Oasis’ ‘Definitely Maybe’: The Audacious Debut from the Britpop Behemoths
by Amy Hughes
In a move that surprised absolutely no one familiar with Liam and Noel Gallagher’s penchant for dramatic reconciliations (and equally dramatic fallouts), Oasis, the Britpop behemoths whose internal squabbles were as legendary as their anthems, have announced a reunion tour for 2025. The news sent shockwaves through the music world, with fans dusting off their parkas and wallets, while bookmakers hastily recalculated the odds on how long the ceasefire would last this time.
While the brothers have gone back and forth through social media and the music press harboring both indifference and jacked-up promises, it’s abundantly clear that with anniversaries of their debut Definitely Maybe (1994) and What’s the Story, Morning Glory? (1995), it pays a listener ever so mindful despite the very public 2009 implosion, that revisiting the past in all its fashions can still be a top draw.
Related: Details on Oasis’ 2025 reunion tour
As many in the press noted, it’s been Noel who has resisted attempted reunions and Liam was not helping to extend the olive branch, hurling back verbal denunciations about Noel as recently as 2022. However, the seed could have been planted when Liam, after nailing a #1 U.K. album with ex-Stone Roses guitarist John Squire in March, scheduled his own Definitely Maybe anniversary tour this past summer. He admitted to MOJO, “Me, I love nostalgia. People say it’s the comfort zone—I want to be in the comfort zone! Bring me my slippers and my little blankie and put me in the comfort zone, please. Life’s stressful enough.”
(Photo: Kevin Cummins; used with permission)
Whoever flipped the switch, the brothers gathered together for a top-secret photo shoot in August and released the news that they are touring the U.K. and Ireland in 2025, with Noel’s band the High Flying Birds completing the group. In addition, the 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Definitely Maybe was released on August 24, 2024, with the original sessions, demos and outtakes to great fanfare and sales. The new edition is available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here.
But the original has never gone out of style. While the States accepted it with mild trepidation in 1994 (the album charted only as high as #58 on Billboard’s top 200), the impact was immediate in the U.K. With a strong lift and growing trend in the UK, helped by Blur, Suede and Pulp, the recognition in the States cannot, in hindsight, be blamed solely on grunge, unless you were Liam Gallagher denouncing that to the press and in public.
The audacity to become something bigger than what was perceived was helped by the fiery chemistry of the Gallagher brothers (with Noel as the chief songwriter and Liam the outspoken mouthpiece), and the press dangling “the next Beatles” in front of readers, juxtaposed against Kurt Cobain’s painfully reticent character, who was reluctant to name the Beatles as his heroes for fear of some unspoken retribution, spoke volumes.
With that in mind, it’s no wonder that the opening track on Definitely Maybe is titled “Rock ’n’ Roll Star,” with a guitar overload that has ties closer to the Who’s mid-’60s bombastic anthems as Liam spreads the message, “I’ll take my car and drive real far/You’re not concerned about the way we are.” It could only ever be the first song on a debut album.
But to get ahead of the album’s August release, the band launched three singles, leading with the debut “Supersonic,” in April. Written and recorded in one day, Noel had decided during a lunch break in the studio to sit down with a guitar and compose the song, taking it to the band, which then laid out the backing tracks. Liam took one take for his vocals and, after the mix, the song was done—as a demo, never to be re-recorded. Yet it ended up as a single and the LP’s sixth track.
Meanwhile, the album’s second single, “Shakermaker” (again another pre-album single in June), moved along with the best of neo-psychedelia, as Liam’s vocals compress tightly to Noel’s and Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs’s guitar work. The song dips and rises in swirling patterns with some cleverly placed false endings added to the mix.
Perhaps the most well-known song, “Live Forever,” released as the third single just before the album’s release, to this day remains a fan favorite and Liam’s as well, so much so that he has included it in nearly every concert since 2009, including One Love Manchester with Coldplay in 2017, and with the Foo Fighters at the Taylor Hawkins Tribute in 2022.
Watch Oasis play “Live Forever” in concert
“Up in the Sky” is a sonic rock song, as Liam’s vocals glide along the backbeat from bassist Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan and drummer Tony McCarroll. It’s probably the most hard-hitting piece from that album, yet still retains the essence of Oasis with lyrics that essentially ask if anyone understands the hardships of being a celebrity, alternating between mocking stardom and empathy for their success.
While “Columbia” is included in the tracks here, its origin goes back to 1991, when Noel wrote it as one of the first Oasis songs. Intended originally as an instrumental, Noel added lyrics, with input from Liam, and it became the song that got them signed to Alan McGee’s Creation label.
Probably forgotten due to its burial farther down the album, “Bring It on Down” was more an unlikely tribute to the grunge sound that was about to begin a tidal wave wash over music. Moving along at a brisk pace, incorporating more guitar distortion than usual, it’s a charge ahead that harkens to the Dead Kennedys, albeit more melodic.
The album’s final single, “Cigarettes & Alcohol,” continued the harder-edge line, as Liam growls over a 12-bar blues-rock bit, mixed with nuggets of glam and socio-political commentary: “Is it worth the aggravation/To find yourself a job when there’s nothing worth working for?” The sentiment, mired in Thatcherism, was unfortunately distracted by the accusations that the main riff was lifted from “Get It On” by T. Rex. But it couldn’t have been too off-the-wall when Rod Stewart covered it for his 1998 release When We Were the New Boys.
There is still much up for debate 30 years on about the subject of “Digsy’s Dinner.” While it purports to tell the tale of the narrator’s romantic evening with “strawberries and cream” but becomes ill from the “lasagna,” Noel has remained firm that it’s non-sensical lyrics, and the Digsy in question was Peter Deary, a friend of Noel’s from Liverpool. However, Alan McGee put forward in 2014 that it is a “piss-take on Blur. It was Noel proving that he could do that in his sleep.”
“Slide Away” works better lyrically than as a melodic song. Lines like “Hold me down/All the world’s asleep/I need you now/You’ve knocked me off my feet” could be delivered with more nuance from Liam, rather than a six-and-a-half-minute drone with vocals that sound passionate, but flat.
The album’s final track, “Married With Children,” is a soft ballad, peppered with real talk inspired by Noel’s then-girlfriend, who was kept up at night by his guitar practicing. He incorporated her vitriol (“I hate the books you read and all your friends/Your music’s shite/It keeps me up all night”) into the song, while accompanying Liam on his Gretsch Country Gentleman, a favorite of Chet Atkins and George Harrison.
Definitely Maybe was released on August 29, 1994, and sold 100,000 copies in its first four days. It reached #1 on the U.K.’s Official Charts on September 4. It has gone on to sell 8 million copies worldwide, been certified 9x Platinum in the U.K. and has been consistently ranked high on music industry polls since its original release.
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