So why is Oasis’ Definitely Maybe on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
Oasis is the band and Definitely Maybe is the album that binds most tightly to my experience living and working (and playing – let’s not forget playing – which consisted largely of bumming around pubs) in England for six months, after I graduated from college in the mid-‘90s.
Another way to think about Definitely Maybe is that it’s a young person’s album, a young man’s album, and because I first heard it and then steeped in it – along with the suburban British culture in Kent round the way of Rochester and Chatham – it’s my favorite Oasis album, and one worthy of cracking into the Top 150 of the best 1,000 albums ever.
I’ll admit this too: I thought Liam Gallagher (and brother Noel, too, but particularly Liam) was cool, cool as hell, impossibly cool in all of his sneering, rough-edged Manchester bluster. And all of that came through his voice and performance, blending perfectly* with Noel’s alt rock-meets-John Lennon worshipping guitar hooks and song construction.
* The blend outside of the music studio, of course, was an entirely different situation.
I no longer think that Liam and Noel are as cool as hell as I once did, but I still think that Definitely Maybe most definitely is.
I often give Stephen Thomas Erlewine from All Music guff for being a self-important, snarky music critic, but he nails Definitely Maybe and Oasis beautifully:
They scour through the remnants of the past three decades to come up with a quintessentially British rock & roll record, one that swaggers with the defiance of the Rolling Stones, roars with the sneer of the Sex Pistols, thieves from the past like the Happy Mondays, and ties it all together with a melodicism as natural as Paul McCartney, even if Definitely Maybe never quite sounds like the Beatles.
There’s a confidence, a brazenness, a cockiness to Oasis that’s pure rock and roll, and it’s at its peak on this album.
Tracks like “Supersonic” and “Cigarettes & Alcohol” put me of the mind of long, boozy afternoons and evenings in pubs like the Nag’s Head, where my college friends and UK flat mates Adam, Nirav, and I befriended an eclectic assortment of art school students.
There’s also a surprising amount of sophistication to the music – the transition to the sublime and pop-heavy chorus on “Supersonic” being a great example.
In reexamining Definitely Maybe through the lens of being (cough) a bit older and (in theory) wiser, I’m taken with the bursts of earnestness and hints of vulnerability that break through the bluster and posing. Which is all to say that I adore the bouncy and rollicking “Digsy’s Diner” these days.
And of course, it’s the earnestness of “Wonderwall,” off of (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? that would most of all send Oasis into the (supersonic) stratosphere.
“Live Forever” has the most plays on Spotify of all the tracks on Definitely Maybe as of this writing (291 million-plus and counting), and I can see why, as it’s a super well produced, rocked up Beatles homage.
Some stats & info about Oasis – Definitely Maybe
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Alternative Rock, Britpop, British Bands, Pub Rock
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – #217
- All Music’s rating – 5 out of 5 stars
- When was Definitely Maybe released? 1994
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #149 out of 1,000
Oasis’ Definitely Maybe on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Oasis’ Definitely Maybe that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
I’m feeling supersonic, give me gin and tonic. You can have it all, but how much do you want it?
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.