Within the international rockosphere, 2025 is shaping up to be the year of Oasis. Fifteen years after the Gallagher brothers acrimoniously went their separate ways, and 30 after their band stormed the mainstream barricades to become the biggest British band since the Beatles, a cryptic message appeared on the siblings’ social media sites on 27 2024: “The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over. Come see.”
Announced soon after were the 17 (later 22) dates for the “Oasis Live ’25 Tour,” spanning five months and hosted at some of the world’s largest stadiums. Tickets sold out in minutes, and fans across generations expressed frustration over online queues and dynamic pricing inflation, sparring with each other over which age demographic was more worthy of these finite products.
Amidst the clamor and mayhem, it became apparent that a 15-year break had done little to diminish enthusiasm for Oasis; in fact, their appeals had only grown and expanded. Few would have predicted this in 2009 when the band limply exited the rock arena after too many average record releases and incidents of sibling rivalry.
Noel and Liam went on to enjoy successful solo ventures, but neither have been able or willing to shed the shadow of their Oasis pasts. Each kept performing the band’s iconic songs. Older fans understandably wanted to hear the classics, but over time, they were joined by their kids, and the songs took on a timeless quality. This inter-generational reach was reflected in sales and streams.
In October 2020, “Wonderwall” became the first song from the 1990s to reach one billion streams on Spotify—and they were not just downloaded by middle-aged men in anoraks. Noel, aware of the enduring popularity of his former band, would often quip that there was no reason to reform, as Oasis were selling as many records broken up as together. Still, six Oasis works re-entered the charts after the ’25 tour was announced, Definitely Maybe returning to Number One in its 30th-anniversary edition.
In speculating why Oasis are reuniting, some have pointed to the remuneration projected; the upcoming tour is estimated to earn about $400 million for the brothers. Cynics have made comparisons to the Sex Pistols reunion tour of 1996, which was aptly titled the “Filthy Lucre Tour” in recognition of the primary motive behind it. Whatever the reasons, it is clear that Oasis—alongside other Britpop from the ‘90s—is back in vogue again. Both are currently under review – reassessed and romanticized by generations past and present.
As Brexit and Trumpism have recently shown us, nostalgia is a powerful drug. It speaks to our longing for the “good old days”, especially when the future promises only unsettling change and decline. We crave the emotional comforts provided by the past, imaginary or sentimental though our retrospection may be. Nostalgia offers us a coping mechanism and an improved mood in the face of anxiety. When such concerns settle across a nation, nostalgia manifests as a collective cultural and political response. Therefore, just as we might explain Trump as the political beneficiary of nostalgia for a past—if mythical—“great America”, so too Oasis can be understood as a conduit, igniting cognitive reflexes in an audience that needs and craves relief in an idealized past.
Pop Primitivism
A chasm had settled between rock and pop music in late 1980s Britain, indie rock withdrawing further into the margins with willfully anti-commercial subgenres like shoegaze. The Stone Roses showed the potential to reach the mainstream, but their star was fading by the close of the decade.
When Oasis emerged from the burgeoning Britpop scene of the early 1990s, they displayed an ability to crossover without sacrificing all semblance of hip credibility. Signing to Creation Records helped that balancing act, as the indie label was renowned for being home to many of the trendier British rock acts of the prior decade—including shoegaze ones. However, when Noel took over the reins of his brother’s fledgling band in 1991, his ambitions transcended, reaching the top of the indie charts. He wanted world domination and crafted the band accordingly.
When their debut Definitely Maybe album was completed in 1994, Team Oasis knew it could appeal to audiences beyond the usual NME-reading subculture most alt-rock bands strived for. Less ironic or obscurantist than their peers, Oasis targeted general listeners with blasts of pop-rock fundamentalism – primitive riffs providing vehicles for primal emotions. Many rock critics were initially reticent to embrace the band’s familiar touchpoints, but Oasis’ management circumvented their gatekeeping authority by advertising the album in lifestyle magazines and football programs.
While breeding contempt in certain hipper-than-thou circles, the familiarity of Oasis sparked reassuring nostalgia in mainstream rock audiences. By marrying the songwriting skills of the Beatles with the confrontational attitude of the Sex Pistols, the band tapped into and rejuvenated the two primary forces of British rock, distilling each down to their essences. Simplicity was the key, distorted rhythm guitar chords underscored by root bass notes and Ringo-regular drum backing. Complexity and counterpoints were verboten as all boats rowed in the same direction, making for a pure wall of sound akin to the Pistols’ bombastic sonic approach.
