Oasis

Oasis were a rock band from Manchester, England, formed in 1991 and disbanded in 2009. At the height of their powers in the mid-1990s they were among the most commercially successful and culturally significant bands in Britain, their rivalry with Blur serving as the defining conflict of the Britpop era.

The band formed around brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher, who grew up in Burnage, a working-class council estate in south Manchester. Their upbringing was difficult; their father Thomas was a domestic abuser and largely absent after their parents separated in the late 1980s. Their mother Peggy raised the three brothers, including Paul, on her own. Noel has credited his mother with giving him the space and support to pursue music, buying him a guitar and encouraging his interest.^[1]

Noel spent much of his adolescence working as a roadie for the Inspiral Carpets, a Manchester band of the Madchester era, which gave him an intimate education in the music business and considerable time to develop his songwriting on the road.^[2] He rejoined the band that would become Oasis in 1991, initially formed by Liam with guitarist Paul Arthurs ("Bonehead"), bassist Paul McGuigan ("Guigsy"), and drummer Tony McCarroll, on the condition that he would write all the songs and have final creative control.

Signed to Alan McGee's Creation Records in 1993 after an impromptu performance at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow, Oasis released their debut album Definitely Maybe in August 1994.^[2] It became the fastest-selling debut album in UK chart history at the time. Their second album, (What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995), was one of the best-selling albums in UK history, eventually certified 22x platinum in the UK and selling over 22 million copies worldwide.^[2]

The band's 1996 concerts at Knebworth Park, attended by approximately 250,000 people across two nights, are frequently cited as among the largest and most significant rock concerts in British history.^[2] The shows represented the peak of the Britpop phenomenon and a moment when Oasis's cultural reach extended far beyond music into national identity.

Noel Gallagher's songwriting during this period was extraordinarily prolific. In addition to the songs released on official albums, he routinely consigned high-quality compositions to the B-side slot, citing The Jam and The Smiths as models for a philosophy that rewarded single-buyers with genuinely new material.^[3] The 1998 B-sides compilation The Masterplan collected fourteen of these tracks and was itself ranked by NME as Oasis's "third best album," a testament to the depth of Noel's output during the band's peak years.^[4]

Subsequent albums including Be Here Now (1997), Standing on the Shoulder of Giants (2000), Heathen Chemistry (2002), Don't Believe the Truth (2005), and Dig Out Your Soul (2008) continued to perform commercially, though none matched the critical reception or cultural impact of the first two albums. The band disbanded acrimoniously in August 2009 after a backstage confrontation between Noel and Liam at the Rock en Seine festival in Paris.^[2]

After the split, Noel formed Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds and Liam pursued a solo career before fronting Beady Eye. Both brothers have since spoken about the possibility of an Oasis reunion; Liam in particular made repeated public appeals for one throughout the 2010s and early 2020s. In August 2024, a reunion was announced.^[1]