Oasis: Every Album Ranked From Worst To Best

By Jacob Trowbridge / March 3, 2016

The general consensus about Oasis is that they came out of the gate strong, then valiantly fizzled, and then turned into complete and utter garbage seemingly overnight. They're the quintessential example of a band "peaking too soon." Few bands have had to deal with the same high level of expectations that Oasis has throughout their tenure atop the Britpop mountain. A lot of that is self-imposed, as the band constantly felt the need to declare themselves the greatest thing to ever happen to music (nay, to the world). But it also had everything to do with how insanely good their first couple of albums were. It must've been maddening trying to top what most people agreed were nearly perfect albums. And you could tell when the band was struggling to outdo themselves versus when they had seemingly thrown in the towel. It was always reflected in the quality of their albums. Before the Gallagher brothers officially parted ways for what is most likely a permanent split (occasional reunion rumors be damned), they gave us a whole lot of music. Some of it great, some of it rubbish, and a fair amount in between.

8. Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants

A shining exemplification of how the constant BS between the Gallagher brothers wasn't just a bit of fun fodder for music journalists to pad their pockets with, Oasis' fourth studio album would see two of its founding members leave the band in the middle of the recording sessions. Rather than take a break and try to find replacements for guitarist Paul Arthurs and bassist Paul McGuigan, the Gallaghers and drummer Alan White soldiered on as a trio for the remainder of the recording. And thus, we now have our answer for why Standing On the Shoulders of Giants sounds a little weak and a lot disjointed. Despite the lofty album title, most of the songs fail to reach the heights of even their shoddiest previous efforts, and the album spends far too much time entrenched in mid-tempo, droning territory. This is Oasis for people who would rather listen to Oasis cover Radiohead songs in concert. The only tracks to really get off the ground are "Where Did It All Go Wrong?" and "Roll It Over," which is unfortunate, because those are the closest thing to "classic" Oasis, and only help prove that their experimental trip was overwhelmingly lackluster.