I was born in 1983 so am just about the correct age for all things Britpop.
At the time, like a lot of my peers I was into Oasis & loved their debut album (or akcbum as we say in these parts). I enjoyed the power of songs like Columbia, the mournfulness of Slide Away & the sheer daftness of Married With Children.
At the time i already played the guitar, working my way through Nirvana chord books & the like, but at some point in the mid nineties a lot more friends started playing & we formed the obligatory teenage bands with gigs playing a selection of covers, of which Oasis loomed heavy in the setlist. However, it was the bands like James, Gene, Blur & Pulp which were on my CD player at the time.
For me, Oasis are a part of the jigsaw of that time. A large piece admittedly, but there was a lot of good stuff around, some of which has aged brilliantly & some which hasn’t. However, I find myself a little bemused at the outpouring of joy about them returning, first in 2025 & then again next summer. There is no doubt there is the support for these shows, as pure demand for the tickets is huge & they will of course sell out wherever they play in the UK.
I won’t lie, i would loved to have seen them at their peak. I didn’t see them until 2002 & found them remarkably dull & not the powerful live act of the preceding reputation. I saw them again in 2009 & once again, the band sounded sludgy, all bark & no bite for me. They were supported this time by Kasabian, a band I can tolerate but am not enamoured with, but who played them off the stage
The gigs I was at were puzzling. They were full of boorish beer boys who seemed not to listen to the band, but spent the time lobbing pints of piss about & getting into scraps. Had the band been on scintillating form & blown me away, i could have forgiven this, but I remember feeling like i was doing a Louis Theroux documentary on some weird cult that I didn’t understand!
What further puzzled me were the ages of the crowd – some a lot younger than me who must have missed those ‘glory’ years & others who were a lot older & surely should have known better.
If i ever listen to Oasis now, it is the B-sides album i go to as this is where i kind of get their impact. Like The Jam & The Smiths before them, they used up a lot of album worthy tracks & these standalone songs are very good & in many ways outshine their album output.
A further 43M people listen via Spotify on a monthly basis, someway behind other UK artists like Coldplay (94M), Ed Sheeran (81M), Calvin Harris (79M), Radiohead (46M) & Arctic Monkeys (55M), however, none of these artist could make the claim about being a pop cultural force.
What is it about Oasis that carries such currency? Is it just nostalgia? I assume a little, but if so why are colleagues of mine born in 2001 so excited about them?
I have always given them credit for making 13 year olds form bands in 1996, but is this just par for the course. Would this have happened anyway?
I’m very much in the Neil Kulkarni school of thought about these knobheads.
A band for school bullies. “Proper fookin’ music”, not like at that “poof shite”.
Boring music. No experimentation, no glamour, no joy.
And all the people you got into alternative sounds to get away from ended up storming in anyway with these whoppers as their soundtrack, knocking over pints and loaded up on shitty pub coke.
Let’s say I’m not sold.
I liked him, but I thought he was a bit over the top in his hatred of them. It’s just pop music.
I like a fair bit of Oasis – some genuinely excellent songs and the first album is full of swagger and attitude. That swagger turned into arrogance and, frankly, I prefer swagger.
Over time, I do think Oasis have become a big football club of a band. The loyalty is there 100% despite the fact that they are a bit shit no and again. They have been adopted by people (seemingly mostly male) whose idea of a day out starts in Spoons quite early so that, by the time of the main event, they are quite pissed.
Tut @leedsboy
It’s spelt ‘swaggor.’
I also don’t get the love in for them . Just another band who started off very spunky but ended up splodgy. Each to their own etc but not for me these days though I still give ‘Acquiesce’ a blast now and again once I’ve had a beer or too.
Three or four songs I love – another handfull are very good. Isaw them at Slane some years ago and thought they were great, but it might have been ‘the event’ and the enthusiasm of the crowd. I tried for tickets last year for my daughters and was secretly relieved to be unsuccessful. I will not try for these shows after seeing Noel and his young boy on TV in Las Vegas earlier this year and he waxing lyrical about ‘The Great Conor McGregor’ . I will not help to subsidise that …
At the time, I preferred Blur (the obvious either/or). I haven’t listed to Blur for *yikes* decades, but I still give What’s The Story a very occasional tumble on the autochange. Oasis lasted, and Blur, for all their craft and cleverness, didn’t. But even if Oasis set up stage behind my house, I wouldn’t go and see them. Ghastly oiks.
I quite liked the first 2 albums, but saw them live 2 or 3 times in the 90s and they were very underwhelming. I didn’t consider them to be a great live band at all, maybe they are better now
I did see them at their early peak, and I can tell you: I thought they were shit. Bad enough that I was offered free tickets to their Marquee debut but I went instead to see an Acid Jazz night (featuring Freakpower, Corduroy, and Mother Earth) at the LA2 and had a great time. And then they started to attract the football hooligan crowd and I stayed away.
