Are you, or do you know, a “Wonderwall warrior”? One of the many Gen-Zers who used their ninja-like internet skills to beat drug-muddled original fans to Oasis tickets, despite only knowing their most famous song? Wondering – aloud, online, to much gnashing of furry hood from the millions of parka dads who missed out – if they have any other good songs you should listen to before you go?
At your service. Oasis, at least up until around 1996 or so, were among Britpop’s most brazen purveyors of songwriting excellence, thundering riffs and lyrics made up on the spot about the producer’s dog. Their early years produced a veritable deluge of classics that marked them out as one of the top-tier acts in British rock history, and they sporadically tapped that same rich seam even after the drugs stopped working.
As Noel and Liam Gallagher prepare to kick off their reunion tour, Roisin and I select and rank our personal favourites, compiled on the basis that the biggest hits aren’t always the best. Apologies in advance, “Wonderwall” warriors...
20. ‘She’s Electric’
Off to a controversial start, and why not? It’s oddly polarising, yes, but “She’s Electric” happens to be one of my favourite songs from (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?. Liam’s delivery has that signature nasal quality, as though he can hardly be bothered to get the words out: “She’s got a cousin/ In fact, she's got ’bout a dozen/ She’s got one in the oven/ But it’s nothing to do with me.” The jangly guitar sends up his insouciant tone, while the absurd nature of the lyrics is one of the most obvious nods to both The Beatles and The Kinks. It’s silly, harmless, and an absolute earworm. Roisin O’Connor
19. ‘Roll with It’
Again, some critics love to make the case for the B-sides and “Roll with It” is one such victim, as naysayers make the case for “It’s Better People” instead. Even Noel himself has sniffed at it, claiming in a 2019 interview with Dermot O’Leary that the track “has never been played by anybody since the band split up”. The fact that “Roll with It” famously lost in the highly publicised “Battle of Britpop” to Blur’s “Country House” probably doesn’t help. For me, though, it’s a classic case of Oasis being able to say something in a gratifyingly uncomplicated way, with the bonus being that it’s great to sing along to. Sometimes, that’s all you want. ROC
18. ‘A Bell Will Ring’
More controversy! “A Bell Will Ring” is consistently ranked in the bottom tier of Oasis songs, but I will fight on behalf of the endearingly psychedelic, trippy nature of this Gem Archer offering. There’s a sharpness to the instrumentation here – the opening guitar riff growls into being like the rev of a Harley. Liam’s voice, too, is full of grit and danger, forever sounding like he’s poised on the balls of his feet for the inevitable scrap. Yet the lyrics are about renewal and second chances, as one friend reminds the other: “I can tell you what you wanna hear/I’ve been here once before/ You pulled me through my empty nights/ Sleepless on your floor.” ROC
17. ‘The Hindu Times’
Of the numerous return-to-form singles Oasis released ahead of return-to-dirge albums in the Noughties, “The Hindu Times” promised the most of its parent record, 2002’s Heathen Chemistry. Its loping groove exuded all of the insouciant rock confidence of their greatest early material, and its coiling eastern guitar riff suggested a giant evolutionary leap in their music, all the way from John to George. Mark Beaumont
16. ‘Some Might Say’
With its crunchy, T Rex’s “Get It On” guitar intro, “Some Might Say” captures the roaring, stadium-filling, distorted sound Oasis became associated with peak-Britpop. It’s common, and perfectly acceptable, to argue that it’s inferior to the B-side “Acquiesce” – personally, I find “Acquiesce” to be trudging and monotonous when set against the thrilling build of “Some Might Say”. The latter is a rollercoaster ride, sending you rattling around to the shimmy of the tambourine, then soaring upwards on that classic anthemic chorus. It’s special, too, simply for being Oasis’s first No 1 single. ROC
15. ‘Live Forever’
Noel’s ability to self-mythologise comes into full play on “Live Forever”, bottling a specific kind optimism that simmers in the verses then spills over on the chorus: “Maybe I just wanna fly/ Wanna live, I don’t wanna die/ Maybe I just wanna breath/ Maybe I just don’t believe/ Maybe you’re the same as me/ We see things they’ll never see/ You and I are gonna live forever.” Released as the third single from their debut, Definitely Maybe, it is widely regarded as the one that “got the world’s attention” – you can hear why. In a way, “Live Forever” really did immortalise the band, capturing them in that moment when they were on the cusp of world-dominating, headline-shrieking fame, the picture of youthful possibility. ROC.
