What is the most played Oasis song?
Every single rock and roll band always wants that one song that can be their calling card until the end of time. There are plenty of artists who are masters of their craft, but despite someone like Freddie Mercury being the greatest frontman to ever touch a microphone, even the casual fans of Queen can only identify them as the band that made that one song about Galileo. There had to be some limits on how popular some rock bands could get, but Oasis always had two distinct sides to themselves whenever they played.
Then again, Owen Morris did try his best to capture the energy of their music on the record during their prime. The whole point behind re-recording Definitely Maybe so many times was to ensure that the band could capture the feeling of them playing live, and that brick walling effect on everything made everything sound like it was creating a psychedelic haze of music around the listener whenever they played tracks like ‘Rock n’ Roll Star.’
But even during their prime, some songs were either meant as experiments at the live show or an album track that was meant to be forgotten. The lucky few might have fond memories of seeing a young Liam Gallagher crooning at the front of the stage, but once they started to become iconic, there was no reason for them to fit in a song like ‘Digsy’s Dinner’ when they could easily throw in something like ‘Some Might Say’ or any of the stellar B-sides in their catalogue.
Some songs might have fluctuated, but there’s a reason why the good songs from Definitely Maybe have stayed for all these years. ‘Live Forever’ and ‘Slide Away’ are the classics that are practically no-brainers whenever the band puts together a setlist, but they all belong in a class by themselves. They say more about Oasis than most other songs, but compared to every other rock and roll band, never before has a band been more typecast by one song than ‘Wonderwall’.
Yes, the song has been buried under God knows how many memes, but if you take the blinders off for a second, it’s still fantastic. It might be insufferable to hear any joker at a party find a guitar and try to play the tune for anyone within earshot, but listening to the version everyone knows, there’s a lot more nuance in how it’s played. Both guitars perfectly complement each other with different chord voicings, and the Mellotron gives everything a more regal touch.
And as much as there was a competition between Liam and Noel in those days, the idea of Liam choosing between this and ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ to sing feels insane. Both tunes have become iconic, but there is no other person who can sing the tune like Liam, especially with that harsh rasp in his delivery. There have been many fine covers of the track, but Liam has the passion that makes him the perfect singer for it.
It shouldn’t come as a shock, but ‘Wonderwall’ is still one of the biggest calling cards when it comes to Oasis, getting well over two billion streams on Spotify, blowing every other Oasis track out of the water. Some people may have been listening to it ironically over the years, but more money went into Noel’s pocket for the songwriting royalties.
But despite the Beatles comparisons over the years and ‘Wonderwall’ becoming one of the most parodied songs of the 1990s, there’s no arguing with the fact that it’s earned its place in history. There are some pieces of it that might not sit well with the band, and Liam has said on a few occasions that he was sick of playing the song before coming back around on it, but even if this were their only claim to fame, they would still go down as one of the greatest singles artists of the decade.
