Every Oasis Album - Ranked From Worst To Best
3. Definitely Maybe
Widely (and rightly) considered as the best debut album of all time, Oasis only bettered 1994's Definitely Maybe twice in their career.
Packed to the brim with back-to-back bangers, brash tunes and well-founded rock'n'roll arrogance, Definitely Maybe proved from the get-go what the band was capable of, with the majority of its songs still being considered as amongst the best the band has ever penned.
Opener 'Rock'n'Roll Star' set the pace with its relentless guitar and Liam's hungry, urgent vocals, and the record hardly dips from there, though the timeless 'Live Forever' provides some much-needed breathing room. If any one song justifies Oasis' self-defined Beatles influence, it is this track, built on a deceptively simple chord progression that provides the foundations for the Gallaghers' most sincere lyricism to date.
Despite its string of classics, Definitely Maybe is starting to show its age, with a number of its punkier cuts bleeding into each other and feeling at times like a wall of sound. While the endearingly light-hearted 'Digsy's Dinner' and hangover-evoking 'Married With Children' break the pace towards the end of the album, the lack of variation in the record's middle half means its lags at times.
Though time hasn't been as kind to Definitely Maybe as Oasis' next record - the production is scratchy, with Liam's voice sometimes being lost in the mix - there is no doubt that Oasis' debut was one of the most important records of the 90s, proving the enduring appeal of guitar music in a scene that had started to push electronics and other instruments to the fore.
Without Definitely Maybe, we might not have had the indie-guitar renaissance of the noughties, and British rock would look very different today.