Top 10 Oasis Songs

Top 10 Oasis Songs

Written by Zeromage 87 Comments
Last Updated:: June 25, 2009

Making a best of Oasis list with only 10 of their songs on it is difficult for us here at Old-Wizard. A Top 100 would probably be difficult for us. We think every song they ever wrote was at least good. The proof is in the pudding. Look at this band’s b-sides and you will see the inordinate amount of quality songwriting possessed in the genius of Noel Gallagher. This attempt at putting together the top 10 Oasis songs should be seen as a preliminary attempt at an impossible task. Yes, this is how good we think Oasis are. You have a problem with that? Just make sure Be Here Now isn’t playing on the jukebox or you’ll be done.

10. Columbia

Oasis’s first album. What an album it was. What a song Columbia was. This massive hypnotic trance was part fuelled by Swervedriver slow drive and part fuelled by the psychedelic of Tommorrow Never Knows. This song keeps on moving. When this shit kicks in you’re in a swirl of massive guitars, pounding beats and modern psychedelic; in other words, everything that made Oasis the greatest band of the 90’s. These often forgotten songs are never mentioned by critics of the band, because they would rather dislike the band than see how much more powerful they were than American suicide artists of the time. The ones who know, the ones who hear, hear this, and when they hear it, they turn it up to deafening levels.

9. Cigarettes and Alcohol

When you see Oasis live, this is the song to see. Noel starting off with Bolan’s riff times 100 in overdrive, the pounding bass drum building up the vibe, and then all the instrumentation smashing in creating a raunchy and loose groove for the whole audience to jump too. The gig becomes a cult when Oasis play this song live. The moment is won for the life thrown into the debauchery of Cigarettes and Alcohol. When nothing is found and everything in life is lost, there are still cigarettes and alcohol to cool the brain from mundanity. Being inebriated enough will make for more than just a relaxation but a grand stupor around the gig telling everyone how amazing Oasis is, or just yellow “Oasis”. Soccer culture aside, this song defined a generation that just let loose in the most nonchalant albeit radical way possible.

8. D’ya know what I Mean?

The great Be Here Now’s opening track. Who waited until midnight that fateful night when “D’You know what I mean” was premiered on MTV. Out came Oasis and in came the heaviest of drum beats taken from the best beat makers of a generation (Public Enemies “It takes a nation). Then came in Liam’s vocals that were as crisp and raw as they had been to that point but slightly polished to the degree of their popularity at the time. Guitars swirling around at every second, Noel’s vocals recorded backwards into chorus’s, Noel’s ripping guitar solo. This song just beat the shit out of every other song on the radio at the time. All with the cool demeanor known only to Irish Manchunians.

7. The Girl in the Dirty Shirt

Why don’t songwriters write songs this good anymore? Does everyone realize how sick of a chorus is in this song? This shit’s like top 10 radio if the world only listened to psychedelic music. It’s classy and bombastic at the same time; a feat that could only be accomplished by Oasis. This song was modern R and B (R and B from the 60’s, not the soft 90’s shit) with Phil Spector turning up the overdubs with max compression. You could dance to this song, you could sing to this song, you couldn’t get this song out of your head once you heard it, and it wasn’t even a single. Noel Gallagher’s knack for amazing hooks is illustrated perfectly in this song. This is memorable beyond what people hear, or rather think about Be Here Now.

6. Champagne Supernova

What’s the Morning Glory was arguably the best album of the 90’s. With as many credible and successful singles off the album, how couldn’t it be? The most substantial of these singles was Champagne Supernova. To this day, this song remains Oasis’s finest creative moment. Not settling for the great songwriting that we all knew Noel could write in less than a minute, but expanding into something larger, something neo-psychedelic, something that was just beyond anything else heard on the radio at the time. The production in the solo kicks up to a level that was never owned by any other band besides Oasis in the 90’s. Never afraid of overdubs or sounding bombastic at the sake of some presupposed ideal of humility, Oasis road to the castle and took over the crown of best band on the earth with this song. Nothing at the time or even afterwards sounded so glorious, majestic, an unafraid.

