Curate The Canon: The Best Songs of Oasis
Sequencing 12 tracks from two brothers, five lads, and one of the great rock 'n' roll bands into a proper record for the real heads.
The Oasis reunion isn’t real until I see it. This isn’t pessimism but lifelong superstitions keep me a distance from celebration. The only things that Liam and Noel Gallagher love more than music is Manchester City and pissing each other off.
The Gallaghers are artists in the purest sense; fully unbothered by the culture around them. At their best, Oasis wrote songs that sounded like they've always existed but didn’t. I almost bought those John Lennon glasses when I was 14, not because of the Fab Four, but Oasis.
During their imperial phase, they were indestructible: two stone-cold classics, huge singles, and enough great B-sides to fill out their third-best album. Haters paint them as regressive, Luddites, everything wrong with English culture, which ignores the innate sweetness and humanism at their center. Oasis’s appeal is in its simplicity. Noel is not a great guitarist but a great songwriter. This isn’t jazz, it doesn’t need any fancy seventh. It just needs to connect.
I’ve collected their best songs and sequenced them into an album. I’ve split it up into a proper Side A: all heat before winding down with the last track, and a Side B: more sentimental and experimental. For Oasis set the bar low on “experimental” please.
The lads are smart enough to know which of their songs should be singles so I’ve got all the hits except “Wonderwall”. It’s not by its merits as a song nor as an improper representation of the band, but out of mercy. I’ve heard it a million times and when something beautiful becomes ubiquitous, it loses its power. The song is a joke now and it makes me sad.
SIDE A, TRACK 1: “ROCK ‘N’ ROLL STAR” from Definitely Maybe
Let’s not overthink things, they got it right the first time. There’s no better way to introduce someone to two Mancunian brothers singing songs as big as their dreams. Five-and-a-half minutes of shot-calling bravado. The first thing you hear is guitar feedback and pentatonic scale noodling. Soon all of Liam’s vocal tics are upfront. He sounds excited to get to all those “shEE-INE”s. Growing up, I hated the term “rock ‘n’ roll” until I heard them use it.
SIDE A, TRACK 2: “ACQUIESCE” from The Masterplan
An early zag but Oasis has some unfortunately misplaced B-sides. Like the Smashing Pumpkins or Weezer, every song written before the millennia is worth digging the crate for, regardless of where it ended up. “Acquiesce” takes the spot because it perfectly demonstrates the Brothers Gallagher dynamic. Liam spits through the verses unsentimental, all swagger, while Noel’s voice can’t hide that he’s the softie, giving simple platitudes the sincerity it needs to believe in them. I also love the phaser effect right before the chorus.
SIDE A, TRACK 3 & 4: “SUPERSONIC” and “LIVE FOREVER” from Definitely Maybe
These two are inextricably linked for me. They’re my first two Oasis songs. Don’t know which one I heard first. My mother would use them to teach ESOL because when Liam sings, he enunciates every syllable of the English language like he’s teaching it to you. “Supersonic” is perfect nonsense, provocative, and gets the people going. Lyrics about lady dogs farting and a hamfisted Beatles reference — probably their worst recurring tendency — in there just for fun.
By contrast, “Live Forever” is a mission statement. A desire to capture the horizon and greatness beyond working-class comprehension. Don’t think Noel’s lyrics ever reached the evocation of “[l]ately, did you ever feel the pain / In the morning rain / As it soaks you to the bone?” again.
SIDE A, TRACK 5: “SOME MIGHT SAY” from (What’s the Story) Morning Glory
I don’t know if I’ve ever been in the mood for a bunch of jokey story songs about bourgeois English life with oompah horns. It’s funny how there was ever an argument for Blur > Oasis when Blur decided to open The Battle of Britpop with a dud like “Country House”. Though it went head-to-head with “Roll With It”, also pretty weak, Oasis was already on the board with the album’s first single.
I like how this one fakes you out with a little glam rock strut before becoming a proper Oasis choon.
SIDE A, TRACK 6: “DON’T LOOK BACK IN ANGER” from (What’s the Story) Morning Glory
Let’s close out the A-side with a ballad but not derail the momentum. One of the big singles that deserves it in its entirety. I don’t think that Oasis really sounds like The Beatles, but occasionally they can have songs that are Beatles-esque. Some fun descending chord changes and grand piano thumbing. An immaculate karaoke sing-a-long with the world’s most conservative drum solo. They don’t name girls “Sally” no more.
SIDE B, TRACK 1: “MORNING GLORY” from (What’s the Story) Morning Glory
These boys love helicopters. Great music video about how Oasis won the Loudness War. A rollicker that always felt out of place sequenced near the end of the record. Not sure why “Hello” and “Roll With It” couldn’t be sent to the back. So let’s fix that.
SIDE B, TRACK 2: “SLIDE AWAY” from Definitely Maybe
This is my favorite. Feels like the only song where the Gallaghers aren’t trying to spotlight the lyrics into the sky but onto someone. Transforms Liam’s sneer into something vulnerable. The outro just keeps blasting away until it fades into oblivion. Don’t know, don’t care.
SIDE B, TRACK 3: “SHE’S ELECTRIC” from (What’s the Story) Morning Glory
In this one, he gets jacked off by a lady’s sister.
SIDE B, TRACK 4: “DON’T GO AWAY” from Be Here Now
I don’t mind Be Here Now. Loved it when I was 13, don’t hate it now. I said earlier that I think every song they wrote in the ‘90s is worth checking out and that album is the actual test of it. Half the songs are not good, if not obnoxious, but they’re a fascinating insight into what killed this band. All of their worst impulses are put on display, “D'You Know What I Mean?” is a litmus test for how much dumb shit they can cram into a pretty good song, and “All Around the World” is just terrible.
This one’s good, though.
SIDE B, TRACK 5: “CHAMPAGNE SUPERNOVA” from (What’s the Story) Morning Glory
Big. Gigantic. Massive. Humongous. Gargantuan. It’s not about speed, it’s about size. Be Here Now sounds like it spends an hour chasing the high of the galactic closer of the album prior. Its climax is the closest the band came to shoegaze before it crashes back down to Earth. Go ahead and weep at how sound mixing was ruined forever. It was worth it.
SIDE B, TRACK 6: “THE MASTERPLAN” from The Masterplan
Oasis has long positioned themselves as optimists, their songs promise better days are ahead. It would all sound like one big cope if it didn’t come true.
Buried as the B-side on Oasis’s biggest hit, this is Noel’s true masterpiece. He went full maniac and recorded all the guitars + bass himself. As an older brother, I understand many of Noel’s grievances. He wrote the songs but didn’t become famous until his little brother joined the band. Everyone says he’s the ugly brother, a clear Scottie Pippen to Liam’s MJ. But there are few more famous second options than Noel Gallagher. It could be worse, you could be Bonehead or Horace Grant. Also, it doesn't help that Liam Gallagher is the greatest. A one-of-one persona, a true meathead who does whatever he wants, whenever he wants. Noel is also a Tory who thought Trainspotting was about actual trainspotters. People are complex.
BONUS TRACKS: “Cigarettes & Alcohol”, “Hello”, non-album single “Whatever”, the baggy-adjacent “Columbia”, weepies “Cast No Shadow” and “Talk Tonight”, and especially you, “Shakermaker”.