Beatles allusions were even more blatant, the band quoting their lyrics, borrowing their imagery, and talking about them ad nauseam in interviews. Beatle-ing became a strategic game for Oasis, a way to tease critics while maintaining brand associations with the most popular and acclaimed band of all time. The connection became such that if you thought of Oasis, you were cast back to the glory years of British music and culture.
Too much is sometimes made of the band’s Beatles obsessions, though, as they were equally adept at pilfering from other key artists in British rock history. Broadening their appeal to those who had grown up after the Fab Four’s demise, Oasis drilled down on the glam/glitter era, borrowing riffs from T-Rex’s “Get It On” (for “Cigarettes and Alcohol”), Gary Glitter’s “Hello, Hello, I’m Back Again” (for “Hello”), and David Bowie’s “All the Young Dudes” (for “Don’t Look Back in Anger”).
What kept Oasis from degenerating into a quasi-cover band was their ability to present their plagiaristic indulgences with reverence and good humor. Moreover, there was always just enough originality and contemporaneity in their sound to keep them relevant while still fulfilling their goal of transporting listeners to happy places in their musical time machine.
Unlike predecessors like Johnny Rotten and Morrissey or peers like Damon Albarn and Jarvis Cocker, Noel Gallagher has received scant praise for his lyrical contributions to British rock culture. Indeed, his words have often been dismissed as nonsensical or juvenile. In 1994, journalist Caroline Sullivan marveled at the banality of Oasis songs, commenting, “In this day and age, it’s strange to hear a band with nothing on their minds but beer and sex.” The songwriter has done little to rebut such assessments, admitting that he either didn’t care or was drunk while penning his lyrics (Mundy).
As with his songwriting, though, what Noel’s words lack in profundity, they make up for in populist resonance. Simplicity is, again, the key to the appeal. Noel writes about universal themes and feelings that everyone can relate to. Catering to their young working-class (male) core constituencies, Oasis lyrics voice their yearning for escape and success and the simple joys of friendship and hedonistic activities.
Unlike rivals Blur, who often sing observational songs about character types, Noel embraces Johnny Rotten’s “us versus them” perspective, incorporating fans into his in-crowd identity. “We’ll see things they’ll never see,” Liam sings in “Live Forever”, inviting listeners to join the “we” club. “In my mind my dreams are real…/ Tonight, I’m a rock ‘n’ roll star,” he rejoices in “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star”, voicing the fantasies of generations of aspirants worldwide.
Another underestimated aspect of Oasis is their visual appeal. Like U2 and the Rolling Stones, this band was built to play stadiums – big riffs constructed around chorus lines written for mass singalong participation. That Liam doesn’t leap around on stage like Bono and Jagger is often held against him, as though demonstrative theatricality is the only acceptable form of performance. Oasis exude a different kind of visual presence, one more aligned with the stationary swagger found in Manchester’s alt-rock heritage.
Consider the manic minimalism of Ian Curtis’ epileptic gestures, Morrissey’s arm flailing, or Ian Brown’s mic shaking. When I saw the Fall in the early 1980s, Mark E. Smith spent most of the show static—with his back to the audience! At least Liam mastered the “stand at ease” pose, his good looks and tall, handsome frame on open display. When Oasis first appeared on MTV’s “120 Minutes” in 1994, American viewers were perplexed by the band’s lack of movement; however, their deliberate act of anti-showmanship had been established and embraced as charismatic cool in the UK.
Also visually relatable, and thus appealing to the average Brit, were the every-lad clothes worn by the Gallagher brothers. Like their guitar riffs, reference points were signaled by each item in their wardrobe: baggy T-shirts and bucket hats alluded to the prior Madchester scene, parkas and tinted glasses to the ‘60s Mods, and tracksuits and trainers to the football terraces associated with working-class “lad” identity.
There Will Always Be a “Little England”
Socio-cultural factors also account for Oasis’ popularity in the 1990s and now. Again, nostalgia plays a key role. In a case of right time, right place, Oasis emerged when British rock culture called for some homegrown product to fend off the American Grunge invasion. With its empire long gone and its cultural influence diminished, modern Britain had few areas of national pride remaining; one it continues to cling to is its rock and pop music. It was, therefore, cause for national shame when the country famed for its rock exports in the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s experienced invading forces from Nirvana et al. in the early ‘90s.
