Disco de Oasis: “Definitely Maybe [Slipcase]”

In the UK, "Definitely Maybe" was the biggest selling debut album of all-time. Here in the US, the album wasn't nearly as successful, but that doesn't mean it isn't a great album. Quite the contrary, "Definitely Maybe" is the album that launched Oasis into superstardom. Though US fans are more familiar with their second album, "(What's The Story) Morning Glory?" and its mega-hits "Wonderwall" and "Champagne Supernova", "Definitely Maybe" is certainly worth a listen from anyone who liked "Morning Glory" even a little bit. The album's most successful single, "Live Forever", is a timeless classic. This song contains brilliantly uplifting lyrics, an very unique melody, and superb vocal performances by the brothers Gallagher. This song ranks among my favorite Oasis songs of all-time. Other standout tracks include "Slide Away", a "sort-of ballad" containing outstanding lyrics and a blistering vocal performance from Liam Gallagher. This track has an incredibly catchy chorus, but the layers of electric guitars that enrapture it make it hard to call this song a traditional ballad. "Cigarettes and Alcohol" is a full-on rock and roll track with a great melody and awesome guitar riffs. If you can get past the morally deplorable lyrics you'll find this song to be the best rock song on the album. "Rock and Roll Star" is another great rock song on this album, and its lyrics are much more insightful than those of "Cigarettes and Alcohol". Though "Cigarettes and Alcohol" is a catchier tune, "Rock and Roll Star" is clearly the winner in the lyrics department. It's just classic Oasis rock and roll. "Supersonic" is one of the most unique songs on the album, as, like most of the songs on this album, it contains a very catchy chorus. It's not really a full-on rock tune, but it's not a slow ballad, either. Unfortunately, however, the lyrics are nothing more than complete gibberish, so don't waste your time trying to find some "hidden meaning" in this song, 'cos it just isn't there. Still, this song is a treat to listen to. "Digsy's Dinner" is one of those happy, uplifting Beatlesque tunes with comical lyrics and a catchy tune. It's not hard rock by any means. "Up In The Sky" is also an uplifting tune that clearly "borrows" something from The Beatles. Again, the lyrics are mediocre but it's still an enjoyable tune. The album's final track, "Married With Children", is a slow but enjoyable acoustic number with some very funny lines, such as "I hate the way that you are so sarcastic, and you're not very bright." This is the only acoustic number on the album, and it sounds nothing like the rest of the album, which has much more of an edge. The reason I don't give this album 5 stars is that it contains a few tracks that are marginal at best. These include "Shakermaker", "Columbia", and "Bring It On Down". "Columbia" and "Bring It On Down" aren't horrible, but they contain neither innovative lyrics nor memorable melodies. Both of these songs were early Oasis tracks, so clearly Noel Gallagher's songwriting has improved as the album progressed. "Shakermaker" is a blatant rip-off of "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing" used in the old Coca-Cola commercials, and its lyrics are gibberish. This is by far the worst song on the album. I mean, come on, Noel? If you're going to rip off the music, at least write some decent lyrics to make up for it!!! I'm completely baffled by the fact that this track was released as a single in the UK, while classics like "Slide Away" were never released. In any event, "Definitely Maybe" can best be described as "Morning Glory" with more of an edge. It's not all hard rock, but it's not filled with the mid-tempo, very melodic tracks that make up "Morning Glory". Still, "Definitely Maybe" contains more than a fair amount of truly great songs, and is well worth a listen for any Oasis fan.

Wow. 10 years is a long time. 10 long years it's been since Definitely Maybe was released. This is an album that, for millions of people in the UK atleast, defined a generation.

When this album came out i thought it was the most amazing thing i'd heard. It got me into music, i stopped being embarrassed about liking a particular type of music 'just in-case' it wasn't popular.

Fortunately for me, it just happened to be one of the most important bands to emerge from England for many a moon. Oasis led an assualt on the british music scene like no other band had done for years, catching the mood of a nation perfectly. It is fair to say that if you listened to this album for the first time in this day in age, you would probably notice it's age. For me, this is it's beauty. It encapusulates everything that the music scene in the mid 90's needed.

I can understand why the general American populace didn't embrace Oasis as the British public did. Too much arrogance and angst whilst touring wouldn't wouldn't encourage any new listeners. Trust me when i say that all the BS that surrounds the gallagher brothers feuding, fighting and bitching just clouds the fact that Oasis just do really good songs.

I've never given an album such a glowing report in my life, but when i really think of all the good times i've had listening to this album, no album i know of deserves such praise.

I hope i haven't rattled on for too long...

Buy It, an essential to anyone's CD collection.

Cheers!

With this album Oasis made British rock n roll cool again. After the demise of fellow Mancs, The Stone Roses, the British rock scene grew stale. Definitely Maybe reignited it with cocksure arrogance accompanied with a pop friendly beat and rip roaring anthems. The working class had a band to answer "student" groups like Radiohead. Living in the "black economy", Oasis gave the rest of the world a glimpse into their lives much like Gangsta Rap gave white America a glimpse of inner city life. Songs like "Bring it on Down", "Supersonic", and "Cigarettes and Alcohol" spoke of a drug fueled existence. While "Rock N Roll Star" showed their self assured attitude. "Live Forever" is the stand out track and sums up the whole Brit Pop period so much so it was chosen as the title for a movie on the period. Noel Gallagher writes the songs but vocalist Liam Gallagher takes it and makes it his own, he could be the Ronald Reagan of 90's music scene. One of the best rock albums of all time I highly recommend it for any serious music fan.

