Oasis (2) – Definitely Maybe

Even if they couldn’t get along, the contentiousness between the brothers made for some of the best music of the last 25 years, with Oasis [formally called Rain, after The Beatles’ song] realizing the dreams they never dared think would come true lacing together most of the the album Definitely Maybe. These relentless dreams echo in many fashions across the face of this record, where they welcome the dreams of the listens to mesh with theirs. Though listening to this outing today, with all Oasis has done and been through, their rise to fame, and eventual crash, often resounds as a nightmare they couldn’t see coming, or perhaps wake from.

One of the best aspects of Oasis at this time was that they hadn’t set about to reinvent rock, they merely wanted to redefine it, bend it perhaps, with the intent of fostering something new and exciting … to which they succeed hands down, with the brothers considered to be the greatest voices of their generation, laying down a self-fulling prophecy of inspirational songs and sounds that boarded on a rallying cry for the overlooked of society, laced with incendiary guitar work and imaginative magical lyrics. All of this made Definitely May one of the best first records from a band of all time … an album that will certainly live forever.

*** And the fun facts: Moving ‘round the room from left to right. The large image of Burt Bacharach in the bottom left of the artwork is, first and foremost, a straightforward homage to one of Noel's musical heroes but the positioning of the picture is also significant. It is reminiscent of where Pink Floyd positioned the artwork for the soundtrack to the film, Gigi, on the cover of their 1969 album, Ummagumma. One presumes this was Noel's nod to the prog rockers, rather than the Vincente Minnelli musical film.
– There is a small photograph of Manchester United legend George Best in the window, which was guitarist Bonehead's defiant reminder that not every member of Oasis is a Manchester City fan.
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is playing on the television. Noel has since declared that this Clint Eastwood western is one of his favourite films.
- Inevitably, if Bonehead was having a picture of a Manchester United player, the Gallagher brothers were going to have a bigger picture of a Manchester City legend. And who else but Rodney Marsh, the club's record g, who scored 35 league goals in 116 appearances.
- Nothing too cryptic here, just a nice reference to Definitely Maybe track, Cigarettes and Alcohol.
-The album’s cover was photographed in the living room of guitarist Bonehead’s house. Liam lies on the floor – apparently in a pose inspired by an Egyptian mummy – surrounded by, what else, Cigarettes & Alcohol. Well, cigarettes, certainly – the red wine in the glasses is actually blackcurrant Ribena. But according to photographer Michael Spencer Jones, it's not true he used Ribena because the band couldn’t afford red wine. He told the NME that when it comes to taking a picture, Ribena looks more like red wine than red wine does.

- Noel wrote the lyrics to “Live Forever” (the third single from Definitely Maybe and the band's first top-10 hit) as a direct response to early ’90's grunge music, which he thought unnecessarily depressing. Fixing his crosshairs on Kurt Cobain's band, Nirvana, Noel said: "It seems to me that here was a guy [Cobain] who had everything, and was miserable about it. And we had fuck all, and I still thought that getting up in the morning was the greatest fucking thing ever." This cheeriness is certainly reflected in Noel's lyrics: "Maybe I just want to fly, I want to live I don't want to die.”

- Coca-Cola successfully sued Oasis for $500,000, claiming that “Shakermaker,” the second single from Definitely Maybe, sounded too similar to the New Seekers's “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing (In Perfect Harmony)”, which they used in their 1971 ment. Not the first time Oasis would be sued for infringement.

Review by Jenell Kesler