Oasis was one of the most influential British rock bands of the 1990s. Together with Blur, Suede and Pulp the musicians were among the “Big Four” Brit-pop artists of their time. In just three years Oasis went from obscurity to worldwide fame, becoming a phenomenon in history. And today, few British rockers can rival the Gallagher brothers in the degree of influence on world music culture.
Godforsaken Manchester at the time of the birth of the future founders of Oasis was still far away from the status of the capital of music. The childhood and youth of brothers Liam and Noel did not foreshadow that soon the whole nation would be obsessed with them.
The Gallagher family was working class, with no prospects for a better life. Only music and soccer helped distract the brothers from their grim reality. Liam and Noel’s ultimate charisma and religious conviction to inherit The Beatles. The brothers loved the Liverpool Four, preferring idols to neighborhood bands.
Liam later said: “Until we signed to the label, our life looked like this: play soccer, get an allowance, buy another record, then get dope, drag yourself home and get stoned.”
Manchester’s dull reality changed when, in 1991, the Gallagher brothers formed a rock band, originally called The Rain.
At the origins of the musical collective were:
Liam Gallagher, lead vocalist;
Paul “Bonehead” Arthur, guitarist;
Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan – bass guitar;
Tony McCarroll – drums.
Noel Gallagher, who later joined the guys, saw the band as a way to promote his own songs. The first performance of the musicians took place in August 1991 on the stage of Manchester’s Boardwalk Club.
Oasis are the conflicted Noel and Liam, the elder of whom is the vocalist and guitarist, songwriter, ideologist and producer of the band. The younger Liam is the songwriter and main performer. Of the entire collective, only two brothers have made it from the release of the first compilation “Definitely Maybe” in 1994 to the completion of history and “Dig Out Your Soul” in 2008, while regularly hitting tabloid pages with a reputation as “bad guys.”
The band’s two debut compilations, “Definitely Maybe” and “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?”, are considered the peak of their creativity and have become Brit-pop classics. In the mid-’90s, these records sparked the famous phrase “British Invasion.”
In August 1994, after the appearance of the single “Live Forever”, which entered the top ten of the British chart, everyone knew about the musicians. The underrated classics “Champagne Supernova” and “Slide Away” are still perfectly listened to today.
The landmark 1996 Oasis concert in Neboort sold more than 250,000 tickets. This one band performance is considered the biggest in the history of the country. Requests to travel to Nebworth broke records, with more than 2.5 million people applying.
The zenith of Oasis fame on “before” and “after” divided the music industry, after Nebworth everything changed dramatically. Noel’s statement in 1996 that Oasis was more popular than The Beatles was a grand mistake and the reason of the band’s decline in popularity.
In the beginning of 1997 they recorded Be Here Now, their third studio album. The album “D’You Know What I Mean” went to the top of the charts in many countries. The 423,000 copies of Britain’s biggest-selling compilation sold out on its very first day.
The breakup of Oasis
By August 2008 the relationship between the brothers finally soured, and Noel announced that he was leaving the band. The other musicians continued to perform under the name Beady Eye.
At the BRIT Awards on February 16, 2010 Oasis received the award for “best British album of the last thirty years”, which Liam won alone.
Oasis has enough compositions where the lead vocals are sung by the author of most of the compositions. After the breakup Noel put together a band of “flying birds” (the band is literally called Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds), in which he sings himself.