Thirty years after the release of their captivating debut album, Oasis have announced they are reuniting – news that has delighted middle-aged fans and a whole new generation alike.
Like all great bands, Oasis has a history that is enshrined in rock 'n' roll folklore: from their serendipitous spotting by record exec Alan McGee after they gatecrashed the bill of a gig in Glasgow in 1993, to the moment that marked the end 16 years later when Liam Gallagher threw a piece of fruit at his brother Noel backstage in Paris.
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It's a story that has only become more mythologised over the years as – despite persistent rumours and frequent pleas from fans – the brother Gallaghers could never quite manage to put aside their differences and get Oasis back together again. Until now. This week, almost 15 years to the day that they split up, the band confirmed they are reuniting for a string of live dates next summer. Announcing the news, they said: "The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over."
The huge UK and Ireland stadium tour (international dates are also believed to be on the cards) makes this one of the biggest – and certainly most-anticipated – musical comebacks in history. And it won't just be middle-aged Gen X-ers dusting off their parkas and trying to snag tickets, but a whole new generation of fans, many of whom weren't even born when the band first came on the scene. Oasis defined an era – but, as people of all ages unite in excitement over the news, they've also proved themselves to be timeless.
The reunion news comes in the same week that Oasis celebrate the 30th anniversary of their debut, Definitely Maybe. Released during the last gasps of summer 1994, just four months after their first single, Supersonic, it became the fastest selling debut album of all time in the UK, turning Liam and Noel into the rock 'n' roll stars they dreamed of becoming, and Oasis into the biggest UK band of a generation, who would go on to sell 75 million records worldwide.
It's easy to look back now and see Oasis's success as inevitable. From the start, the band stood out for their immense confidence – proclaiming early on that they would be bigger than The Beatles. Yet, for a group of working-class lads from Manchester, world domination was far from certain, something Noel recently admitted in an interview to mark Definitely Maybe's anniversary."A fucking singer who's 19 and lairy, [me] writing the songs, ripping off everyone who's fucking dead, the other three lads look like plumbers… you couldn't invent it."
But it was their background and a burning desire to escape it that would prove to be Oasis's superpower, connecting them to millions of others desperate to escape their everyday lives.
In the songs he wrote for Definitely Maybe, Noel captured that golden possibility of youth, when all that matters is your friends, your favourite bands and counting down the days to the weekend. The timing was fortuitous: Britain was coming out the other side of an economic recession and, with Tony Blair elected leader of the Labour Party, a switch in government was on the horizon. Change and optimism were in the air.
"In my mind my dreams are real", sings Liam on Rock 'N' Roll Star, the album's opener and statement of intent. "Tonight, I'm a rock 'n' roll star" – that wasn't simply Gallagher bravado, but an invitation to anyone listening to swap the mundane for the magical, even if just for 52 minutes. "You can have it all, but how much do you want it?" asks the band on Supersonic.
Stratospheric success
Oasis emerged as British guitar music was having a resurgence, with bands like Blur, Pulp and Suede also riding high and providing an antidote to the US grunge scene that had dominated in the early 90s. But Oasis were never content being just one of many, and were unashamed in their ambition to be the biggest band in the world.
Paul Lester, editor of Record Collector, was working for weekly music paper Melody Maker at the time of Definitely Maybe's release, and reviewed the album, describing it as "a record full of songs to live to, made by a gang of reckless northern reprobates who you can easily dream of joining." Yet he says – despite the obvious hype for the band – it was hard to predict just how stratospheric their success would be. "Oasis were coming from another place, which was a populist place," he tells the BBC. "They were more of a people's band than a critic's band. Yes, the critics absolutely frothed and raved about them, but we didn't quite grasp how deeply these songs were going to become ingrained in the national psyche."
The band would go on to have bigger anthem: Wonderwall, Don't Look Back in Anger and Champagne Supernova were all still to come on their second album, (What's The Story) Morning Glory?, but it's the 11 songs on Definitely Maybe that really capture the spirit of Oasis.
