While the technique of making a film’s opening scene come back at the end (with the story being told in between) isn’t new, it works perfectly for Oasis’ compelling ‘Supersonic’ documentary.
Beginning with the group boarding a helicopter to Knebworth, where they would play to 250,000 people over two nights in August 1996, it ends with them taking the Knebworth stage as the world’s most popular band. The flight may have been just a short hop, but the journey that brought the group’s key members, brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher to their pre-eminent position in the world of rock, had been turbulent, chaotic and in the previous two years bewilderingly hectic. By August 1996, Oasis had reached a stratosphere of popularity that very few had reached, and the fact that they had gotten there so early in their career made it all the more amazing.
But if their speed to the top of the mountain had been a blur (if Noel and Liam will forgive the analogy), maintaining that level of focus from there was always going to be a daunting task. They were the biggest band of the era and Knebworth was the highest height they had reached yet, but it was to prove their crowning glory, Noel Gallagher admitted at the end of the documentary ‘Supersonic’: “After coming from where we had at the two and a half years before he got the feeling at Knebworth that this was the end and not the beginning.
They came from a tough Manchester neighborhood and from a childhood in which their abusive father was often violent towards his wife and their older children, Paul and Noel. The youngest of the three, Liam, also received rough treatment and although mother Peggy eventually gained legal custody of the children and she mostly raised the family alone, their troubled early lives forged no unifying bond between Noel and Liam, that the documentary makes it quite clear; Noel is described as withdrawn and Liam antagonistic. Their contentious, often threatening (and worse) relationship is at the center of Oasis’ backstory, and even in the group’s early home movies, long before their mutual animosity became the subject of headlines. from the tabloids, contempt and petulance often appear. he’s just a heartbeat away from punching.
At this point it’s impossible not to start drawing comparisons to Kinks mainstays Ray and Dave Davies. Not only does Noel take over Liam’s gang, as Ray did the gang Dave had formed, but an often horrific sibling rivalry drives other members of the group on the way out, with jealousy and taunting prelude to outbreaks of physical violence. What Noel says about Liam could easily be Ray’s comment about Dave: “He was always cooler than me, funnier, had a better haircut and clothes fit better. But he was jealous of my songwriting talents.” “.
If Ray and Dave become the Grimm brothers of rock, then Noel and Liam are the Peaky Blinders embroiled in civil war.
After Noel joins the group in 1991, two years follow when he recalls that “not a single paragraph was written about us.” But their developing talent as a songwriter and their dynamic live shows in which Liam is emerging as the quintessential rock frontman and singer, catch the eye of Creation Records boss Alan McGee, who signs them to his label in May. from 1993. But if anything, the road gets even rockier (and not purely in the musical sense). They make a string of great singles including ‘Supersonic’ while their debut album ‘Definitely Maybe’ exceeds all expectations in terms of sales and critical acclaim. It will go on to become the best-selling debut album in UK music history, but along with the music it quickly develops a (justifiable) reputation for rebellious behavior that brings deportation from Holland and a disastrous appearance at the Whiskey-A- Go-Go Club in Los Angeles, where pre-show drug excess confuses heads to the point that different songs are played at the same time, culminating in a furious onstage exchange between Liam and Noel, making that Noel leaves the tour and for a short time. , the gang (they eventually find him hiding out in San Francisco and persuade him to return; the episode prompted Noel to write the melancholy ‘Talk Tonight,’ one of several lyrical ballads he would write around this time).
What happens next is less of a follow-up album and more of a ’90s cultural phenomenon: (“What’s the Story”) “Morning Glory” (1995) is one of those rare records like “Tapestry” or “Dark Side of the Moon” who are an essential embodiment of their time. If much of ‘Morning Glory’ is exceptional, then the statistics are mind-boggling: 347,000 sold in its first week of release, 13x platinum in the UK, 4x in the US and officially the best-selling album of the decade. Even if you’re wary of equating big sales with musical achievement (football teams, sitcom actors, and puppets have all had number-one singles, while The Clash and Neil Young haven’t), there’s no doubt that Oasis produced a very good album, with at least three tracks ‘Wonderwall’, ‘Don’t Look in Anger’ and ‘Champagne Supernova’) becoming defining songs of the era.
Lyrically forceful but also melodic, it was a welcome antidote to the prevailing trends of grunge rock and stands as the undisputed high point of the Britpop movement whose origins can be traced back to The Beatles and The Kinks, two bands whose influence was heavily shaped in the Oasis structure. songs. Contemporary critics have come to regard ‘Morning Glory’ a little less favorably, calling Beatles-tinged material derivative and may have a case, but only up to a point: let’s face it, sometimes the Beatles themselves weren’t opposed to borrowing an idea or two, drawing inspiration from the likes of The Byrds, Dylan and The Who.
Towards the end of the ‘Supersonic’ documentary, Noel Gallagher reflects on the moment Oasis arrived on the Knebworth stage: “Nothing anyone does in the future will be as big as Oasis, in the times we live in it’s unrepeatable.” Before playing a note, he announces to the crowd: “This is history, here and now.”
An assessment even more relevant today than then.