The body of work that Oasis amassed between 1994 and 1996—including Definitely Maybe and (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, and at least another album’s worth of essential b-sides—has sustained their reputation through the 15 years that have elapsed since Liam and Noel Gallagher parted ways professionally. The band’s first two studio albums are remarkable not only for the quality of the material contained within, but also for the differences between them in terms of content and presentation. While the songs on Morning Glory resulted in copious airplay, Definitely Maybe has enabled Oasis to retain some alt-rock credibility.
This sense of indie authenticity is, in part, the result of the conditions under which Definitely Maybe was made. The story, of a group of twentysomething outsiders drawn to making music in the hope of escaping a life of limited means, is familiar. According to a recent interview with Noel, all the usual plot points came along to halt Oasis’s progress: mediocre musicianship, ignorance about recording practices, inferior equipment, and insufficient time.
After the results of two separate attempts to record the album were deemed unsatisfactory by both the band’s manager and their label, an outside producer was brought in to salvage the sessions. Eight songs were taken from the second round of recordings, with the only survivor of the first round being a particularly stirring and dynamic take of “Slide Away.” Lead single “Supersonic” was already in the can, having been miraculously written and recorded on spec after an early attempt to crack “Bring It on Down” proved fruitless.
Some discrepancies in recording quality between songs are apparent, and certain performance choices attest to the tracks having been recorded over a span of more than a year. Liam, barely out of his teens at the time, had yet to find his voice. It’s almost there, such as on the wistful, bittersweet “Live Forever,” which he attacks with a snarling punk’s disregard for healthy technique, risking cracks on every line of the song’s extended, stratosphere-bound bridge/chorus sections. And on “Married with Children,” he seems to be impersonating his idol, the Stone Roses’s Ian Brown, using a sing-speak voice, heavily accented with Manchester twang.
Liam’s sense of phrasing, and the processing of his voice with slight delay, are unique to this album—as, of course, is his monopoly on the material in the time before Noel had aspirations of becoming a singer himself. These quirks are what make Definitely Maybe one of the definitive debut albums of the 1990s: It sounds simultaneously embryonic of what would come later and yet fully realized as a historical capsule of the band at that time.
This push and pull extends to Noel’s songwriting. “Live Forever” and “Slide Away” are as richly emotional as anything he’s written since, and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star” and “Supersonic” just as cocksure as any of Oasis’s more commercially successful anthems. The album also showcases how easily he could switch between different linguistic registers: ”Rock ‘n’ Roll Star” is admirably economical, “Supersonic” and “Shakermaker” playful in the manner of Happy Mondays’s Shaun Ryder, and “Bring It on Down” has more bite to it than one would expect of such a stubbornly apolitical songwriter.
On the other hand, some tracks do betray Noel’s relative inexperience as a songwriter. The high-spirited “Up in the Sky” is a solid composition with a memorably emphatic middle eight—“You’ll need assistance with the things that you have never ever seen/It’s just a case of never breathing out before you’ve breathed it in”—but the song would have benefited from being a full minute shorter. Similarly, “Bring It on Down” suffers from some structural laxity. For the first three minutes, it’s a taut, dynamic punk workout, with an insightful commentary on Britain’s rigid class system, but the song is co-opted for a raucous extended guitar solo that stretches its runtime out for another minute.
But these—as well as the album’s slightly excessive length and rigid uniformity of style and arrangements, which were fashions of the era—are minor quibbles. Oasis’s best output is simply uncomplicated and instinctively felt, and Definitely Maybe continues to endure without the need for nostalgia’s helping hand. It’s monolithic and as yet beyond the reach of time.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
