2002)
Liam has proclaimed Heathen Chemistry his least favorite Oasis album, so why should the rest of us feel differently? This is where the wheels started to fall off the party bus. New guitarist Gem Archer and Ride’s Andy Bell (on bass, despite never having played it before in a band) swapped in for departed original members Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs and Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan (who each left in 1999), and they do their best to breathe some life into the proceedings. Indeed, Archer’s simple rocker “Hung in a Bad Place” is one of the more palatable cuts here, while Bell’s 77-second instrumental “A Quick Peep” is almost like Oasis soundtracking an Old West train robbery (talk about a path not taken!). Thankfully, Liam steps up with his best solo-penned number to date, “Songbird,” even if it’s a song about writing a song to that special lady. Noel’s “Little by Little” has the hearty chords and stiff upper lip delivery of Oasis’ early work, while the weepy but trite “Stop Crying Your Heart Out” was a No. 2 U.K. hit. The rest is largely and/or actually filler, including the lethargic “Force of Nature” and the 30 minutes (!?!) of silence tacked on after the bland closing boogie “Better Man” in some bizarre tribute to avant-garde composer John Cage.
5. Standing on the Shoulder of Giants (2000)
Ah, yes, the fourth album: the make-or-break moment where the Gallagher brothers could veer off their own well-traveled yellow brick road of Britpop and pave some — or any — kind of new sonic territory. On first listen, it sounds like the band’s work permit was yanked on the first day, as barely three of the 10 songs here make any initial impression. Rather, they seem to float by, content to do the absolute bare minimum to get the job done. “Go Let It Out!” is the epitome of Oasis by-the-numbers, with inane lyrics (“go let it out / go let it in”), the stock Beatles nod (the toot-toot organ from “Strawberry Fields Forever”), and the kind of catchy melody Noel can scribble out in a cognac stupor. Elsewhere, Liam’s much-ballyhooed songwriting debut “Little James” instantly became the worst Oasis track ever released to that point (sample couplet: “live for your toys / even though they make noise”). Noel sings two of the three keepers here, his voice shining through the measured transitions and uplifting choruses of “Sunday Morning Call” and the rhetorical question-stuffed, mid-tempo rocker “Where Did It All Go Wrong?” Best of all is “Roll It Over,” a slow-burn closer free from Oasis’ often scripted bombast and reigned in with a subtlety Noel had rarely displayed until now. If nothing else, Standing bought Noel and Liam another lease, albeit a short one.
4. The Masterplan (1998)
SPIN normally doesn’t include b-side collections such as this in our album rankings, but we’re making an exception here due to the unusually high quality of The Masterplan, the content of which was partially dictated by online fan input and rounds up nearly every notable b-side from Oasis’ ‘umpteen 90s singles. The most interesting songs find Noel indulging in influences that hardly ever permeated Oasis’ sound at the time: “Underneath the Sky” is a strident, minor-key lovely that nods to the Smiths, while the glorious, anthemic “Acquiesce” offers perfectly executed vocal harmonies and more guitar hooks than Jimmy Page’s meat locker. It’s hard to imagine why the latter didn’t make Morning Glory (instead, it was the b-side to “Some Might Say”), but it’s no wonder it became a U.S. rock radio hit once released on this album. On the softer side, the acoustic, Noel-sung “Talk Tonight” and “Half the World Away” are stunners, with the latter improbably becoming one of Oasis’ top streaming tracks years after the fact. One might quibble with the inclusion of average stuff such as “Listen Up” (basically “Supersonic” with more major chords) and “Stay Young” (a hand-clapping sing-along that subtly swipes numerous bits from other tunes), which could easily have been replaced with the marvelous Definitely Maybe-era outtake “Alive” or the Stevie Wonder-nicked “Step Out” (he sued, prompting the song’s ouster from Morning Glory). Yes, under normal circumstances, it would be hard to justify a band with only three studio LPs under their belt releasing a 14-track odds-and-sods set. That said, at its best, The Masterplan is better than a lot of bands’ regular efforts. At worst, it was a fine way to pass the time until Standing on the Shoulder of Giants…
3. Be Here Now (1997)
Great rock’n’roll, from the Beatles to Led Zeppelin, has never really been about originality. Put the right melodies together with the right beats, add a half-memorable lyric, and the result will stand a chance of striking a chord with listeners (who have short memories). Noel knows this only too well, perhaps explaining why Oasis’ third album is virtually interchangeable with Definitely Maybe or Morning Glory. No matter, because the songs are even more epic (not to mention apparently fueled by piles of cocaine), the arrangements even more layered and intricate (Johnny Depp guitar solo, anyone?), and Liam intones throughout in a compressed, acerbic wail that roars from his throat like a jet engine. “D’You Know What I Mean” stomps out of the gate with a macho pronouncement of return (“I met my maker / made him cry”), while “My Big Mouth” is a riff-heavy, kick-ass rocker that swaggers into a trademark soaring chorus. The refrain of the lighter-waving show-stopper “Stand By Me” is heart-melting, sinking its quick, E-bow-tinged chord changes into your chest like your heart is being surgically removed. And despite a shoddy middle-eight, “Don’t Go Away” will likely find a lovelorn soul with a hell of a lump in their throat by the time its tenderly plucked ending is complete. By turns surprisingly sincere and stunningly arrogant, Be Here Now effectively painted Oasis into a stylistic corner from which they couldn’t escape. However, the Gallagher brothers are right on more than they’re way off here, reminding us that sometimes, great music can just be.
