You might have heard, but Britpop’s greatest group returned this year in a blaze of summer-dominating, triumphal glory. Plus, easily missed, Oasis got back together, too.
Odd as it is to say now, Live ’25 wasn’t a nailed-on success. Questions swirled: Would the irascible brothers keep their egos and fratricidal instincts in check? Could they swerve notoriety for playing so slowly that the life drains out of even the most committed loyalist? Any chance the setlist might show proof of their existence past 2002? (Yes, yes, no.) Demand for the tour was insane, some 14 million trying for the UK dates alone, a nearly 600 percent leap on 1996’s immortalised pair of Knebworth shows.
Once the ticker tape from the opener in Cardiff confirmed that they were not just in decent form, but had actually exceeded all expectations, a funny kind of tremor swept Anglophiles the world over, like the aftershock of a bliss nuke. With tabloids and legacy music media fixated on tracking the brothers’ every move, even a brief pat on the back sent people doollally. Out went strappy tops and cigs, in came bucket hats and more cigs, as Planet Gallagher blotted out the sun. And lo, just in case you thought they hadn’t raked in enough cash already, here arrives the 30th anniversary edition of (What’s the Story?) Morning Glory, a reissue of a reissue of a reissue. You may not like it, but this is what Peak Oasis looks like.
As the world’s most ardent proponents of Lennonism, the only comparison Liam and Noel will brook these days is against their idols. So let’s begin there. Socially, in 2025, Oasis are bigger than the Beatles. Chalk it up to heavy competition in the ’60s, or a total collapse of aesthetic progression since the ’90s, but you can only tackle the void in front of you, and Oasis did so with brutal efficiency. If you cup your ear today to the ballad of the pub man, you won’t find gents in collarless grey suits harmonizing “Day Tripper” at closing time. What you will find, however, is middle-aged men greying around the temples and young lovers with live forever inked in cursive on their calves, arm in arm, belting one of modern rock’n’roll’s universal standards: “Champagne Supernova,” “Wonderwall,” “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” or, plausibly, all of the above.