5. Underneath the Sky

The flow, the move, of Underneath the Sky; the play of Underneath the Sky, could only be captured by Noel Gallagher’s stream-of-conscious spiritual songwriting. The life, the moment, the moment after the moment and the moment forever deferred for the memory of a past, all Underneath the Sky again. “All he needs is his life in a suitcase, it belongs to a friend of a friend”. In this one statement Noel Gallagher explains the never stable subject who is in debt to someone always and already. All within a mathematical machinery; an operation; Underneath The Sky? Not simply Underneath the Sky, but Underneath the Sky again. The indefinite circulatory state of the universe, captured in a pop song under 3 and half minutes? Reserved for one man from Northern England.

4. Don’t Look Back in Anger

Respectable Arena Rock, or just a great song? However you see it, Don’t Look Back in Anger changed a nation. It made them sing again. It made them sing loud, it made them sing inebriated without care for their horrendous jobs they would have to go back to after the weekend getaway to the Oasis show. That moment the chorus came in, that massive drum fill, no matter how predictable it was; it inspired not only the moment of the crowd but a bunch of kids looking to do something with their life besides sit on the dole like their dads. This kind of inspiration comes once in a lifetime. The gift came to Noel Gallagher and he delivered it in spades only on his second album.

3. Live Forever

If there had to be a greatest love song of the 90’s it would belong to Live Forever. Never overly-sentimental or servile, Live Forever wished for a love that was not only more realistic, but more spiritual at the same time. Not aiming at the Disney fantasy nor glamorizing tragedy, Live Forever escapes the traditional signifiers of the concept of “Love” for an unmediated version that only answers the moment, to the wish and hopes of a people in general beyond the concept of love. The other though is included here without any effort as if the other is always needed for inclusion into one’s life. The success of this song lies in this stream-of-conscious delivery that doesn’t think about the generalized concepts that are consistently taken for granted, but takes them for what they’re worth at the moment; a delivery that is neither cliché, nor analytical…it’s just there.

2. What’s the Story Morning Glory

90’s rock is defined by one song and one song only. “What’s the Story Morning Glory” is the best of 90’s rock. It’s loud, abrasive, lyrically poignant, and one of Liam’s best vocal deliveries put to record. The song is just a massive blast in your stereo. After 2 listens you’re shouting the chorus at the top of your lungs experiencing the ecstasy of the song (or rather we should say the charly induced high of the song). The song never gives any space for dynamics which Oasis mastered perfectly turning music on it’s head of presuppositions for a type of good musicianship that often had to be equated with dynamics. “What’s the Story Morning Glory” smashed these pretensions out of the water and anyone who could try to criticize it.

1. Masterplan

The British have a keen sense for historical consciousness; European thought in general since the 19th century has been aware of it’s historicity. This is exemplified perfectly in Oasis’s most teleological song in the name of The Masterplan. Without heeding to over-generalization, the senior Gallagher simply tells it like it is with an impartial bias that’s so powerful that it transcends subjectivity; the subjectivity that would like to think it actually matters in the grand scheme of the things. But at the end of The Masterplan, you are in the grand metaphysical machinery, irreducible and inescapable. The trembling guitar finish leaves the listener neither in happiness nor tragedy, but in an unchangeable destiny, a master plan that humans can only observe, and only the most humble ones, which ironically belongs strongly to Noel Gallagher with the delivery of this song. The critics have never understood that bravado and “arrogance” are just masks for a protected purity not in want of being contaminated by material.

87 Comments

#1 Sox Fan says:
March 16th, 2010 at 8:21 pm

“It’s Getting Better Man” should be on this list.

#2 Sam says:
March 16th, 2010 at 9:35 pm

I’m sorry but Oasis is NOT rock and roll. Try and compare them to AC/DC or Guns n’ Roses or even Kiss. There is an epic difference.

