Oasis – (What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995)

It doesn't make that much sense for this album to come up here in the alphabet, but this is what the spreadsheet decided to do because of the bracket at the beginning of the album title, so who am I to judge. There are some albums that have defined whole generations and are such a big part of collective popular culture knowledge that if you don't know them, you're somehow weird. This is what can be said of Oasis' second album. Their first album had already been the fastest selling debut album of all times, but (What's the Story) Morning Glory? really changed the world. I was really into Britpop as a teenager, but for some reason Oasis wasn't as important to me as Blur or Pulp for example. My big sister owned this album way before me so I only bought the CD when she moved away from home. Nevertheless, I had listened to this album a lot and as I've grown older I've understood the significance of this album more.



In the 90's there was a clear competition of the first place in the charts for Oasis and Blur. At least in Europe. Blur had a couple of wins in singles, but this album really sealed the competition won for this Manchester band. These songs became the songs of my generation. I've played many of these songs in parks and in parties on my acoustic guitar and everyone always knows the lyrics to these songs by heart and they can sing along. In UK, hundreds of thousands of people gathered to listen to Oasis live and I'm sure it would've been the same across Europe. Oasis even conquered the US, a task that not many European bands have been able to do.

Wonderwall and Don't Look Back in Anger were the most obvious hits from this album that were played in radios and MTV everywhere, but it doesn't stop there. Almost every single song on this album was somewhat of a hit. When I play songs like She's Electric or Roll With It, everyone knows how to sing along. I've later on understood while living in the UK that Some Might Say and Champagne Supernova were almost as big hits as Wonderwall or Don't Look Back in Anger. They just weren't as big in Finland when I was growing up. But I can definitely see why those songs would get a similar kind of treatment. Wonderwall music video played all the time on MTV when I was a kid and we got MTV through the satellite. I vividly remember this video even though I haven't seen it in ages. Watching it now brings me lots of memories.

I live in London now and I was fairly excited to realise that the cover photo of this album is not in Manchester, but here in London. Berwick Street in Soho is the setting for the album cover. There's a small independent record shop called Reckless Records on that street that has this album on a vinyl in their window with a post-it note saying 'you're here'.

Oasis was compared to The Beatles over and over again back in the day. I don't know if this is a fair comparison. I don't always hear that influence as clearly. The Beatles liked to experiment with sounds and melodies, whereas Oasis really plays kind of retro rock using familiar elements and safe melodies. Their music is fantastic, but hardly groundbreakingly innovative. They are great compositions though. It has been said that when Ryan Adams covered Wonderwall, even Noel was really impressed and said that it might be even better than the original.

I really like Liam's vocals even though they are sung completely wrong when it comes to technique. Noel is technically a better singer, but his voice isn't as personal. Liam became the frontman of the band even though Noel should've really been given most of the credit as he was the one who wrote most of the songs and really knew more about music in general.

I never got the chance to see Oasis live, which I'm a bit disappointed about. But if they are anything like the other Britpop bands, they will at some point make a come back. Although, the Gallagher brothers were always fighting, so it may be more difficult for these guys to get back together any time soon. We'll see.

Now as I'm approaching middle age, I start to understand better what the influence of Oasis has been to me and my generation. It really is one of the few albums from the 90's that you can expect everyone to know. I'm getting shivers in my neck as I'm listening to this album now, because it's just so dear to me. I don't think I can never get bored of this album, because the songs are just an irreplaceable part of who I am.

Album on Spotify.