Everything about Definitely Maybe totally explained
Definitely Maybe is the debut
album by the
English rock band
Oasis, released in 1994. It was an immediate commercial and critical success in the UK, having followed on the heels of singles "
Supersonic", "
Shakermaker" and "
Live Forever".
Definitely Maybe went straight to number one in the UK Album charts on initial release. It was the fastest selling debut album of all time in the UK when released.
Definitely Maybe marked the beginning of Oasis' success in America, selling over 1 million copies there, although only reaching number 58 on the
Billboard 200. The album went on to sell over 7.5 million copies worldwide.
Background
Oasis formed in 1991. Originally consisting of
Liam Gallagher,
Paul Arthurs,
Paul McGuigan, and
Tony McCarroll, the group was soon joined by Liam's older brother
Noel Gallagher. The elder Gallagher insisted that if he were to join, the group would give him complete control and they'd work towards superstardom. Noel had been writing songs for years, and replaced the group's repertoire with his compositions.
Oasis signed to
independent record label Creation Records in 1993. The limited-edition 12" single "
Columbia" was released in late 1993 as a primer for the band for journalists and radio programmers. Unexpectedly,
BBC Radio 1 picked up the single and played it 19 times in the fortnight after its release, surprising for a record not available in stores. The band's first commercial single "
Supersonic" was released on
11 April 1994. The following week it debuted at number 31 on the British singles chart. The single was followed by "
Shakermaker" June, which debuted at number 11 and earned the group an appearance on
Top of the Pops.
Recording
Oasis booked Monnow Valley Studios, near
Monmouth, at the start of 1994 to record their debut album. Their producer was Dave Batchelor, who Noel Gallagher knew from his days working as a roadie for the
Inspiral Carpets. The sessions were unsatisfactory. "It wasn't happening," Arthurs recalled. "He was the wrong person for the job . . . We'd play in this great big room, buzzing to be in this studio, playing like we always played. He's say, 'Come in and have a listen.' And we'd be like, 'That doesn't sound like it sounded in that room. What's
that?'. It was thin. Weak. Too clean."
The sessions at Monnow Valley were costing £800 a day. As the sessions proved increasingly fruitless, the group began to panic. Arthurs said, "Noel was frantically on the phone to the management, going, 'This ain't working.' For it not to be happening was a bit frightening."
In February the group returned from an ill-fated trip to
Amsterdam and set about re-recording the album at Sawmills in
Cornwall. This time the sessions were produced by Noel Gallagher and
Mark Coyle. The group decided the only way to replicate their live sound on record was to record together without soundproofing between individual instruments. Over the tracks, Gallagher overdubbed numerous guitars. Arthurs said, "That was Noel's favourite trick: get the drums, bass and rhythm guitar down, and then he'd
cane it. 'Less is more' didn't really work then." Abbot decided to place ads in publications that had never been approached by Creation before, such as football magazines, match programmes and UK dance music periodicals. Abbot's suspicions that Oasis would appeal to these non-traditional audiences were confirmed when the dance music magazine
Mixmag, which usually ignored guitar-based music, gave
Definitely Maybe a five-star review.
Definitely Maybe was finally released on
30 August 1994. The album sold 100,000 copies in its first four days. On 4 September the album debuted at number one on the British charts. It outsold the second-highest album (
The Three Tenors In Concert 1994, which had been favoured to be the chart-topper that week), by a factor of 50%. The first-week sales earned
Definitely Maybe the record of the fastest-selling debut album in British history.
Legacy
In 1997
Definitely Maybe was named the 14th greatest album of all time in a 'Music of the Millennium' poll conducted by
HMV,
Channel 4,
The Guardian and
Classic FM. In 2005 Channel 4's '100 Greatest Albums' countdown placed the album at number 6. In 2006,
NME placed the album third in a list of the greatest British albums ever, behind
The Stone Roses and
The Smiths'
The Queen Is Dead. In a recent British poll, run by
NME and the book of
British Hit Singles and Albums,
Definitely Maybe was voted the best album of all time with
The Beatles'
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band finishing second and
Revolver third. Q magazine readers placed it at five on their greatest albums of all time list in 2006 and in that same year
NME hailed it as the greatest album of all time. In a 2008 poll by
Q and HMV in 2008,
Definitely Maybe was ranked first on a list of the greatest British album of all time.
Deryck Whibley of
Sum 41 discovered Oasis through "Live Forever", and said that
Definitely Maybe "sounds as great today as it did then."
Track listing
All tracks written by
Noel Gallagher.
"Rock 'n' Roll Star" – 5:22
"Shakermaker" – 5:08
"Live Forever" – 4:36
"Up in the Sky" – 4:28
"Columbia" – 6:17
- "Sad Song" (extra track on the UK LP version, and the original Japanese version of the album) – 4:27
"Supersonic" – 4:43
"Bring It on Down" – 4:17
"Cigarettes & Alcohol" – 4:49
"Digsy's Dinner" – 2:32
"Slide Away" – 6:32
"Married with Children" – 3:11
Bonus tracks
"Cloudburst" (Japanese version bonus track)
Australian bonus disc
"Whatever"
"(It's Good) to Be Free"
"Half the World Away"
DVD
Definitely Maybe was released on DVD in September 2004 to mark the tenth anniversary of its original release. It went triple platinum in the UK. The DVD featured an hour-long documentary about the recording of the album featuring rare and contemporary interviews with the band and its associates. Also included was the album in its entirety, which included "Sad Song", which was originally only released on the UK vinyl version of the album and also on the Japanese CD edition. Other content included live and TV performances of the albums twelve tracks, and the promo videos to "Supersonic" (UK & US versions), "Shakermaker", "Live Forever" (UK & US versions), "Cigarettes & Alcohol" and "Rock 'n' Roll Star".
A limited-edition release in the UK and Ireland included a bonus DVD containing more live footage and anecdotes.
There was also an accompanying made-for-TV documentary, entitled There We Were, Now Here We Are...: The Making Of Oasis. This was broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK at 11:30pm on Friday, September 3, three days before the release of the Definitely Maybe DVD. The programme combined existing and unused interview footage from the DVD documentary and focused on the origins of the band, and the four singles from Definitely Maybe. It also included a very rare clip of "All Around the World" performed live at a rehearsal session in the Boardwalk in 1992, five years before it was eventually recorded and released on Be Here Now.
The DVD received the NME award for Best DVD, beating Nirvana’s With the Lights Out, Pixies’ Pixies, Scissor Sisters’ We Are Scissor Sisters and So Are You and The White Stripes’ Under Blackpool Lights.
Personnel
Liam Gallagher – vocals
Noel Gallagher – lead guitar, vocals
Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs – rhythm guitar
Paul McGuigan – bass guitar
Tony McCarroll – drums
Oasis – producer
Additional personnel
Anthony Griffiths – vocals
David Batchelor – producer
Mark Coyle – producer, engineer, mixing
Anjali Dutt – engineer
Owen Morris – producer, mastering, mixing, production concept
Roy Spong – engineer
Dave Scott – engineer
Brian Cannon – art direction, design, concept, cover design
Michael Spencer Jones – photography
Charts
Release details
Further Information
Get more info on 'Definitely Maybe'.
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