#3 maka says:
March 16th, 2010 at 12:49 am

@Sam: try to listen headshrinker, bring it on down, my big mouth specially live and then said again that oasis is not rock&roll

#4 Bubba says:
March 16th, 2010 at 12:57 am

Sorry, these are the best Oasis songs:

1) Go Let it Out
2) Some Might Say
3) Hindu Times
4) Champagne Supernova
5) Don’t Look Back in Anger
6) Wonderwall
7) Talk Tonight
Half the World Away
9) Masterplan
10) Cast No Shadow

#5 Craig says:
March 16th, 2010 at 1:06 am

No “Slide Away”? No “Wonderwall”? No “Cast No Shadow”?

Also, what about “Stand By Me”? or even “All Around the World”? “Step Out”? “The Fame”? All these are better choices than “Columbia”, or “Girl in the Dirty Shirt”. Come on, man.

EPIC FAIL. This list is lame as hell.

#6 Jill says:
March 16th, 2010 at 3:31 pm

1. Slide Away
2. Hello
3. The Masterplan
4. Wonderwall
5. Acquiesce
6. Don’t Go Away
7. Talk Tonight
8. The Importance of Being Idle
9. I Hope, I Think, I Know
10. Let’s All Make Believe

#7 Mog says:
March 16th, 2010 at 3:44 pm

Here are the definitive Top 20 Oasis Songs (I just can’t do just ten):

1. Champagne Supernova
2. Don’t Look Back in Anger
3. Live Forever
4. Masterplan
5. Cast No Shadow
6. Wonderwall
7. All Around the World
8. Stand By Me
9. Acquiesce
10. Slide Away
11. Rock n’ Roll Star
12. Underneath the Sky
13. Little By Little
14. The Fame
15. Cigarettes and Alcohol
16. Girl in the Dirty Shirt
17. Its Getting Better Man
18. Supersonic
19. Hello
20. Let There Be Love

#8 Crash says:
March 16th, 2010 at 7:03 pm

@Mog: Great list.

#9 William MakBran says:
March 16th, 2010 at 8:40 pm

1. Slide Away
2. Live Forever
3. Columbia
4. Supersonic
5. Morning Glory
6. Listen Up
7. Don’t Look Back in Anger
8. Champagne Supernova
9. Rock n’ Roll Star
10. Stand By Me

#10 Justice says:
March 16th, 2010 at 8:43 pm

1) Wonderwall
2) Cast No Shadow
3) Masterplan
4) Half the World Away
5) Don’t Look Back in Anger
6) Let there Be Love
7) Pass Me Down the Wine
Live Forever
9) Rocking Chair
10) Slide Away

#11 The Preacher says:
March 16th, 2010 at 5:28 pm

Explain to me how Wonderwall is not on this list. I dare you to.

#12 POLISH POUNDER says:
March 16th, 2010 at 9:57 pm

Liked the video for Columbia. I’ll have to listen to more Oasis.

#13 andrewb says:
March 16th, 2010 at 12:57 am

The best Oasis song is none because Oasis blows ass.

#14 Live4evr says:
March 16th, 2010 at 12:47 am

How you excluded Slide Away is beyond me.

While ‘Sky and ‘Dirty Shirt are decent tunes, no way are they better than Slide Away, Whatever, Half the World Away, Talk Tonight, Go Let It Out, The Importance of Being Idle, Lyla, Acquiesce, Supersonic….even Wonderwall (which, while indeed good, is over rated due to being over played).

My top 4:

1. Live Forever
2. Slide Away
3. Acquiesce
4. Colombia

#15 Horace says:
March 16th, 2010 at 2:52 pm

Oasis sucks.