2. Definitely Maybe (1994)
Four months after Kurt Cobain’s suicide, when many British bands were still trying in vain to match the angst and power of Nirvana and their American grunge brethren, Oasis emerged from Manchester seemingly fully formed in the complete opposite direction. It was almost as if the Gallagher brothers were weaned on little more than lifelong sibling rivalry, the complete Beatles catalog, Guinness, and their giant ambitions. As such, in 1994 there was nothing else really like Definitely Maybe in the marketplace, and it quickly filled a void by producing four huge U.K. hits (“Supersonic,” “Shakermaker,” “Live Forever,” “Cigarettes & Alcohol”) that propelled it to become the fastest-selling debut album in the country’s history. It also turned the scruffy, uncouth, and charming Gallaghers into overnight sensations whose irreverent banter was reported on as heavily, if not moreso, than Oasis’ actual music. Luckily, 30 years on, it’s the songs that still make Definitely Maybe an all-timer, despite their questionable fidelity and amusing lack of originality (the melody for “Shakermaker” was so similar to future Coke anthem “I’d Like To Teach the World To Sing (in Perfect Harmony)” that Oasis got sued). There’s one superlative cut after another here: the ultimate loud-and-proud statements of purpose on opener “Rock’n’Roll Star” and “Live Forever,” the massive “Supersonic” and “Cigarettes & Alcohol,” the “Let’s not break up” musical plea “Slide Away,” and ever-so-slightly-nuanced favorites such as “Digsy’s Dinner” (“I’ll pick you up at half past three / we’ll have lasagna,” Liam offers). “Of all the great new British pop groups, Oasis are the least playful, the least concerned with post-modern sleights of influence,” wrote Melody Maker’s Paul Lester. “Definitely Maybe is ‘What the World’s Been Waiting For’ – a record full of songs to live to, made by a gang of reckless northern reprobates who you can easily dream of joining.” To be sure, the album was a cultural supernova across the Atlantic, but in the U.S., Oasis were still playing in clubs until…
1. (What’s the Story) Morning Glory (1995)
… the Nov. 14, 1995, release of the single “Wonderwall,” which literally changed everything. Anyone under 40 has probably listened to this song hundreds if not thousands of times on the radio, on MTV, in beer-soaked bar singalongs, at weddings, or as performed by amiable neighborhood street/subway buskers, and it finally unlocked Oasis for the rest of the world outside the U.K. “People tell me that whenever they hear ‘Wonderwall,’ it transports them back in time to when they first heard it, which is all you can ask for from a record,” Noel once enthused. Beyond that, it’s fair to say there are no skippable songs on Morning Glory, which radiates an optimism and no-fucks-given vibe most definitely not yet back in vogue at a time when alternative rock was still largely mired in darkness. The lyrics here are alternately profound and preposterous, but when Liam reminds that “you’ve got to say what you say / don’t let anybody get in your way” on “Roll With It” or assures “we will find a brighter day” on “Some Might Say,” it’s almost impossible not to believe him. Closer “Champagne Supernova” is like Oasis’ “A Day in the Life” or “Stairway to Heaven” – seven-and-a-half-minutes of life-affirming vocal earworms and killer guitar playing that eventually explode blissfully into the heavens. “Tomorrow never knows what it doesn’t know too soon,” but all Liam needs is “a little time to wake up” on the propulsive title track and to unchain from the places “he never wished to stay” on the beautiful, string-kissed, “Wonderwall”-lite “Cast No Shadow.” Noel’s first lead vocal on an Oasis album is, appropriately, “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” which is arguably the best song John Lennon never wrote and may have reached a billion Spotify streams by the time you read this. “Please don’t put your life in the hands of a rock’n’roll band / who’ll throw it all away,” he instructs. Noel’s warning be damned, because millions of people are about to do exactly that next summer when Oasis return to the stage. Let’s get mad fer it.
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