Definitely, maybe the most rock’n’roll band ever: Why Oasis matter

O asis have finally confirmed the rumour that had the music world a-chatter all week: the band is getting back together for the first time since splitting acrimoniously in 2009, for a run of shows in the UK and Ireland – including four nights at Wembley Stadium – from next July. There is talk, too, of a global tour in the works, assuming they can stay together long enough.

Not coincidentally, the news coincides with the imminent 30th anniversary of the band’s debut album, Definitely Maybe, on August 30. As always, they know how to grab attention.

Heritage acts reunite all the time – usually, as the Sex Pistols put it with brutal honesty in 1996, for the filthy lucre (the name of their reunion tour, launched 20 years after their debut and 18 after their disintegration). But to many, this comeback is a big deal indeed. So, let’s ponder why so many people believe Oasis matter.

Oasis are Cain and Abel

Formed in Manchester, England in 1991, Oasis were a five-piece guitar-based rock’n’roll band. Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs played guitar, Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan bass, and Tony McCarroll drums (replaced in 1995 by Alan White), but it was always primarily about the Gallagher brothers, Liam on vocals and Noel on lead guitar and songwriting duties.

With their shaggy haircuts, baggy clothes and aggressive sibling rivalry, they gave Oasis its rock’n’roll energy, and their love-hate dynamic – at times milked for publicity, at others exploding into genuine enmity – gave the band presence well beyond the music, part pantomime, part family tragedy. Not since Cain slew Abel has brotherly love felt so dangerous.

Oasis are theatre

That festering tension between Liam and Noel, who used to share a bedroom in their single mother’s council house, was always part of what made the band so compelling.

Liam Gallagher in classic Richard III mode.Credit: KEYSTONE

Out front, Liam hunched over the microphone stand, hands clasped behind his back like a modern-day Richard III, malevolent, ambitious, eyes on the throne. Only Noel stood in his way (and, perhaps, Blur, Pulp and a few lesser rivals to the Britpop crown).

The risk of an explosion was always present. No wonder they could pull crowds of 125,000 a night – as they did for two gigs at Knebworth in 1996 – at their prime.

Oasis are your mum and dad’s record collection

None of this would matter, of course, if the songs weren’t any good. But by crikey they are. And they arrived fully formed, seemingly out of nowhere, on that day in 1994 when Definitely Maybe dropped from the sky.

Opening track Rock ’n’ Roll Star was as clear a statement of intent as you will ever hear from upstart working-class lads: “Tonight, I’m a rock’n’roll star/You’re not down with who I am/Look at you now, you’re all in my hands tonight.”

It was brilliant, and if it seemed instantly familiar, that’s because it was. Musical archaeologists will point to the traces of Sex Pistols, the Bee Gees, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, even The New Seekers, whose 1971 Coke jingle I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing was the inspiration for Shakermaker (and cost the band $500,000 in a copyright payout).

“It was a perfect combination of my influences, Liam’s attitude, the solidity of the band,” Noel has said of their sound. He aimed for commercial success, but on his terms, and if that meant pilfering from his favourite artists, so be it. “I don’t think you can be too catchy,” he said. “As long as you have your Marshall amps on 10 and it makes people’s eyes water.”

Oasis are for the people

Whether by design or chance, Noel wrote songs for stadiums. They dress in denim and trainers, athleisure wear, anoraks. They sport haircuts that look like they were done by your mum or your mate after a few too many pints. They sing about drinking, shagging, and falling in love in a way that sounds both joyous and defiant. They are proof that being working-class is nothing to be ashamed of.

Peak period Oasis.Credit: EPA/PA

“The good thing about Oasis is that the songs were all-inclusive, they weren’t elitist in any way,” says Noel in a video released this week. “A lot of that for me came from acid house. It’s the communal feeling of everybody together and that anthemic thing that I got from that, which I f---ing loved.” And so do the fans.

Oasis are poetry

The tunes are great, but what about the lyrics? “Where we’re living in this town,” Noel wrote in Sad Song, “The sun is coming up and it’s going down”. Pure genius.

OK, that’s a joke. His lyrics are, to use the Mancunian vernacular, shite. He seems to use the toss-and-paste-where-they-land approach of early David Bowie, but without the intellect. He’s one-man proof of the infinite-monkeys theorem: if Noel Gallagher were left alone in a room full of typewriters long enough, he’d eventually produce Wonderwall.

At least he knows it. “I’m not John Lennon,” he once told Rolling Stone. “I’m not trying to say anything. I’m just trying to entertain people. Sometimes you don’t care about trying to make the lyrics make sense. F---, it’s only lyrics. I oughta make an album of instrumentals. When I’m sober, I think too much about the lyrics. I’m at my best when I’m pissed out of me head and I just write.”

You can’t get any more rock’n’roll than that.