#16 asd says:
March 16th, 2010 at 10:13 pm

slide away is definitly up there. another one no one has mentioned is stop crying your heart out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKz5wxrA3nU

AMAZING

#17 David says:
March 16th, 2010 at 4:08 am

Replace The Masterplan with Slide Away and place Columbia at number 1 and you have my top 5.

Columbia
Slide Away
What’s The Story Morning Glory
Live Forever
Don’t Look Back in Anger

#18 sean says:
March 16th, 2010 at 5:39 pm

gas panic
it’s getting better man
live forever
slide away
supersonic

#19 Slim says:
March 16th, 2010 at 6:35 pm

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
A Day in the Life
Revolution
Come Together
Let it Be
I am the Walrus
Yellow Submarine
The Ballad of John and Oko
Wonderwall

#20 Big City says:
March 16th, 2010 at 1:19 pm

What about Bittersweet Symphony? Isn’t that an Oasis song?

#21 Noel's Nose says:
March 16th, 2010 at 6:18 pm

I commend you for not including Wonderwall. This is a sign of a true fan! Wonderwall is a fine song, but as a hardcore Oasis fan, I can think of so many other songs that are far better.

DLBIA should be #1. Not only is it the greatest Oasis song of all time, but the greatest song ever written/recorded/etc. Can anything beat the feeling of seeing this live, with your arms around a bunch of drunk strangers, everyone singing along as if you’ve know each other forever?

The list is alright. Now necessarily the songs I’d pick, but this is coming from someone who rates Digsy’s Dinner and Bonehead’s Bank Holiday as top Oasis songs.

#22 SergeOfArniVillage says:
March 16th, 2010 at 3:44 pm

Never heard Oasis before now They’re pretty good, but honestly, I couldn’t say that they’re the best band of all time. There’s nothing wrong with feeling that they’re the best band of all time, it’s just a matter of opinion.

#23 james says:
March 16th, 2010 at 8:37 am

Sam, the primary difference between guns n roses and oasis is guns n roses are fucking shit. listen to definitely maybe. your one of those lippy cunts whose heard wonderwall, supernova and dont look back in anger and thought his heard it all. first one, columbia. also thsoe bands are hard rock, they are fucking shite. As for all the yanks and other shitheads making stereotypically generic naive comments like “they blow ass”, the line “we see things theyll never see” pretty much sums it up. Great British bands, americans never got them, but, then again, americans dont get much do they
Best Oasis Songs
1. Live Forever
2. Columbia
3. Some Might Say
4. Supersonic
5. Whatever
6. Morning Glory
7. Rock n Roll Star
8. Bring it on Down
9. Go Let it Out
10. Dont Look Back in Anger
11. My Big Mouth
12. Cigarettes and Alcohol
13. Champagne Supernova
14. Shakermaker
15. Acquiesce
16. Half the World Away
17. Wonderwall
18. Cloudburst
19. The Masterplan
20. Shock of the Lightning

#24 james says:
March 16th, 2010 at 3:18 pm

vintage junkie, the notion that oasis reip off the beatles is one advocated by those who know little of music, or oasis. to anyone who knows oasis properly, rather than making generalised assumptions based on adherence to dodgy media outlets, they would know oasis sound alot mroe like the las, stoen roses, the who, t.rex, slade and the real people. and david netheir oasis nor the roses are shoegazing. shoegazing is ride. oasis came about to defeat shoegazing and the associated attitude. oasis take absolutely no influence from shoegazing and sound nothing like shoegaze. thats like saying the smiths were rap. bersekker,give definitely maybe a shot, loud as it can go, its an experience. actually, ive made this rather long playlist of my favourite songs due to their demise. i suggest you give this a shot bersekker, coz this list is basically a summary of oasis with afew rare gems. this is me playlist of me favourite oasis songs
1. Rock n roll star
2. shakermaker
3. live forever
4. columbia
5. supersonic
6. bring it on down
7. cigarettes and alcohol
8. slide away
9. married with children
10. Whatever
11. Half the world Away
12. Roll with It
13. Wonderwall
14. Dont Look Back in Anger
15. Some Might Say
16. Cast No Shadow
17. Morning Glory
18. CHampagne Supernova
19. Cloudburst
20. Strange Thing
21. All Around the World
22. The Girl with the Dirty Shirt
23. My Big Mouth
24. Dyou Know What I Mean
25. D’yer Wanna be a Spaceman
26. Go Let it Out
27. Lyla
28. I’m Outta Time
29. Gas Panic
30. Shock of the Lightning
31. Stand By Me
32. The Importance of Being Idle
33. Waiting for the Rapture
34. Stop Crying Your Heart Out
35. Acquisce
36. The Masterplan
37. Its Getting Better People
38. Up in the Sky
39. Step Out
40. Its Getting Better Man
41. Boneheads Bank Holiday

