This timely reissue by Oasis has arrived opportunely to fit in with the band’s momentous live reunion scheduled for next year. Definitely Maybe was always the loudest CD on the jukebox.
The opening bars of Supersonic or Rock N’ Roll Star could change the atmosphere in any British pub. This newly remixed version is by Noel Gallagher and Callum Marinho, the latter is Gallagher’s studio engineer who was working in a supermarket when he got the call about taking up a role at the Oasis chief’s studio. There’s something very Oasis in that story that takes a very ordinary moment and makes it sublime. Definitely Maybe still sounds like an organic rock n’ roll record with its roots in the north-west of England via five second-generation Irish lads from a council estate in Manchester. The new vinyl reissue comes out on a multitude of formats including blue and white marble and a “Strawberries and Cream” edition inspired by Digsy’s Dinner.
For vinyl lovers who might have one too many copies of the album already, this package is housed in a gatefold sleeve featuring the renowned Monnow Valley Studios and inner sleeves featuring Noel Gallagher’s Les Paul and Marshall stack as Liam’s tambourine from 1994. New artwork is provided by original art designer Brian Cannon, the man behind the band’s iconic black and white Decca logo and sleeve photographer Michael Spencer Jones. For serious fans, it’s the unreleased Monnow Valley sessions and Sawmill outtakes that will be of interest. Some versions sound surprisingly thinner without the oomph of the finished record.
We can hear something of the struggle and effort it took to make an album that sits among the best debuts of all time and for most fan’s money, the band’s masterpiece. You can hear that sense of things almost not coming together, that everything might go south at any minute in those early versions; could Oasis become just another indie band without the conviction, songwriting craft and attitude Noel Gallagher instilled behind the scenes?
I remember buying the album on the day of release in Fopp on Cockburn Street in August 1994. At the time I was working at River Island in St James Centre after leaving school. A co-worker, a long-haired indie kid named Leon asked me if I wanted an Oasis ticket for the Barrowlands from Ripping Records, a few others were going on the bus and they were picking up the tickets at lunchtime. I didn’t need to be asked twice to see the original five-piece just before Christmas. That was part of the magic when I finally saw Oasis after waiting through the summer into autumn and then winter of 1994.
After decanting from the bus we visited the long-gone Bairds Bar next door to the venue. Oasis appeared on Later With Jools Holland that night and a television in the corner of the bar applied the sound which got everyone ready for the gig. A fan sang Sally Cinnamon as I left the toilet to walk into the hall. Noel Gallagher was sporting recently short-cropped hair and a red tartan shirt. When Liam walked off early in the set Noel returned to play the troubadour playing those early sublime b-sides and later invited the rest of the band on to finish the set. It’s said that was the night Noel first believed he could front Oasis when required. The band even returned to play a free gig two weeks later with Liam after Christmas for fans who held onto tier ticket stubs. Among the album extras, Liam Gallagher’s vulnerable Sad Song vocal is a highlight from November 1992.
Oasis could easily have been a one-album deal, like bands that came before especially those from the north-west such as Liverpool’s The La’s, who only made one album and The Stone Roses, just two. The Oasis juggernaut is about to take off again, it won’t feature some of those original members for various reasons but Liam Gallagher as the curator and guardian of the band has done a stellar job in carrying the legacy through to a new generation from staging two sell-out concerts at Knebworth in 2022 summoning the band’s 1996 peak and this year performing Definitely Maybe in its entirety for a tour.
Within a few months of seeing Oasis at the end of 1994, the band’s original drummer Tony McCarroll would be thrown out after a row. That was the end of this original version of Oasis, their punky and brash edge was traded for a more professional and polished pop/rock sound, especially with the addition of Alan White on drums.
Noel was already crafting songs that would define the 1990s but the original band who only made one album, made one of the best of all time.