14. ‘Little by Little’
In a recent feature for The Independent, Hamish MacBain argued that younger generations were able to appreciate Oasis’s later musical output more than those who were truly “there” at the height of their fame. As someone who was still only 10 years old when Oasis released their fifth album, Heathen Chemistry, I’m inclined to agree. It seems all too easy to point to the band’s internal squabbling and public antics and blame that on the supposedly “lacklustre” nature of anything released after 1995. How, then, do you explain the practically beatific sense of peace on Heathen Chemistry – from Liam’s sweet-natured “Songbird” to the soothing “Stop Crying Your Heart Out” and, indeed, “Little by Little”?
“Making this album was a lot of fun because there were no late, drunken nights, no ranting and raving, or smashing up the equipment,” Noel told Now magazine in 2002. “I went into the studio at midday every day, left at eight or nine o’clock every night and was just there making music. It felt like we’d recaptured something special that we’d lost on the last two albums.” Liam was apparently meant to record lead vocals but conceded to his older brother’s version after struggling in the studio. Yet it’s Noel’s slightly more doleful, brow-beaten vocal that makes the track what it is, singing with moving resignation: “You know I didn’t mean/ What I just said/ But my God woke up on the wrong side of his bed/ And it just don’t matter now.” ROC
13. ‘Champagne Supernova’
Midway between the sky-sailing simplicity of “Live Forever” and the exhausting, overblown coke pomp of “All Around the World”, Oasis perfected the art of the show-stopping stadium ballad with the closing track from (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?. “Champagne Supernova” didn’t force its grandeur on you but – from its trippy Doors-ish intro – invited you in, offered you a flute of its finest and treated you to seven relaxing minutes in its celestial hammock, where lyrics simply didn’t have to make sense anymore. “Where were you while we were getting high?” We were busy comprehending rudimentary cannonball physics, Noel. MB
12. ‘Stand by Me’
Talent borrows, genius steals, Noel Gallagher strips for parts. Britpop’s arch skip-diver of classic rock once claimed to have got three songs out of David Bowie’s “All the Young Dudes” – you can hear him singing it knowingly along to “Whatever” in 1997 clips. His best nobble from it, though, was on Be Here Now’s only real belter; a classy orchestral rehash of “Live Forever” that was elevated to classic status by a rising chord progression in the chorus that will be strangely familiar to any boogaloo dudes listening in. MB
11. ‘Whatever’
It’s only, legally speaking, loosely an Oasis song. The band were sued for plagiarism by Neil Innes over the opening line’s clear similarity to his “How Sweet to Be an Idiot” – Noel claimed he’d never heard the song, but it was etched deep into the subconscious of any teenager who’d ever watched 1982’s Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl. But from Innes’s throwaway melodic seed, Oasis grew a towering beanstalk of a Christmas single, a dry run for both the mid-paced elegance of a “Wonderwall” and full-on, Beatles-aping orchestral rock excess. Lightweight of melody perhaps, but the middle eight’s blast of Verve-like psych rock kept it sufficiently rock’n’roll. MB
10. ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’
Writing as someone who once stood on a table at an awards ceremony (other people were doing it too!) while Liam sang “Cigarettes and Alcohol” to a horde of boozed-up journalists, music industry folk and fans, I can say with complete confidence that there are certain songs that just get to you. Just ask Noel, who – as evidenced here – really can’t get enough of T Rex. That doesn’t detract from what is simply one of Oasis’s best and most quintessentially them songs: snarly, lairy, in-your-face and pretty obnoxious, in a strangely charming way. There’s something fascinating about Liam’s over-egged pronunciation in the verses (”Is it worth the aggravasssssshiunn?”), matched perfectly with the squalling guitars that gather like storm clouds overhead. ROC
9. ‘Songbird’
Fans occasionally debate whether “Songbird” is “underrated” in the Oasis canon. Some argue that its No 3 chart position upon its release in 2002 – as the fourth single from Heathen Chemistry – means you can hardly claim it flew under the radar. However, it is correct that it is often (outrageously) omitted from your typical “Oasis best of”.
