MUSIC
What was Oasis’ biggest hit song in the USA?
Everything points to a reunion for the Gallagher brothers with a series of concerts in the pipeline for 2025.
It all started early on Sunday morning with a report in the UK based Sunday Times claiming that, according to “industry experts”, the brothers “appear to have settled their differences and, if the truce holds, Oasis will reform to play
a series of massive concerts in London and Heaton Park (Manchester) in 2025.” The rumours also suggested that Wembley Stadium has been reserved for ten nights and if this materialises next summer the band would shatter the record for appearances at the famous venue, created recently by Taylor Swift’s and her eight night residency at the north London stadium.
During the remaining part of Sunday, the momentum suggesting a reunion was on the cards continued with Liam posting a slew of his traditional semi-cryptic posts on Twitter with the most revealing being: “I never did like that word FORMER”.
At this point, the Oasis fanbase were in overdrive, confident that a reunion was finally in the offing after the band split in 2009 with a more than acrimonious relationship developing between both Noel and Liam as the older brother called time in 2009 with a late withdrawal from a French festival as Noel announced his departure on social media posting: “It is with some sadness and great relief...I quit Oasis tonight. People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer.”
Late on Sunday, the pieces of the jigsaw finally fell into place when both Liam and Noel posted separately a brief video bearing Tuesday’s date (27.08.2024) and the time 8am, which suggests that details of what this proposed reunion involves will be revealed then.
Rock n Roll stars
In 1991 Oasis exploded on the music scene in England and went onto become a generation defining musical phenomenon.
Fronted by brothers, Liam and Noel Gallagher the Manchester based band had swagger, looked good and were never short of attitude and had plenty of big tunes. Indie rock anthems such as ‘Supersonic’, ‘Roll With It’, ‘Some Might Say’ and ‘Wonderwall’ helped the band to sell more than 75 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling groups of all time.
Despite their success in their native UK, Europe and Japan, then band never reached the same heady heights in the USA.
US Masterplan
Speaking on this lack of success for Oasis in the US, in 2023 Noel claimed: “America couldn’t handle the fact that we didn’t give a fuck about anything,” said Gallagher, when asked about Oasis’ relationship with the country. “I mean, I think that’s the reason we’ve never really had a number one album in America – they wouldn’t go the extra mile for us because we wouldn’t go the extra mile for them.”
“That’s why we’ve never been nominated for a GRAMMY – you’ve got to do all that stuff over there, you’ve got to kind of fake it a little bit and we just we couldn’t do it which is why we’d always stall at number two.”
‘What’s the Story Morning Glory’ peaked at 4 in 1996 and ‘Be Here Now’ debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard charts in ‘97 before ‘Standing on the Shoulder of Giants’ peaked at No. 24 in 2000 heralding a decline in the band’s commercial success.
Singles-wise, Wonderwall, Live Forever, Don’t Look Back in Anger and Champagne Supernova all performed well on US based Alt-Rock stations but the band only broke into the Billboard Hot 100 with three tracks: Wonderwall in January 1996 (peaking at No. 8), Don’t Look Back in Anger reached No. 55 in August of the same year with 2008′s The Shock of Lightning struggling to No. 93 in 2008.