Oasis – Definitely Maybe (1994)

At the time of its release, Definitely Maybe was the fastest selling debut album by any band so far. It's not difficult to see why. The band had released three singles before hand and the Britpop was already hugely popular at that point. The songs on Definitely Maybe are spectacularly well written and there's this raw power in the sounds. Also, you can hear the ambition and youthful excitement. Overall, it just has a great attitude. The sounds are maybe not as well thought of as on (What's the Story) Morning Glory, but in attitude Definitely Maybe wins the competition. I can't really decide which of the first two albums by Oasis I like the most. They both have their own strengths. I feel like I really would liked to have seen the band live after Definitely Maybe when they were still playing decent sized venues and the attitude was everything.



It's difficult to think of Oasis at the beginning of their career. They've always sounded like they were meant to play huge arena gigs. They did get to do that very quickly, but still there was definitely the beginning where they were just playing small venues. I don't know if the songs were really there for a long time before, but I'm sure everyone must've heard at the time that there was something really special about the band. They combined the melodic hit writing of the 60's pop groups with the raw rock sounds of 80's alternative rock scene. I've always thought Oasis is definitely the most rock-sounding group of the Britpop era.

I think I was first introduced to Oasis on MTV. Live Forever, Supersonic and other songs were playing there a lot, but at least in Finland, the true breakthrough was the following album. That's when my big sister started really listening to Oasis. I was still fairly into heavy metal and grunge at the time, but I could definitely see why Oasis was such a huge deal. When my sister later on moved out, I bought both of the early Oasis albums, because I had gotten so attached to them. Later on, I had my own other Oasis phase in the university when I started playing my guitar in parties and parks and Oasis songs were definite crowd-pleasers.

The album starts with explosive energy of Rock 'n' Roll Star. It's clear from the beginning what the album is going to be like. This is a rock album with huge egos. Next up is Shakermaker, which uses slightly psychedelic guitars that perhaps tell something about the band's obsessive appreciation for The Beatles. Other than that, this song actually resembles some of the Blur songs quite a lot. Live Forever is one of the biggest hits Oasis ever released. It is often mentioned as a song that defines the whole Britpop genre. The tempo is a bit slower, but songwriting is amazing. It's easy to see how a band that made this song got to play some of the biggest gigs by anyone ever. I really like Up In the Sky. It has great rolling energy and it sounds like a song that would make crowds go crazy on gigs. Columbia is one of the least hit-like songs on the album. It takes long time to start and it's not quite as catchy as the other songs and it mostly relies on the growling guitars rather than interesting songwriting. Supersonic was the first major hit by Oasis. There are definite similarities to some Suede songs especially when it comes to the guitars. The song has a great sense of drama growing from one part to the other. Bring It On Down has very wild and heavy guitars with a fast tempo. In some ways this song reminds me of Queens of the Stone Age. Cigarettes & Alcohol is a perfect example of a cool song that will make teenagers and young adults go crazy. The topic alone would be exciting to them, but also the groove in this rock n' roll song is just phenomenal. Digsy's Dinner has a bit too much overdrive, which makes it sound a bit messy and in terms of songwriting it sounds a lot more like Blur than Oasis. Slide Away on the other hand is extremely well produced and I feel like it sounds a bit more like (What's the Story) Morning Glory was going to sound like. The album ends with the beautiful Married With Children, which is completely acoustic song with excellent melody. it's a great way to end the album.

I already mentioned that I used to watch Oasis on MTV a lot as a kid. I still remember many of these music videos. Oasis was often compared to The Beatles and I don't think it was that much the music itself, but the aesthetics on the videos and how the band members used to dress that made those comparisons make sense. The video for Live Forever makes it very clear. It's funny to see now, almost 25 years later, how young adults look exactly the same again. The 90's have come back big time and the much mocked style of Oasis has become quite cool again. I'm still hoping that this kind of music will also come back in style, because I don't know if anything in the mainstream these days is as good as this music was.

I have difficulties deciding my favourite band of the Britpop era and normally my answer hasn't been Oasis, but based on Definitely Maybe, they are definitely up there with the best Pulp, Blur and Suede albums. I don't think this is something that has to be settled anymore. I can just appreciate all of these albums for what they are.

Listen to the album on Spotify.