The first Oasis single written by Liam, it was described by his brother Noel as a “perfect” song. The key is its simplicity; Liam, of course, is king of the succinct. So you have the two-chord tune on the acoustic guitar, the whimsy of the harmonica, and those sweet, bright piano notes. Paired with his lyrics – simple couplets such as “A man can never dream these kind of things/ Especially when she came and spread her wings/ Whispered in my ear the things I’d like/ Then she flew away into the night” – it’s an absolute knockout. ROC
8. ‘Slide Away’
If many of Oasis’s initial classics – “Shakermaker” say, or “Cigarettes and Alcohol” – got by on brashness, noise, direct and uncomplex songwriting and the self-belief of a flagrant sonic shoplifter, “Slide Away” was sure sign that Noel had studied the rock masters and knew his craft. Working through his feelings towards an ex-girlfriend, it begins in churning despondency (“my today fell in from the top”), reaches a hopeful middle eight and then ascends into a chorus of reconciliatory euphoria. Noel claims the song wrote itself the minute he picked up one of Johnny Marr’s guitars and, listening back, you’d almost believe in Fendergeists. MB
7. ‘Rock ’n’ Roll Star’
The opening track from Definitely Maybe never got to fulfil its original purpose. It was written as an inspirational call to arms for downtrodden Manchester dreamers aching for escape from dole-drum lives. But by the time anybody got to hear it on record, Oasis were already bona fide rock’n’roll stars, and the song instead represented the epitome of the band’s bullish bravado, achieving ambitions almost as quickly as they could picture them. Its revved-up Formula One velocity has never let it sound tired of the big time, though; it’s still as ravenous and unstoppable as when it was clawing at the ceiling of the Manchester Boardwalk. MB
6. ‘The Importance of Being Idle’
A completely shameless Kinks pastiche by Noel, here, but it works! A celebration of the sloths among us, “The Importance of Being Idle” nods to his quitting cocaine in 1998 while also poking some light-hearted fun at his celebrity status. Against that slow, jangling “Sunny Afternoon” strum, you have his keening pitch, griping: “My best friend called me the other night/ He said, ‘Man, are you crazy?’/ My girlfriend told me to get a life/ She said, ‘Boy, you lazy’” From a songwriting standpoint, it’s one of Noel’s best – also containing one of the band’s most killer lines, “I can’t get a life if my heart’s not in it.” Bonus points for the superb music video starring Welsh actor Rhys Ifans. ROC
5. ‘Morning Glory’
“Morning Glory” lands in a three-way tie with “Rock and Roll Star” and “Cigarettes and Alcohol” as Oasis’s spiciest song. As Mark mentioned earlier, the album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? saw the band “perfect the art of the show-stopping stadium ballad”. The title track, meanwhile, demonstrates how they’d also mastered the anthem: “Morning Glory” practically bristles at you, fists clenched, gunning (or gurning, given the subject matter) for a fight. It’s also one of their best songs live, thanks to the snarl of the guitar and pounding drumbeat, guiding Liam in for his spectacular, hollering opening verse. ROC
4. ‘The Masterplan’
“Wonderwall” broke Oasis to the masses, but was too jerry-built to stand up to the subsequent decades of relentless overplaying. Instead, its 1995 EP now sounds better backwards. Because tucked on the end of its four tracks was this most sumptuous of Oasis’s many impressive Nineties B-sides, and arguably their most successful crack at Beatledelica. A dolorous acoustic ballad – equal parts White Album, French chanson and Suede’s Dog Man Star – gets hoisted aloft by Sgt Pepper… orchestration, a psychedelic backwards guitar solo and Noel’s chorus tumbling on to glory. A B-side why? “I was young and stupid,” Noel explained. MB
3. ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’
All hail the Twitter/X meme magician who pasted a picture of a Donald Trump rally beneath the caption “The great Oasis are back. Liam and Noel. They were very unfair to one another. Oasis. They made Sally wait…” Because if one Oasis song could worm its way into the most cotton-candied mind, it’s Noel’s heartfelt terrace tribute to the ever-patient Sally; a future-facing sentiment rendered so poignant by its roar-along chorus that it was adopted as Manchester’s anthem of grief in the wake of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing. MB
2. ‘Columbia’
A sonic Vesuvius from which the rest of Definitely Maybe seemed to flow, “Columbia” – named after the London hotel they’d frequent until being banned for trashing the owners’ Mercedes by dropping furniture on it from the first-floor bar – would go virtually unmatched in Oasis’s career in terms of elemental rock noise. The demo version, which would be released as their first white-label promo single, was recorded on acid, and fittingly so: their most visceral display of churning rock power was rooted in the darkest psychedelia and seemed to grow fresh sets of demon teeth by the minute. MB
1. ‘Supersonic’
Many of the most definitive Oasis songs spelt out the band’s defining traits like a ladrock Sesame Street. “Rock ’ n’ Roll Star”: they’re quietly confident in their stadium-filling abilities. “Live Forever”: immortality is all part of the master plan. “Cigarettes and Alcohol”: they’ve been known, on occasion, to quite like it somewhat large. “Supersonic”, though, is the best Oasis song because it’s significantly more show-don’t-tell. The song itself oozes the confidence, melodic brilliance and superstar quality their other hits often have to ram down our throats. And that it was an immediate shoo-in for their debut single the minute they wrote it is testament to how it crystallised everything great about Oasis in 1994 without even trying.
Its origin alone is the ultimate in Manc-rock cockiness. Noel knocked the whole thing off the top of his head in half an hour during a demo session, while his band had a Chinese takeaway. They recorded it in a day for about £200 and released it as it was: “Why try to recreate genius?” Noel said. As a result, it sounds like the primal spirit of the band caught on cocaine-coloured vinyl. It – yes – swaggers in on a winding guitar riff fully aware of its own ragged brilliance and a drumbeat that squares up to you like you’ve just elbowed its bump all over Salford’s roughest boozer. It encapsulates their trademark gnarled glam roar that, overnight, rescued the rock zeitgeist from Seattle’s torture basements and smuggled it back to the home of T Rex, Bowie, Zeppelin and their beloved Sixties pop melodicism.
Its nonsense lyrics – loners living under waterfalls, Alka-Seltzer addicts with a thing for flying doctors – were far and away the best Noel would ever write; all sex, drugs and psychedelia, but wry and cryptic enough not to sound like a corny Sixties throwback, or a script for a Flaming Lips video. And it’s all delivered by Liam at the most self-assured he’d ever sound. Which is saying something.
“Supersonic” wasn’t just one of indie rock’s greatest arrival announcements since “This Charming Man” (superseded, in the interim, only by Suede’s “The Drowners”). Nor merely a mission statement that, in itself, completed the mission. It was the sound of an instant, one-band British rock’n’roll revival; its electric clash of attitude and ability hit Britpop like an H-bomb and set the tone for however much of the Nineties was left standing. The sound barrier broke on single one; from there, it was all a downward glide. MB
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