Oasis - were they the biggest band in the UK since the Beatles?

[Hugh Jass]

27 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

Adele's sold more records and Robbie Williams played to more people at Knebworth.

Neither are/were as culturally ubiquitous as Oasis were at their heights though.

[Chinaski_]

30 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

Adele's sold more records and Robbie Williams played to more people at Knebworth.

It's hard to gauge record sales these days since they include streaming as part of it. How many actual records has Sheeran sold for example? 

[CaledonianGonzo]

Possibly inludes streams, but this is talking about sales - although a lot of those so be digital.

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/adele-overtakes-oasis-to-become-4th-biggest-selling-album-of-all-time__2681/

[Bennykill]

They weren’t even the biggest band at the time. 

[Chinaski_]

4 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

Possibly inludes streams, but this is talking about sales - although a lot of those so be digital.

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/adele-overtakes-oasis-to-become-4th-biggest-selling-album-of-all-time__2681/

It seems they're only including sales on that, so fair enough. Although I wouldn't say Adele captured the zeitgeist of the time like Oasis did. That said, I do make her success responsible for all the MOR guff polluting the charts and radio these days. 

[CaledonianGonzo]

Fair enough. I'd argue that sort of stuff has always been in the charts, from Carole King onwards.  On the other hand Oasis's influence has done more than anything to turn rock music into a reactionary parody of itself.

[Chinaski_]

3 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

Fair enough. I'd argue that sort of stuff has always been in the charts, from Carole King onwards.  On the other hand Oasis's influence has done more than anything to turn rock music into a reactionary parody of itself.

Agreed, their music does nothing for me and is the reason we have had all these "lad bands" in the last decade. But at least they had a bit of attitude and roughness to them. Music is too dominated by and for the middle classes now, Sheeran and Coldplay etc. Bland and inoffensive, nothing that offends Daily Mail readers. 

[Hugh Jass]

20 minutes ago, Bennykill said:

They weren’t even the biggest band at the time. 

Who were bigger?

[CaledonianGonzo]

Dunno - there's lots of quite in yer face, gammon-infuriating stuff on the poster this year.

 

[Bennykill]

3 minutes ago, Hugh Jass said:

Who were bigger?

Blur.

Edited March 24, 2019 by Bennykill

[Hugh Jass]

6 minutes ago, Bennykill said:

Blur.

Must have missed Blur at Knebworth...

NOTE: Better does not equal bigger.

[Chinaski_]

Without wanting turn this thread into Blur v Oasis, the only act I can think who were bigger or as big as Oasis in the nineties would be the Spice Girls. 

[CaledonianGonzo]

Nirvana?

[Chinaski_]

1 minute ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

Nirvana?

Perhaps. But I don't really remember them though from the time as was too young, but I caught the tail end of their impact and all the post grunge stuff of the mid 90s onwards. 

[not worthy]

For me the beatles and oasis are definitely directly comparable, don't like like them, bore the shite out of me, but seem to be popular to some  

[chatty]

25 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

Nirvana?

Worldwide yes, dont think they were as big in the UK though. 

[Bennykill]

32 minutes ago, Hugh Jass said:

Must have missed Blur at Knebworth...

NOTE: Better does not equal bigger.

The Chilli Peppers have played Knebworth. That dont mean shit lol

[Hugh Jass]

13 minutes ago, Bennykill said:

The Chilli Peppers have played Knebworth. That dont mean shit lol

Means Blur haven't played there...

Definitely Maybe sold more than Parklife, Morning Glory destroyed The Great Escape and Be Here Now was the fastest selling album of all time for years. The Gallaghers were all over the tabloids for years and still are. They played bigger venues, to more people and have songs that have become ingrained in the national consciousness.

But no, Blur were bigger because that one song they had sold more than that one song Oasis released.

[Hugh Jass]

I say all this as a huge Blur fan.

[eastynh]

Morning Glory sold more than any individual Queen, Led Zep or Pink Floyd Album album in the UK. Oasis sold more tickets for Knebworth than any of the 3 previously bands mentioned did at any of their gigs. Queen played a bigger but that was free entry.

No one has mentioned Take That yet.

[Ayrshire Chris]

2 hours ago, Chinaski_ said:

Without wanting turn this thread into Blur v Oasis, the only act I can think who were bigger or as big as Oasis in the nineties would be the Spice Girls. 

If I recollect Father Dougal preferred Blur but Father Damon was more trendy so went for Oasis 

[Rubber Soldier]

11 hours ago, eastynh said:

At their peak period of Morning Glory and Knebworth, they were the biggest UK band in the UK since the Beatles. They were an absolute phenomenon and there has been nothing like them since. 

This. Two and a half million people applied for tickets for Knebworth. Nearly 5% of the population. They could’ve sold out 18 nights. 

[Chinaski_]

2 hours ago, Bennykill said:

Blur.

Just me who really wants to read that now? 

[Tommy Dickfingers]

They clearly were. Nobody talks about Led Zep, Queen of Pink Floyd in the way they talk about Oasis. Everyone has a strong opinion on Oasis. People either love them or hate them. 

If they ever get back together again it will be headline news in the U.K. It would be absolutely massive. Who else could do that? 

[balti-pie]

Fairly standard story for me: I was 15 when Definitely Maybe came out, and everyone in my year at school (bar about 4 or 5 of us) was into happy hardcore and dance music. We were the saps who liked that ‘crappy guitar bollocks’. 

Then we all left school in the summer of 95 and went to college, and they’d all jumped on the bandwagon courtesy of Morning Glory: all these former dance music heads put on some kind of weird pretend Manc accent (this was in East Sussex ??) and bowled around with a bizarre monkey walk while wearing circular Lennon-style sunnies and Ben Sherman shirts! 

Being a contrary and annoying Mr Opposite type, I dropped Oasis when Be Here Now came out, because it was fucking dreadful. Plus everyone liked em now so I sure as shit wasn’t going to.

I was square into art w*nkers Blur, and with the release of their self titled album in early 97 (I think?) I disappeared into all yer lo-fi US indie influences like Pavement, Sonic Youth, etc etc. I viewed Oasis with a distasteful eye, and I still do tbf. If they were playing in my back garden I’d go out for the night. They were a gateway band but I dropped them when they stopped being relevant to me. They sound so lumpen and boring now. Musical porridge.