Early Blur were usually pissed and could be either a bit merry or – more usually – plastered and also a bit shit.
Pulp were always terrific and, hands-down, won Britpop.
I think Blur made the most consistent albums of those 3. And Supergrass are also strong contenders
Blur got good live when they sobered up, but were usually fairly atrocious live early on. And they made some great records, but I’m not sure about consistent – The Great Escape was very poor by comparison to the two either side of it.
I don’t think Pulp have made a bad record, or played a bad gig, since Steve Mackey joined, but they just didn’t sell as well. That’s the public for you.
I liked Marion. The first album, at least.
Sleep is an absolute belter.
I wish they’d reform so that Barney couldn’t pretend to be New Order any more. But their singer has/had reliability issues around smack & crack.
Corduroy are one of the great underrated bands of our time. I loved/love the “Dad Man Cat” album – which was probably 92 ?
That three-header gig was one of my faves ever.
Corduroy’s live in Japan album, Quattro, is just fantastic.
I’m guessing that they had a good groove going.
The cultural currency of Oasis doesn’t really sit with the songs, it sits with the audience.
You can listen to the songs on your own all day and never guess the cultural status of the band. Because it’s only when they’re played to groups of people that their true power is revealed. Songs written not for the bedroom but for the pub, and then the enormodome.
Below this post is the setlist from last year’s reunion. These are far from the greatest songs ever written, but for British adults of a certain but surprisingly broad age range they represent the greatest primary school assembly singalong ever staged. A more or less guaranteed good time howling along with your mates or even total strangers to one tune after another about never backing down, never growing old, never growing up and, most importantly of all, never growing apart. They’re communal songs which sometimes fail to land over the headphones but which soar in the stadium with your arms round the two people next to you.
Everyone I know who went to see the reunion tour last year had a good time – how could they not. Loads of people wanted to go but couldn’t, so it would come as no surprise if this next run of shows sells out rapidly. Liam Gallagher has somehow remained popular with the younger generation and the 90s are enjoying their turn as the revival du jour, so the kids are into it too – for now.
What’s the cultural significance of Oasis? They’re a unifying force. Somewhere along the way it stopped mattering if the songs were good or the Gallagher brothers were bellends. They’re a band who remind a lot of people of being young and feeling like it would last forever, of a time when people were a little more united and (for some I’m sure this is significant) a little more proud of a shared national identity. An imagined past which was less complicated and more full of possibility.
They’re a band who play songs that everyone knows and most people have a happy memory or two attached to. Which makes them less a band and more a collective hysteria, their force derived not from the records but from the projections of the audience and their collective desire for an uncomplicated communal experience. No one can actually hear Wonderwall at this stage; it’s so freighted with baggage, personal and collective, that it’s like trying to look at someone you’ve lived with for 30 years and see them for the first time again. What you see instead is shared experience, which is what you hear when you listen to Wonderwall.
Oasis are not the first band of whom the above has been true. Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts. But they’re in a definite sweet spot right now, and because of that sweet spot those shows will be great, with pretty much nailed on guarantee. Because all the band need to do in this instance is show up and play – the people and their memories will do the rest.
1. Hello
2. Acquiesce
3. Morning Glory
4. Some Might Say
5. Bring It On Down
6. Cigarettes & Alcohol
7. Fade Away
8. Supersonic
9. Roll With It
10. Talk Tonight
11. Half the World Away
12. Little by Little
13. D’You Know What I Mean?
14. Stand by Me
15. Cast No Shadow
16. Slide Away
17. Whatever
18. Live Forever
19. Rock ‘n’ Roll Star
20. The Masterplan
21. Don’t Look Back in Anger
22. Wonderwall
23. Champagne Supernova
“Oasis – less a band and more a collective hysteria”
There’s the T-shirt, right there.
Or to say it quicker, everybody is pissed
It’s more than just the booze.
For another good example of the kind of audience projection and hysteria that I’m referring to see the Afterword thread when an octogenarian Paul McCartney headlined Glastonbury.
In many ways the Oasis of his own generation.
Interesting comparison.
I am sure Noel and Liam would love it. Macca has better songs though!
Oasis, only the band Wings could have been
Erm, in my head I’d written that post!
Edith. The long post with the set list
Great stuff @bingo-little
Bingo, spot on. My thoughts exactly. To try to understand their reasonance through the prism of their songs/albums is, I believe, not the point. At a moment in time an age group coalesced around them. I, being older, saw it in the “youngsters, I knew/worked and with.
I clearly remember thinking this was their generations Jam. I remember making this point circa 1995/96.