#25 pd says:
March 16th, 2010 at 9:54 pm

any list wiyhout wonderwall is a great list columbia is epic and be here now ftw.

#26 pd says:
March 16th, 2010 at 9:56 pm

any list without wonderwall is a great list columbia is epic and be here now ftw.

#27 avi says:
March 16th, 2010 at 9:40 pm

submit comment

#28 Marcos says:
March 16th, 2010 at 6:43 am

“I hope, I think, I know” and “Some Might Say” are not on this list…and Live forever should be number one. In fact, it’s one of the greatest songs of all time.

#29 MissNando9 says:
March 16th, 2010 at 11:50 am

This list isn’t bad, but it doesn’t include any songs from any of the later albums. A lot of people seem to think Oasis’ later stuff doesn’t compare with the early stuff, but I think Dig Out Your Soul is full of brilliant songs! The Shock of the Lightning is one of my favourite songs and I love Bag It Up, The Turning, Waiting For The Rapture, I’m Outta Time and Soldier On. I’d also put The Importance of Being Idle in any top 10 list!
I just wish I was older so that I could have seen them live! I’m holding out hope that they will get back together!

#30 Oasis Fan says:
March 16th, 2010 at 3:37 am

These are my top ten
1. Don’t look back in anger
2. Masterplan
3. Wonderwall
4. Live Forever
5. Champagne Supernova
6. The importance of being idle
7. Songbird
8. It’s gettin’ better (Man!!)
9. Morning Glory
10. acquiesce

And by the way Oasis is the best British rock band there is

#31 davvo says:
March 16th, 2010 at 1:48 am

the greatest real people record,er i mean `oasis` record was columbia!

#32 Jed says:
March 16th, 2010 at 9:32 pm

My top ten (even though they change) are:

1. Falling Down
2. Bring it on Down
3. My Big Mouth (new live version)
4. Morning Glory
5. Gas Panic
6. D’you Know What I Mean
7. Rock n Roll Star
8. Slide Away
9. Turn Up the Sun
10 Live Forever

#33 Jake says:
March 16th, 2010 at 3:56 pm

Rock n Roll Star (best first song on first album by any band ever)
Live Forever
All Around the World
Cast No Shadow (live)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi4PqihpK3Y
The Importance of Being Idle
Some Might Say
Supersonic
Falling Down
Wonderwall
Keep The Dream Alive

#34 Doug says:
March 16th, 2010 at 3:59 pm

Here’s my favorite Oasis songs:

1. Masterplan
2. Champagne Supernova
3. Don’t Look Back in Anger
4. Listen Up
5. Underneath the Sky
6. Cast No Shadow
7. Wonderwall
8. Live Forever
9. Girl in the Dirty Shirt
10. Don’t Go Away
11. Little By Little
12. All Around the World
13. Stop Crying Your Heart Out
14. Its Getting Better Man
15. Rock n’ Roll Star
16. Stand By Me
17. Half the World Away
18. Let There Be Love
19. Cigarettes and Alcohol
20. Acquiesce

#35 Joe says:
March 16th, 2010 at 9:53 pm

Actually i just realised where the fuck is slide away?

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