The last entry in my “Fifteen Albums” series—wherein I write at length about the 15 albums that most shaped my life—was published on Aug. 6, 2009. I had intended to follow up that entry—No. 9 in the series, focusing on Miles Davis’ classic Kind of Blue—immediately, as in, the following week. But then I wrote about something else, and something else after that. And as the weeks passed, I found it harder and harder to return to “Fifteen Albums,” because I was more and more uncomfortable making a commitment to whatever might come next. Arriving at the 10th entry in “Fifteen Albums” means that I am officially two-thirds of the way through this series, and while I am, in some ways, very eager to find out where it will go from here, what will come next, and where it will end, I’m also reluctant to see this journey in its last lap.
But that’s no excuse for me to step away from it forever. So this week, I’m returning to this ambitious, masochistic endeavor, continuing to retrace the musical steps that brought me to where I am today.
Oasis—Definitely Maybe (original release date: Aug. 30, 1994)
At 19, I was still trying to figure out my identity, and a big part of that came through the records I listened to. In junior high, I listened to Iron Maiden; in high school, I listened to Morbid Angel and Nirvana; when I started college, I listened to Pavement and Smashing Pumpkins. And all these bands, these choices, went a long way in defining exactly who I was at these individual moments. They affected the way I dressed, what I read, what I thought about. They shaped my character, my values.
When Oasis arrived in my life, I had no way of identifying them as anything especially important. I understood, in some abstract way, that the British media had given them a lot of coverage, but I didn’t follow the British media. And at that point, in the earliest days of Oasis’ career, the American media I did follow had almost entirely ignored the band. I owned plenty of music by then-popular British acts—Suede, Verve, My Bloody Valentine, Catherine Wheel—but I didn’t care about these artists’ origins or upbringings; I cared only about their guitar sounds, their aural textures, the reverb on their vocals. My aesthetic preferences tended toward the dreamy, the droney, the psychedelic, i.e., music that would complement several rounds of unholy bong hits and an afternoon spent laying in bed on the edge of unconsciousness. And I would listen to pretty much anything, from anywhere, that aided in this pursuit.
I approached Oasis’ debut, Definitely Maybe, with optimism, because I hoped it might fit this description. Indeed, the band had played some shows with Verve, whose amazing 1993 LP, A Storm in Heaven, was in regular rotation during any hallucinatory trips I might be taking. (What’s more, both A Storm in Heaven and Definitely Maybe included a song called “Slide Away,” and both bands featured CD sleeve artwork by the great photographer Michael Spencer Jones, which I took as good signs.) However, I recognized right away that Oasis was not making drug music; their songs were too tightly constructed, too melodic, too upbeat. Yet I forgave them this, because two songs in particular on Definitely Maybe—“Live Forever” and “Supersonic”—got stuck in my head on first listen. There was something in those songs that captured me, enchanted me, and I wanted to spend more time with them.
And I did.
And slowly—maybe not so slowly—Oasis came to redefine what I was looking for in music. I came to appreciate smart, stylish guitar pop; Oasis led to Blur, and Blur to Pulp. And along the way I found Ash and Supergrass and Elastica. And dozens of others. Hundreds. All from the UK. Oasis leader Noel Gallagher mentioned in interviews how much he was influenced by The Stone Roses and The La’s and Love, and I went out and bought albums by those older acts, and through all this, my mind was being opened up and overwhelmed.
Soon, I was cutting off my long hair, and wearing a pair of Adidas Sambas instead of Converse All-Stars, trying to ape Oasis singer Liam Gallagher’s mod-footballer look. I started reading the NME and Melody Maker, because I knew that Spin and Rolling Stone would not satisfy my hunger for new British music, British slang, British cool. I became addicted to the enthusiasm with which those publications covered new music, the wild, wide-eyed, insane excitement they conveyed.
As I flipped through their pages, I became endlessly intrigued by the culture in which I found myself immersed. I started shopping only at record stores that stocked true imports—not the bootleg CDs that many stores called imports, but the three- and four-song CD singles imported from England, whose sales across the pond drove the British record industry; singles like those released by Oasis to coincide with Definitely Maybe: “Supersonic,” “Shakermaker,” “Live Forever,” “Cigarettes and Alcohol.” And on those CD singles were incredible B-sides, some of which were as good as the best songs on the album—an album that had won me over with its hooks, its arrogance, its beauty, its anger, and, not least, its vocalist, the young Liam Gallagher, whose voice was like nothing I’d ever heard: sweet like Coca-Cola, raw like winter. And there I was, caught in the storm, listening loud, as my world changed around me, as I changed with the music.