(What's the Story) Morning Glory cover
Tonight’s selections from Oasis’ second album, 1995’s (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?
Many new rock bands leave the starting gate with fists flying, eager to batter down obstacles on the road to stardom. But few have been as hands-on as Oasis. In England the band’s popularity has almost as much to do with the number of black eyes and bloody noses that brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher have inflicted on each other as it does with the number of hit singles they’ve created. Ironically, this stormy relationship is also what makes their new album, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, so galvanic.
It’s no secret that tension and instability have been inherent traits of great rock teams, going as far back as Jagger and Richards, but for Oasis, the addition of shared genes gives their songs extra impact and dimension. No matter how much the Gallaghers fight — or pose — their brotherly bond holds at the center. This inner confidence allows the group to flaunt its jaded arrogance like a five-man biker gang — whether it’s revving on amplifier overload or coasting through a pastel-washed reverie. It also permits. Oasis to borrow shamelessly from artists like the Rolling Stones, T. Rex, the Kinks, Small Faces and, especially, the Beatles without losing their own snide identity. [...]
(What’s the Story) Morning Glory? is more than a natural progression; it’s a bold leap forward that displays significant musical and personal growth, not to mention a far greater familiarity with the Fab Four’s back catalog. Since pledging themselves to “Cigarettes and Alcohol” on their debut, Oasis have apparently had plenty of sex, done loads of drugs and lived rock & roll to the limit, and now they’re searching for something more. Twenty-seven-year-old songwriter Noel Gallagher has crafted a number of tunes that downplay bravado in favor of self-discovery and even (gulp) sensitivity. — Rolling Stone (1995)
Don't Look Back In Anger
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Tell me this isn’t f’ing awesome. Makes my arm hair stand up. A band at the height of its powers.
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Hello
Fortuitously arriving at the mid-point of the '90s—and representing the peak of a Britpop narrative that took root with the retro-rock renaissance of the Stone Roses and the La’s five years previous—(What’s the Story) Morning Glory? is Oasis' absolute pinnacle. If Definitely Maybe presented Oasis' raw materials—’60s psychedelia, ’70s glam and punk, Madchester groove—Morning Glory melted down and remoulded them into a towering sound that was unmistakably their own, with those omnipresent (but never ostentatious) string-section sweeps classily dressing up the songs like ribbons on a trophy. And yet the real triumph of Morning Glory is measured not by the tracks that have since become karaoke classics, first-dance wedding standards, and go-to bathtub sing-alongs, but the exceptional album tracks that never got a shot at certain chart supremacy—like the jet-roar jangle of “Hey Now” (for my money, the best Oasis song never to be issued as a single) and the crestfallen “Cast No Shadow”, dedicated to a then-mostly-unknown Richard Ashcroft of the Verve, a band that would soon reap the benefits of Oasis’ American incursion.
Ironically, the Oasis-whetted appetite for all things English was arguably also crucial to the impending Stateside success of the Spice Girls, who would usher in a wave of preteen-targeted pop that would eventually push guitar-oriented rock acts down the charts by decade's end. And what’s most striking about listening to (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? today is how, at the height of their powers, Oasis seemed to be bracing for their own eventual downfall. The tone of the album is decidedly darker and more reflective than the working-class escapism of Definitely Maybe, be it the foreboding “it’s never gonna be the same” prophecy of opening salvo “Hello”, the title track’s white-lined dispatches from the after-party circuit, or the cigarette-lighter-illuminated comedown of “Champagne Supernova”, wherein Oasis already sound nostalgic for the idealism of their debut album. And while Noel still deals in absurdist metaphor here (how exactly does one slowly walk down the hall faster than a cannonball?), he also emerges as a more personable, sobering foil to brother Liam’s bratty swagger—not just on his showstopping star turn on “Don’t Look Back in Anger”, but also in the way his backing vocals imbue “Cast No Shadow” with a deeper sense of despair. — Pitchfork
Wonderwall
For those who weren’t around at the time, it almost feels impossible to gauge the importance of an album such as this. It was a breath of Britpop-tinged fresh air in an era when grunge was still dominating the rock scene, and helped to bring Oasis onto the well-deserved world stage.
That’s not to say that Oasis wasn’t already a globally-recognised outfit. After all, their 1994 debut, Definitely Maybe, was an instant smash, becoming the fastest-selling debut album in the United Kingdom at the time. With such hype behind them, the average music fan would’ve been forgiven for thinking the group might fall into the dreaded sophomore slump, especially given the massive publicity given to the Battle of Britpop behind Manchester’s working-class Oasis, and London’s seemingly-bourgeois Blur.
However, when “Some Might Say” rolled onto the airwaves not even eight months on from the release of Definitely Maybe, there was no maybe about the group’s momentum. Eventually, October of 1995 saw the release of (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, and the story that adorned the pages of the musical press was one of amazement and praise.
The stories surrounding its release are well-known, of course. It broke sales records at the time, it won countless awards, it topped charts globally, and it transformed Oasis from a bunch of musicians who’d made a strong debut into an outfit whose place in the history books was cemented. Even their famous Knebworth House performance remain almost mythical events, with 125,000 people attending each date of their two-night residency – a minuscule portion of the 2.5 million that reportedly applied for tickets. — Rolling Stone (2020)
Hey Now
"We worked hard," Noel Gallagher recalls in the documentary Return To Rockfield. "I think it was twelve working days. We were doing a track a day, which is insane. When people ask me round the world about my album, I said it took twelve days, they just don’t believe you. They just say no, it couldn’t have, it takes twelve days to set the drum kit up."
But it's true. It took just twelve days to record the fifth biggest selling album in the UK. (What's The Story) Morning Glory? was the follow-up to the assured Oasis debut Definitely Maybe, but Gallagher admits that half the songs weren't even written when the band arrived at the studio. So how did Noel come up with such a masterpiece? [...]
Champagne Supernova
"Some day you will find me / Caught beneath the landslide / In a champagne supernova in the sky."
A reflective way to end such a monumental record, Noel Gallagher later said that the lyrics were "As psychedelic as I'll ever get."
He went on, telling the NME in 1995: "It means different things when I'm in different moods. When I'm in a bad mood being caught beneath a landslide is like being suffocated. The song is a bit of an epic. It's about when you're young and you see people in groups and you think about what they did for you and they did nothing." — Radio X
Champagne Supernova
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Morning Glory
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WHO’S TALKING TO WHO?
Jimmy Kimmel: Tom Hiddleston, Joey King, Phosphorescent
Jimmy Fallon: Ryan Gosling, Johnny Knoxville, girl in red
Stephen Colbert: Paul Rudd, Cecilia Vega, Jon Hamm, Amy Sedaris (R 3/13/24)
After Midnight: Doug Benson, Diona Reasonover, Echo Kellum
Seth Meyers: Liev Schreiber, Busy Philipps, Andrew Hurley
Watch What Happens Live: Kyle Cooke, West Wilson
The Daily Show: Hanif Abdurraqib, host Michael Kosta
