10 Rock Music Albums That Divided Critics
8. Oasis: (What's The Story) Morning Glory? (1995)
The follow up to a debut is one of the trickier things for a band to get right. You've just captured the minds of a generation, you've given them something fresh and exciting, what's the next move? It's a tough one: do you keep pushing the same thing that made you popular? or do you attempt to try something different now that you have peoples attention?
Oasis's suffered from this conundrum. They doubled down the hard rock sound, leaning into riffs borrowed from the Beatles and T-Rex - plastering a good helping of swaggering bravado over everything. But they also leaned into the power ballad. It's hard to believe now, but both Wonderwall and Don't Look Back In Anger were regarded as the beginning of the end for the group.
Critics saw their efforts as a means to capitalise on their bad boy image for commercial means, rather than acting out of sincerity. The Independent labeled their new music as "laddism of a tiresomely generic kind" and Melody Maker called the brothers "fallen stars" who sound "knackered".
Oh how wrong they were...