SOME MIGHT SAY (Creation)

Recorded in a South Wales studio hot on the heels of a Number 3 (Whatever), Some Might Say was the sound of Oasis riding a wave and Tony McCarroll's, er, swansong. The 12-bar boogie intro earned them the Qoasis tag, but what followed - Liam Gallagher's sneering vocal, brother Noel's fluid guitar lines, a piledriving rhythm and a cracking chorus - was more like The Who at their swaggering best. And if that didn't get you, there was the mighty Acquiesce.

Best bit: (3.58) Liam and Noel bellowing out the title refrain - one on top of the other - as the band clatter on around them.

DON'T LOOK BACK IN ANGER (Creation)

From the swelling piano intro to Noel Gallagher's strident enunciation of "slip inside the eye of your mind", this is the least generic song Oasis have ever written. Less than Beatles than John Lennon in his Dakota days, it's a veritable epiphany; a song so colossally passionate that, like ecstasy, it can make hordes of strangers suddenly hug one another with undisguised love. No one ever found out who Sally was, though.

Best bit: (4.20) The last, wise and lovely cry of "don't look back in anger"

WONDERWALL (Creation)

When Noel Gallagher brought Wonderwall and Don't Look Back In Anger to Rockfield Studios in the spring of 1995, he said Liam could sing one or the other. Liam chose Wonderwall and poured himself into it, turning Noel's plaintive, personal demo into this massive valedictory, his mix-filling voice forcing the mournful cello and deferential acoustic guitar to back all the way off.

By the time of its release as a single, it was already the pivot of (What's The Story) Morning Glory?, the central peg in the then-raging, now-long-resolved "is it a great album?" debate. The critics had initially baulked at its lyric - pretentiousness, confusion and naivety in a fight to the death of meaning - and sneered at its musical simplicity. Waverers found themselves replaying the point at which Liam sings "by now" - the explosiveness of it! - the way the drums come in on "backbeat" - the sheer dumb, brilliant cheek of it! - and slowly being turned. Meanwhile, the happy, doubt-free majority just sang along. Especially at throwing-out time. In every city centre in Britain between October 1995 and June 1996.

It's an odd sort of love song, even so. "Backbeat, word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out", suggests a faded star struggling back (Paul Weller, said some; McCartney, said others), but Noel identified the addressee as girlfriend Meg. "Wonderwall" seems an altogether thing to call anyone - even if Noel was thinking affectionately of George Harrison's 1968 album, Wonderwall Music, and half-remembering the "I've always thought of you as my brick wall" line from Electronic's "Get The Message" - but ultimately it's a Beatles-style red herring. Like "Hey Jude", Wonderwall is about anyone - male or female, aggrieved or ego-tarnished to one degree or another - in need of a pep talk from a good friend. And isn't that everyone, nearly all the time?

Best bit: (0.45) The arrival of Mister Cello.

by Danny Eccleston

LIVE FOREVER (Creation)

Now that they are as dully, dutifully "establishment" as Frank Dobson, it's difficult to remember the sheer, near-visceral thrill of discovering Oasis. Their first two singles had been attractively uppity but neither the debauched drawl of "Supersonic" or the undistinguished New Seekers rip-off of "Shakermaker" had prepared anyone for the joyous epiphany of their third single release and subsequent album, the peerless "Definitely Maybe". In vinegary Mancunian contrast to the mockney vignettes of Phil Daniels or the glassy-eyed dance hegemony of the day, here were a group who not only had attitude in excelsis but talent to burn...or at least one of them did. And this, along with Wonderwall, is songwriter Noel Gallagher's crowning achievement.

Live Forever is simply a wonderful pop/rock song, anthemic without being dumb in the same effortless style as "Waterloo Sunset" or "All The Young Dudes" or "The Boys Are Back In Town". Sweet without being soppy, grand without being grandiose, it can be bellowed mock-heroically by football lads or whispered by mooning lovers at midnight bus-steps.

Produced by the band and Mark Coyle though mastered by Owen Morris, with whom they are now indissolubly knit, at Clear Studios in Manchester, Live Forever begins inauspiciously with a wobbly bar of Tony McCarroll at the drums. But just around the corner is the song's trump card, the directly memorable chord sequence hinging on the lovely unexpected change to A Minor 7th on "garden grows"and therafter on "pouring rain" etc. This yearning quality is something that seems that seems to have deserted them in favour of a more obviously bullishness. Significantly too, though "Definitely Maybe" is a distillation of their primary influences - The Beatles, T Rex, punk, The Stone Roses etc - the tunes from the Live Forever era had yet to become blurry facsimiles of venerable old standards. Live Forever is classic but cockily original. It hints at glories of the past but no-one had sung it quite like this before. Some would argue they never would again.

Best bit: (1.44) Noel Gallagher's exultant little guitar solo.

by Stuart Maconie

• Q Album & Single Reviews - index

c 1998 Andrew Turner

aturner@interalpha.co.uk

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