100 Best Albums Of All Time

01 Hello

02 Roll with It

03 Wonderwall

04 Don’t Look Back in Anger

05 Hey Now!

06 Untitled (aka ‘The Swamp Song – Excerpt 1’)

07 Some Might Say

08 Cast No Shadow

09 She’s Electric

10 Morning Glory

11 Untitled (aka ‘The Swamp Song – Excerpt 2’)

12 Champagne Supernova

Anyone with an interest in rock & roll in May 1995, when Oasis began two months of recording at Rockfield Studios in Wales, would have told you that the next Oasis record would have been a monster. However, perhaps no-one then could have predicted that it would be one of the most important British records since A Hard Day’s Night.

Oasis’ debut album, Definitely Maybe, put the lead back into the pencil of British rock &roll. They cut through the self-loathing that grunge had brought to rock. They were not ironic, they were not trying to reinvent rock & roll; they just wanted to pull birds, take drugs and most of all play big, loud songs with melodic guitar hooks. They were, it must be said, a very good rock & roll band – Liam and Noel Gallagher with guitarist Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs, bassist Paul McGuigan and new drummer Alan White – that were as tight and smart as Carnaby Street trousers.

Oasis arrived coincidentally with Tony Blair’s new vision for Britain – a new era of optimism dubbed Cool Britannia. According to Noel Gallagher, ‘Most of the songs [on What’s the Story?] are about pride and sticking your chest out and standing up for yourself’. The title track, with its reference to being chained to a mirror and a razor blade or walking down the street with a Walkman playing the Beatles, is set against a massive bank of overdriving guitars and Liam’s huge declamatory rail. It’s the single biggest-sounding UK rock song since the Sex Pistols.

Producers Owen Morris and Noel Gallagher created a huge compressed guitar sound that was more forceful than any of their contemporaries. On some tracks it’s like the roar of a jet plane. The group proved itself on its ability to deliver live and the sessions for the album were preceded by two weeks of intense rehearsal. Once in the studio the album was cut almost live – a track a day for most songs. ‘Roll with It’, ‘Hello’ and ‘Morning Glory’ were done in one take each. Only the seven-minute epic ‘Champagne Supernova’ took ‘some thinking’ and stretched to two days.

The album is in part a love letter to British rock: the Jam’s Paul Weller guests on guitar on ‘Champagne Supernova’, the track ‘Cast No Shadow’ was written about Verve singer Richard Ashcroft, and the song ‘Wonderwall’ takes its name from a George Harrison soundtrack album. Elsewhere, ‘She’s Electric’ features a guitar solo not far from Harrison’s ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ and the album’s opening cut borrows heavily from Gary Glitter.

Gallagher’s benchmark, however, was always the Beatles. ‘It’s beyond an obsession. It’s an ideal for living,’ he said. ‘I don’t even know how to justify it to myself. With every song that I write I compare it to the Beatles. I’ve got semi-close once or twice. “Live Forever” I suppose, “Don’t Look Back In Anger”, “Whatever”. The thing is, they got there before me. If I’d been born at the same time as John Lennon I’d have been up there. Well, I’d definitely have been better than Gerry and the fuckin’ Pacemakers, I know that.’

His finest song to that point was the ballad ‘Wonderwall’ inspired by his then girlfriend Meg Matthews. Initially he wanted to sing the song but his brother disagreed strongly (natch!) and Liam does perhaps his best vocal; unsentimental and tough, but dripping with emotion. ‘Wonderwall’ was the track that put Oasis over the top around the world. As Noel put it: ‘We’ve got nothing to prove to other bands. We set out to be the biggest and best band in the world – and we’ve achieved it.’