The greatest debut album ever? Always a subjective question and impossible to answer.
1994: a year that saw the landscape of music change in Britain. It was a time to be proud to be British after so long embracing American culture.
By the time Oasis bulldozed their way onto the scene, other British bands were already starting to achieve mainstream success. Acts such as Suede and Blur were scoring their highest charting singles to date. As a young lad getting into guitar music at that time, I definitely felt a movement was beginning to take place.
In April, Oasis would release their debut single “Supersonic”. Although it would only reach a modest 31 in the UK charts, there was already a statement of intent “I need to be myself, I can’t be no one else” – a motto certainly to live by.
“Shakermaker” and “Live Forever” would quickly follow as singles in June and August that year, with songwriter Noel Gallagher already trying to emulate The Beatles by releasing singles every few months.
August 29th was the date Definitely Maybe was unleashed on the UK and it was the day I walked into Music Zone record shop in Stockport to purchase the CD. The album commences with the perfect opener to any album: “Rock n Roll Star”. Chin out and in your face. “I live my life for the stars that shine”, “Tonight I’m a rock n roll star” – You can imagine kids singing that in their bedrooms hoping one day that could be them. A song about dreams of escaping the hum drum life on a council estate.
That to me was the definition of early Oasis songs. Filled with hope about how good your life could actually be. Singing about subjects any kid could relate to. “Live Forever” relates to friendship, when you have two friends who get the jokes that no one else does, “Cigarettes and Alcohol”, a song about, well Cigarettes and Alcohol, and “Slide Away”, a song about love.
Ranking albums as the greatest is always a matter of opinion and is always based on your own personal experiences. For me, as a lad just leaving his teenage years, this album is special for so many reasons. It’s the album that got me into guitar music after the charts being dominated by blandness.
It’s cliche to say it but it’s also an album that made me think differently as an individual, took me on a different path musically and definitely changed my lifestyle both socially and culturally. I discovered so many different bands and went to so many gigs from that day forward.
To me that’s the sign of an era-defining album. Other people probably cite The Jam, The Smiths and The Stone Roses for the same reasons but they were before my time. Definitely Maybe was right here, right now for me.
With front man Liam Gallagher now playing to audiences as big as Oasis played to and Noel Gallagher also achieving great success, the iconic band are still relevant to kids not even born when Definitely Maybe was released. A definite sign of a crossover in eras showing the long-term legacy of Oasis.
As Liam once said “We deserve a table upstairs with the big boys“. There we were, now here we are.