Whether they (Jam) are more worthy is not the (sociological) point. I have seen Jam tribute bands and it is evident in a vast majority of the audience. A reliving of a youth, a past which, in the moment is as real as it ever was. You see it in the clothes and the unabashed collective unity. For a tribute band.
I think, Bingo, you need to stop arsing about on this blog and write a book.
Don’t care what it’s about. Write it, I’ll buy it, and read it.
I’m probably not alone in this.
Seconded!
Thanks, chaps – very kind.
I would like it to be the definitive Limp Bizkit biog. TIA.
I agree with everything you’ve written here; you’ve captured it very well.
There is so much wrapped up in Oasis when you think about it—the band as a football team, with fans as supporters, singing on the terraces, a working class band from the North who came from practiclly nothing along with a very compelling story and personalities. While one could argue what the songs are actually about, people clearly project their own personal meaning onto them.
I was never a massive fan, but I enjoy the music. Listening to tracks like “Some Might Say” or “Don’t Look Back in Anger” really takes you back to that time and what you felt back then. It is a powerful nostalgia that people want to reconnect with.
It was also arguably the last great analog musical movement. Younger generations seem drawn to that feeling of connection and community. Oasis acts as a conduit for people to connect on a very human level to a moment in time that is long gone. People are paying for that feeling as opposed to the incredible musicianship, mesmerising vocals or amazing guitar solos. They really feel like the last gasp of a bygone era – it’s history now.
I also think Noel Gallagher is quite self-aware about it. I saw him on That Pedal Show, where he acknowledged writing songs that became familiar to millions. He mentioned that he shouldn’t have given away tracks like “The Masterplan” as B-sides, but at the time, he thought the momentum would last forever.
Personally, I’m happy enough to listen to the songs occasionally to reconnect with that era, but I don’t feel compelled to see them live, good luck to all who buy a ticket – they’ll have a ball.
When England knocked out Mexico in their own back yard playing with 10 men in a scintillating game in the World Cup, I was almost jumping for joy with excitement, although it was 4 in the morning. How disappointing then when the England fans started celebrating by singing the dirge like Wonderwall and the English players joined in. I felt as if someone had punctured my baloon. Vindaloo by Fat Les would’ve been so much better.
I think the singling of Wonderwall at the end of that match was great. Communal singing of anything where everybody knows the words is generally great. Witness I Predict A Riot sung by everyone at Elland Road. At these points in time, the song is the least important thing.
Wonderwall is a full on decent tune as well.
Noel Gallagher stated that as an Irishman he would not be supporting England in the World Cup. Fair enough, but rather strange coming from a man who used to play a guitar with the Union Jack plastered on it.
Football and rationality are rarely in the same place.
I always thought he was from Manchester…
I wonder how many have seen the (bonkers) film
* I kind of like it in a very strange way, got it on Blu-ray for next to nothing in a pharmacy
Not much left to say after Bingo’s excellent post. It’s a generational thing, innit? Our Beatles, their Oasis….
with the Pistols in the middle
A cultural time line (in bands):
Beatle/Stones => T.Rex/Slade => Pistols/Clash => Madness => Oasis/Blur => .. don’t know, I’m too old to think about it now
Madness/Specials.
which was what I meant to write
(honest!)
We just assumed you iz a massive racialist, Ridge..
I liked the first album, less so the next two, and as I was living in France at the time was somewhat insulated from the media frenzy as no one gave a toss about them there. When we moved back in 1998 I saw a documentary with extensive interviews with the brothers and I was appalled at the hubris, arrogance and general dimness which put me right off and I haven’t bothered with them since.
In a nutshell – final sentence sums it up for me.
Yebbut – I haven’t listened to anything by Oasis since the second album and most of the time the Bros seem bellends personified. But they are indeed a Pop Cultural Force – the concert footage I’ve seen looks bloody amazing. If they ever fancy playing a small village bar in The Languedoc I would most probably go.
Good on ‘em. I don’t resent them their success.
Bread of heaven. Meat and potatoes. Chips and curry sauce. Tony in Number 10. Red ‘phone boxes. Top of the Pops. They don’t really compare as icons, memes, or whatever, but deservedly occupy the same MBGA nostalgia namespace. Debut pretty listenable, only mostly. Then filler with (very) occasional killer. Beatles Songbook chordage. Half the world away already, sadly.
The very definition of over-exposure. Whatever charm Wonderwall, Cigarettes and Alcohol, Champagne Supernova may have had on first listen, and I did buy their albums at the time, they’ve been worn away to nothing by relentless decades-long overplaying. My feelings on Fairytale of New York, but extended to an entire catalogue.