This perceived black eye to British rock was felt across the industry, leading the music weeklies to a national search for homemade competition. Some contenders were unearthed in Suede, Blur, and Pulp, their guitar rock tapping into British traditions, their lyrics and identities doing likewise. However, Oasis best fit the remit when they emerged—accent intact—from a working-class enclave of Burnage, Manchester, in 1993. Lumped in with their peers, the press declared Britpop a phenomenon and its every utterance a declaration of anti-American independence.
Nationalistic hysteria was whipped up, as every symbol was scrutinized for its essential Englishness. Unlike in the US, where the term “middle class” is seemingly applied to everyone who is not a multi-millionaire but somewhere above the official poverty level, the British fixate on class distinctions and conflicts; hence, middle-class Blur were set against working-class Oasis, the former cast as art school types from the affluent South, the latter as uneducated louts from the rough and tough North.
A media-driven rivalry was even drummed up around the simultaneous releases of Blur’s “Country House” and Oasis’ “Roll With It” singles in August 1995, dubbed “The Battle of Britpop”. For the British public caught up in the frenzy, it felt like the Beatles and Stones battling it out again for the hearts of the world’s youth.
Despite their public protestations to the contrary, both bands participated gamely in the Britpop branding process, Blur offering their equivalent to the Clash’s “I’m So Bored With the U.S.A.” with the satirical “Magic America” and Oasis’ Noel explaining “Live Forever” as a refutation of the self-destructive nihilism offered by the likes of Nirvana. They also distinguished themselves from the pervasive American Grunge style, both bands regularly sporting the “Casual” British football fan look, Noel accessorizing his on stage with a Union Jack-emblazoned Epiphone guitar.
Beyond rock circles, too, Oasis were associated with—and helped perpetuate—the “Cool Britannia” branding exercise taking place in the larger culture of the period. Selling the nation as youthful and vibrant, Cool Britannia had the Camelot-promising New Labour leader Tony Blair as its leading man and various Young British Artists, actors, fashion designers, chefs, lifestyle journalists, athletes, and rock bands as the supporting cast that collectively declared: We can produce our own, thank you very much! Oasis became just one more example of Britain swinging again. What, though, was this brand’s essence?
The enduring appeals of Oasis—then and now—cannot be separated from the political implications of Cool Britannia. Despite its multi-cultural reality, in this guise, Britain is envisaged as a white-washed, male-dominated nation of conservative hopes and dreams. Critics sometimes call this a “Little England” mentality; few represent it more thoroughly than Oasis. Witnessing the collective nostalgia triggered by their recent reunion announcement, it is more than mere conjecture to suggest, as British music journalist Paul Lester does, that the band continue to be “ingrained in the national psyche”. So, one might ask: are Oasis the perfect exemplars of post-Brexit Britain, tailor-made (still) for its “Make Britain Great Again” parochialism?
Critics are divided on what Oasis meant when they arrived on the scene in 1994 Definitely Maybe and what they mean today in relation to British culture. The Guardian’s Simon Price laments the band’s return, highlighting their “prehistoric political views” that once included openly homophobic and misogynistic slurs. Price is unwilling to excuse the Gallaghers—as many have—for their bigoted boorishness just because they are working class and/or the “people’s band”. He calls them the “band of choice for flag-shaggers and Reform voters.”
Fellow critic Barbara Ellen, responding three days after Price’s article published, argues that the band has been unfairly vilified, not for being working class but “the wrong kind of working class”: outspoken, ungrateful, and un-PC. She calls the backlash—then and now—“Oasisphobia”, and feels that the group are victims of their own populist appeals, disparaged because they and their fans do not meet the requisite artistic (or socio-political) profile.
Central to both analyses, nevertheless, is a recognition that Oasis are much more than just a band playing popular music. Sometimes, groups come along that mean more than the sum of their parts; such artists evoke and provoke larger psychosocial feelings—good or bad—that speak as much to our tribal identities as our music tastes.
Works Cited
Ellen, Barbara. “Oasis Are Back. So Why All the Hatred?” The Observer. 31 August 2024.
Mundy, Chris. “Oasis: Ruling Asses”. Rolling Stone. 2 May 1996.
Price, Simon. “Stop the celebrations—Oasis are the most damaging pop-cultural force in recent British history”. The Guardian. 28 August 2024.
Sullivan, Caroline. “Oasis: Definitely Maybe Reviewed“. The Guardian. 26 August 1994. Reprinted 26 August 2024.
Thorp, Clare. “Definitely Maybe at 30: Why Oasis defined the spirit of 90s Britain”. BBC. 27 August 2024.