Feature DIY’s Guide to the Top 10 Oasis songs  

The chalk and cheese of the brothers Gallagher thrums at the nucleus of the Oasis formula - and they’ve known that all along. In 2016 documentary Supersonic, Liam fittingly compares their relationship to that of the Bible’s Esau and Jacob, a story of brothers locked in a lifelong power struggle. That tale ends with a reconciliation - as, it appears, does this one. 

Having performed them individually everywhere from arenas to Knebworth over the past 15 years, these songs speak for themselves. But it’s nevertheless a thrilling prospect that we’re going to see the writer and the messenger - the two brothers - together once more. 

On the week of their reunion announcement, three of the band’s albums climbed back into the UK album charts, as did a slew of singles into the Top 20. As Oasis’ music swaggers to the front of the public conscience once again, we take a look back at ten of their very best tracks. 

There’s lots to enjoy in Oasis’ canon of fun throwaways, a la ​‘Digsy’s Dinner’ and ​‘Shakermaker’ — and this is one of their very best. Sort of sweet in its childish rhyme scheme (or as sweet as a song about sleeping around can be), it shows Oasis not taking themselves too seriously. A rare falsetto from Liam set against Noel’s harmonies makes for an addictive chorus that steals a little dusting from ​‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ and a whole chunk from The Kinks’ ​‘Wonderboy’. As we came to realise, looting from the greats would quickly become a big part of Noel’s ethos, and it’s something he stands proudly behind: ​“I’m a product of my record collection,” he confirmed, once upon a time. 

Noel once claimed that, had the internet been around when the members of Oasis were sat with nothing to do on the dole, they wouldn’t have made anything. Luckily for us, they had cigarettes, alcohol, and a rehearsal space instead. Here, Liam growls about finding meaning within this simplest pairing of items — a combination which has fuelled the rock and roll spirit for decades — over a riff lifted directly from T‑Rex. A belter that still sizzles with a youthful lust for life. 

The epic closer to ​‘What’s The Story (Morning Glory)’, following ​‘Champagne Supernova”s seven-minute run time from a doe-eyed stroll through a hall into an intergalactic chorus and back again is still very much a voyage worth taking. Guitarist Bonehead allegedly cried when Noel first played the track to him, accusing him of not writing it. And, while many of his songs do dance a little too closely to their source of inspiration, this one is all his own (despite amassing all of rock’s tropes into one track). Seldom do a cacophony of guitar solos warrant their staying time, but here they earn every second. 

The first big Noel song, and the one that’s forever destined to be the closer on a pub playlist against an eternal scene of geezers throwing their arms out wide. Noel let Liam decide whether to sing this or ​‘Wonderwall’ on ​‘What’s The Story (Morning Glory)’, and it’s now hard to imagine things the other way around. While Noel reserved his vocal presence for some BVs and B‑sides on ​‘Definitely Maybe’, here he finds his confidence, and man does his voice soar. Its potency as a song of the people has only grown in Oasis’ dormant period; at a vigil held to pay respect to the 22 victims of the Manchester bombings in 2017, the crowd broke out into a singalong of this anthem. Magic. 

The beauty of Oasis hangs on the yin and yang of the brothers in personality, attitude, and their vocal tenors. Noel’s gentle purr, as exemplified here, is as much a part of their identity as Liam’s snarl (After all, Noel did once say, ​“Liam’s like a dog and I’m a cat”). Here, Noel nicks the first couple of chords from the Burt Bacharach-penned ​‘This Guy’s In Love With You’ (which he once performed with the songwriting legend) and sets it against his own ruminations of longing and escape; an emotion that hangs over much of ​‘Definitely Maybe’. As he sings ​“I’ve been scratching around in the same old hole”, you can half hear the clattering from the building site cabin he was boarded up in. 

It’s still staggering how ​‘The Masterplan’ was demoted to a B‑side amongst the gold rush of Oasis’ peak songwriting patch. After the well ran a little dry as ​‘Be Here Now’ reared its head, there was some internal regret on the band’s part for not holding it back, but its blasé placement is testament to ​“the moment”. Plus, great songs always manage to find a way to their audience — and this truly is one of their greats. A gorgeous, descending string-tinged verse sets a misty scene, which is suddenly split by an explosive, anthemic chorus. It’s big budget B‑side material and, as Noel once quipped, ​“one of the best songs [he’s] ever written”.

Had these lyrics been conjured up by any other band, it would have arguably been one of the biggest stinkers of all time. But underlined in Liam’s trademark snarl, ​‘Supersonic’ became not only an Oasis classic but a fierce statement of intent, famously written in the time it took for a Chinese takeaway to be delivered. Total faith is hedged behind every word — even if those words are ​“she done it with the doctor on a helicopter”. It’s not a product of masterful wordsmithery, but that’s not the point. Instead, it’s fuelled by the sense of reaching for something bigger among the tosh: ​“You can have it all / But how much do you want it?” Liam poses. Written down, it feels as if it’s a question to the universe — but sonically, it sounds like Oasis already grasping glory from the heavens with all their might.

The song that proved the band had legs — from the inside and out. ​“I wrote a song called ​‘Live Forever’ and everything changed,” Noel reflected in the band’s Supersonic documentary. Disenfranchised by the depressing sentiments that clouded the charts in the aftermath of grunge, he penned an ode to life which found him wrangling up both ambition and a sonic blueprint for the band’s sound in the process. The yearn in Liam’s voice stands stark against Noel’s sparkling guitar solos and accompanying falsetto. A song widely understood to be about their mother, perhaps this is one of the reasons it stands so proud within their catalogue; a mutual love for Peggy Gallagher is one of the few things they can passionately agree upon.

Noel claims that this unifying rallying cry of a song isn’t actually about the brothers Gallagher, so we must assume his subconscious was at play while penning this rager. Liam’s snarl snakes through the verses before Noel is tagged in for the chorus: ​“Because we need each other / We believe in one another / And I know that we’re gonna uncover what’s sleeping in our soul”. If there were ever a few lines to sum up the Oasis story, these would be it. Set against three chords with the distortion up to 11, you couldn’t capture a more pure form of Oasis.

The summation of the ​‘Definitely Maybe’-era spirit, ​‘Slide Away’ proves that behind the swaggering cloak (or Adidas trackies) of arrogance beats a big, romantic heart. The track’s skyward-reaching guitar solos and ever-expanding outro manifests into a sonic exorcism of the everyday escapist, soundtracking the awe-striking sensation of finding a significant other and taking on the world. Plus, it gives Liam plenty of opportunity to belt out those elongated vowels we know and love, with an added ​“shine” in the mix too. The most romantic song Oasis ever committed to tape. 

Tags: Features, Oasis