Oasis lit up the world: will the reunion just mute the echo?

In 1996, during a tense meeting with Penguin about a book deal involving Paul Gallagher, a young man in a brown suit asked the question that stopped the room:
“Will Oasis even be relevant in another two years?”

The writer in the room, barely hiding his disbelief, pointed out that the band had already released two classic albums in just six months. Even if they broke up the following week, their legacy would still matter in ten, even twenty years. Most artists never release even one truly great album. Oasis had two.

That moment sealed the deal with Virgin instead of Penguin. Penguin had offered more money and greater reach, but Virgin felt like the right call.

For the writer, music had always meant something. He grew up in rented homes with cracked walls and an outside toilet, eventually moving to a council house. His world was small, limited by class and circumstance. Even grammar school didn’t lift the ceiling.

So music had to speak directly to the soul. The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley, The Clash. It had to say something real. Punk sparked a fire. Madchester felt like youthful rebellion given sound and style.

But then the good times faded. Clubs closed. The media turned on Manchester. Gunchester replaced Madchester, and drugs and guns replaced joy. Youths scraped by on whatever they could find—cash-in-hand gigs, the dole, whatever it took to survive.

Into that moment stepped Oasis. The Stone Roses were locked in legal battles. The Happy Mondays were falling apart. Factory Records had collapsed. The city was drifting.

But Manchester still had hope. It only needed a spark. Oasis provided it. Loud, bratty, raw and full of attitude. Irish roots, council estate grit, big tunes and bigger mouths. People loved them or hated them. Either way, they couldn’t be ignored.

Those pop kids in Manchester who loved guitars and liked to see their mates in bands still “hankered for the heady delights of 88, 89 and 1990.” It only took “one band to set Manchester buzzing again, one group of snotty kids of immigrant Irish parents who could be both scorned and championed at the same time.”

That band was Oasis. And as Terry Christian puts it, “history now tells us, whether you like it or not, that they made a bigger impact than any band that has ever emerged from Manchester.”

Christian, who presented The Word on Channel 4 in the 1990s, remembers arguing for six weeks just to get them on the show. “That night they performed Supersonic to an excited live TV studio audience of 350 and special guest Bob Geldof and with Hollywood actress Winona Ryder watching in the Green Room.” (At the time, Ryder’s boyfriend was the lead singer of another band featured that night, Soul Asylum.)

“Oasis just exploded from then on,” Christian told I Love Manchester. “It still amazes me that they managed to keep it together for as long as they did.”

Despite the endless bickering between Liam and Noel, Oasis lasted longer than anyone expected. The chaos didn’t stop the songs from connecting. They didn’t quite conquer America, but they didn’t have to. Their legend grew anyway.

“Wonderwall” is still the first thing many kids learn on guitar. Today, Noel still plays Oasis songs. So does Liam. The fans go to both. The legacy is intact. “Don’t Look Back in Anger” became a healing anthem and “Live Forever” was the powerful crescendo to the emotional One Love Manchester benefit concert after the Manchester bombing.

It’s been more than 30 years since they blew up on The Word and over a decade since their final split.

The real question now isn’t whether Oasis will ever get back together – they did – it’s whether they should.

For anyone wanting to dive deeper into what made the band tick, from their rise and reign to their chaos and contradictions – John Robb’s new book Live Forever: The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of Oasis tells it all from the front lines. It’s a raw, detailed, and vivid portrait of a band that changed British music forever.

Oasis already did what they came to do. Loudly, unapologetically, and without compromise.