I find it amazing that it has been 30 years since those early records. They coincided with an uptick in the Beatles’ popularity and constantly name checked them, so that worked for me, and those first two albums were good and came out at the peak of the CD, so sold in bucketloads. They also did the odd standalone single which endeared them, but it quickly turned out they didn’t have the creative staying power, and the behaviour got increasingly boorish of course. Relying on one songwriter has always been an issue for bands, as discussed here recently, and were they really a band or a duo..?
A duo, really? I like the first two albums, they were very much of a time and place, but it just dissolved into gak and hubris after that. The whole Oasis saga is all fairly charmless and aggro tho. I never got the Beatles comparisons.
Someone, I forget who, observed that they are actually nothing like the Beatles or even T. Rex. Slade is the best origin story. Except Slade were fun, didn’t take themselves seriously and are loved to this day. The other lot are, well, Oasis.
Slade are “loved to this day”? Everything Wrong about them. Ridiculous lyrics (“Are you hanging up your stockings on the wall?” Well actually, I thought I might put them down at the bottom of the bed), ridiculous haircuts, truly awful stage outfits, god help us all
I remember reading a review of the second album in one of the weeklies that said if you miss Mott The Hoople you will love this. I never really heard that much Slade in them.
Good grief. Mott were way better. More like Queen without the operatics.
They were indeed. So were Queen, mind.
Like The Kinks they were originally a band with 2 brothers in it. Lineups become flexible however and in the end as long as both brothers are there then apparently it is Oasis, that’s certainly how they are marketed now.
Like the Stones are still the Stones with two original members. Maybe Paul and Ringo should have gone out as the Beatles..?
Yeah bloody new boy Ronnie only been in the band for 50 years. As long as you have main songwriter(s) and singer(s) it’s fairly valid, see The Who. Wouldn’t work for “Beatles” with one of the main guys and the drummer, but there are worse examples out there right now
Tour dates and ticket prices are out….ouch
Sounds like time to dig up my post about ‘Be Here Now’ would have been a – ok maybe not great, but much better album, if they had used the singles B-sides from the time instead of half the album tracks….
Never a real favourite of mine but not much much denying that the first two albums are genuinely good. Truth is it ended there.
20 out of those 23 tracks in the setlist are either from the first two or standalone stuff from the same period. Says it all.
Indeed it does but not a bad “saying it all” ?
Absolutely – most artists would sell their souls for that hit rate, even from such a short period of time.
How many people actually manage sustaining hits for longer is an interesting question.
Not a fan really…I liked a handful of the slightly less overplayed songs at the time, but I got absolutely sick and tired last year of people saying to me last year “got your Oasis tickets?” when I had no intention of going. When I politely explained why I wasn’t going (“just not my thing really”) I was usually told something along the lines of “oh you’re just being a snob, go and get a ticket from somewhere and just enjoy it!” Erm, no thanks. And then to have had repeated conversations like this just ended up making me even more entrenched I suppose.
Never got to see them live first time round (too skint), and chose not to try this time round (mainly for the reasons above).
An observation: in their heyday, Liam was seen as a bit of a knob, and Noel gave the good interview.
The roles are not completely reversed, but Noel has become a tad tedious and predictable and Liam does seem to have his head screwed on now, and his last couple of albums eclipse those his elder sibling.
I seem to recall a thread on this forum where I stated that Oasis became a heritage act after two albums, and I’ll stand by that. When they reformed, I’m sure most fans would’ve been genuinely happy if they hadn’t played any post-1995 material.
In their defence, nobody has to love just one band; groups/singers serve different purposes. If you want a boozy singalong, Oasis are a pretty good bet. I don’t want a boozy singalong, personally, so I’d give it a miss.
At the risk of generalising: whenever I meet a massive Oasis fan (and it was the same in the 90s), they don’t tend to be big ‘music’ fans, per se – they won’t own a Velvet Underground album or know who Nick Drake is, for example. I’m sure there are exceptions, but I’ve not encountered any.
To your last point, its interesting Oasis were originally a Creation band – possibly, in its day, the most ‘music’ fan label around. But yes, I know what you mean.
Blur represent the same generational cultural singalog-together-with-your-friends space as Oasis do, but on a slightly smaller scale (not too shabby though, they filled Wembley a few times recently) and with a *far* better catalogue of songs, and for a far cooler audience.
I would suggest 50 something Blur fans are just as cool as 50 something Oasis fans. And it’s not very cool at all. Blur/Blur fans just think they are cool.
So when I next hit Waitrose for my seeded sourdough and beard moisturiser I should leave the penny farthing at home?
None of those things are actually cool. You should have you own sourdough mother (and fill the socials with bread baking stuff), be clean shaven and have an urban bike. And Waitrose? M&S is the new hip.
To post my son’s views for the second time this week, he regards the nineties as a somewhat golden age. While recognising Blair has not aged well, it seems to him an era of rising wealth, when the national infrastructure broadly worked, and a great age for film and music.