How come nobody seems to know that Aldous Snow from "Get Him To The Greek" (& "Sarah Marshall") is based on these swaggering, boozing, Brits? Sure he's a hybrid of all pompous 90s British rockers whose ambitions exceeded their audience's patience... but, uh, does that not primarily describe Oasis? Radiohead took a much different trajectory, The Verve imploded right after their best album, Travis was a sweet little band of little cultural importance.

As much as they weren't the second coming of the Beatles (because who ever could be?), Oasis was an incredibly good rock band. Don't undermine their legacy just because a) they're too popular or b) were bombastic or c)weren't art-house tacticians or d) produced albums of diminishing returns in their later years (but not that diminishing--don't judge those later albums just by the lukewarm singles they released. If you have time, check out "(Get Off Your) High Horse Lady" from Dig Out Your Soul and report back to me).

Play this album on a bar jukebox at around midnight with a good crowd in the 24-34 demographic who came of age with 90s rock and there will be literal cheers. In fact, they'll raise their glasses to the sky. They'll sing along. This is Oasis at its most fresh and bawdy and take-no-prisoners. I'm making my kids listen to it as part of their rock education, that's for surely.

I first heard Oasis's debut album when my brother played me a tape of "Definitely Maybe" one day in the fall of 1994. I quite liked some of the songs on it and remember finding "Live Forever" vaguely familiar, probably because I must have heard it playing on the radio or something when it was released as a single, or maybe, retrospectively speaking, because it was so good I thought I must have already heard it somewhere before. However, I didn't really pay the album much mind until almost a year later when I was in the record section in the basement of a retail store and they played "Definitely Maybe". I stayed in the record section to listen to the album and decided I would buy it.

It was loud, it was exciting, it was the plug to fill the void in music that had been prevalent for too long, particularly in the early 90's when music didn't really seem to know which way to go, except "back" perhaps. Hence, people like Sting, Annie Lennox, Brian May, Rod Stewart, Paul Weller, Freddie Mercury and Elton John all scored their first hits in years in the early 90's. The fact these people were deservedly being taken note of again was no bad thing by any means, but I think it showed that people back then wanted some quality talent, some established popular heroes who were consistently reliable for making good songs. Suddenly though, here was music from a band that was new and really worth listening to, and they opened the floodgates for other guitar bands such as Blur, Pulp, Radiohead, Suede and Supergrass. There was a new, exciting feel to the music (which the British media in all their naivety tediously stuck under the same umbrella and called "Britpop"). It was intelligent music with a social message but delivered by everyday working class people who weren't talking down to you or trying to be pretentious pop stars.

The album gets off to a great start with the full-tilt rock of "Rock `n' Roll Star". Powerful guitars drive the song with Liam's unmistakable vocal delivery, singing like he really means it. And that's the difference between Oasis and most bands of the last 20 years. They sing it and they play it because they really mean it, not just because they want you to think they mean it.

"Shaker Maker" is a good, clever song with Beatles-esque imagery in its lyrics, and the song has been around for long enough now for me to forget any close association its melody might have with the New Seekers' Coke song, "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing". It's not one of my favorite Oasis songs, but it showed this group weren't just an out-and-out rock band but instead could come up with clever melodies and lyrics for songs that had an air of wit and whimsicality to them as well, as they further demonstrated with "Digsy's Diner", "Married With Children", "She's Electric" and "The Importance of Being Idle". This in more ways seemed to show their influence of the Beatles.

"Live Forever" was the song that made people sit up and take notice a bit more, but who was to know back then whether or not this band were capable of achieving anything else as good, or even better. Remember, Oasis didn't come to the attention of the masses until "(What's The Story) Morning Glory?" the following year. Noel even said if he thought anyone was going to take notice of the band in the way that they did he might have thought twice about ripping off T. Rex for "Cigarettes and Alcohol". Actually, the song's riff borrowed from the T. Rex song "Get It On" was in fact ripped off by Marc Bolan and co. from an earlier Chuck Berry song anyway.

"Columbia" is another standout track on this album with its infectious, relentless groove reminiscent of The Happy Mondays but played from a wall of sound that sounds like nobody but Oasis. "Supersonic" was the band's first single and a good song but again not one of my favorites, although a band could do a lot worse than launch their music career with a song like that, and many have. It has great attitude, with the first line being "I want to be myself. I can't be no-one else". Probably my least favorite song on the album is "Bring It On Down", a snarling, boisterous song that leans towards punk and somehow just fails to hit the mark.

"Slide Away" is still my favorite song from the album and one of my all-time favorite tracks. When Oasis released a DVD to mark the tenth anniversary of "Definitely Maybe" in 2004, somebody on the DVD commented that the sign of a great album is when people talk highly of a track that wasn't even released as a single, to which they were referring to "Slide Away". I'd have to agree with that. The song moves at just the right pace with a blend of wonderful melody, lyrics and chords and I particularly love the ad-lib section of the song from the end of the last chorus to the fade, complimented perfectly by Noel's lead guitar work.

So, overall a classic album that is held in very high esteem by me and the British music-buying public over a decade later, but is it the best debut album ever? Definitely maybe.