Oasis – (What's the Story) Morning Glory?

The album opens with a Gary Glitter stomp lifted from "Hello, Hello, I'm Back Again", guitar chords hitting on the downbeat and Liam Gallagher's voice shouting the title over and over. The song does exactly one thing—announce the band's arrival—and does it with enough force to work as an opener. The production is compressed to the point where the guitars and vocals occupy the same sonic space, and the lack of dynamics is already audible. "Hello" is effective as a statement but wears thin on repeat; once you have heard the hook, you have heard the song.

The song chosen to fight Blur's "Country House" in the Battle of Britpop, and it lost that chart battle by 54,000 copies for good reason. "Roll With It" has a strong enough chorus to work as a single, but the verses are generic and the lyrics scan without saying much. The riff powers forward on momentum, and Liam's delivery gives the track more conviction than the writing earns. It is a solid enough rocker that does not justify its place in rock history. The production foregrounds the vocal to the point where the guitars feel like background noise.

The song that made Oasis a worldwide phenomenon, and the one track on Morning Glory that fully earns its reputation. Noel Gallagher wrote a melody strong enough to outlast its influences, and Liam's phrasing turns the sentimentality into something weightier. The chord progression is simple, the lyrics are vague enough to mean whatever the listener needs them to mean, and the chorus is built for singalongs. Owen Morris's production strips the arrangement down to acoustic guitar, strings, and Liam's voice, giving the song a pseudo-live intimacy despite the heavy compression. "Wonderwall" topped the Australian and New Zealand charts, spent 30 consecutive weeks on the UK chart, and reached number eight in the United States. It remains the band's biggest-selling UK hit and the one song casual listeners know. The track has been overplayed to the point of cultural saturation, but the melody still works. This is the peak of Noel's songwriting on the album.

Noel Gallagher takes lead vocals and borrows the piano figure from John Lennon's "Imagine" without apology, then writes a chorus strong enough to justify the theft. The verse melody is weaker than "Wonderwall", but the singalong section works, and the string arrangement gives the track a sense of occasion. The song reached number one on the UK Singles Chart and became a stadium anthem, particularly after the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing when crowds sang it in tribute. The production is cleaner than most of the album, with more space between the instruments, though the mastering still flattens the dynamics. "Don't Look Back in Anger" is the second-best song on Morning Glory and the one that proves Noel could write anthems that lasted.

A bloated five minutes and 41 seconds that meanders without ever finding a reason to exist. The riff is generic, the chorus is weak, and the song stretches past the point where any of its ideas justify the length. Liam's vocal is committed, but no amount of conviction can save a melody this thin. "Hey Now!" is the first clear sign that the album is padded, and it kills the momentum the opening four tracks built. This is filler.

The first of two untitled harmonica interludes, with Paul Weller contributing the harmonica. Forty-four seconds of atmosphere that disrupts the album's flow without building toward anything. It serves no structural purpose.

The earliest track recorded for the album, cut in late February 1995 with Tony McCarroll on drums, and the one that sounds least like the rest of Morning Glory. The backing track was recorded in one take after Noel Gallagher and Owen Morris drunkenly decided the original version was too slow, and the rushed take has a bad speed-up in the first three bars of the first chorus that Morris had to hide with delay and processing. The song reached number one on the UK Singles Chart in April 1995, and it has enough energy to work as a single, but the melody is weaker than "Wonderwall" or "Don't Look Back in Anger". The lyrics are nonsense, and the production is messier than the rest of the album. "Some Might Say" is solid enough to justify its chart position, but it does not rank among Noel's best songs.

Written for Richard Ashcroft on the train back to Rockfield Studios, and the song sounds like it was written in transit. The melody uses falsetto and Beatles-style vocal harmonies to evoke melancholy, and the lyrics aim for poignancy without landing on anything specific. The track is pretty in a vague way, but it never builds, and at nearly five minutes it overstays. "Cast No Shadow" is one of the album's weaker deep cuts, more competent than memorable.

A music-hall pastiche that borrows the chord changes and melody from the Beatles' "When I'm Sixty-Four" and "With a Little Help from My Friends" without adding wit or bite. The lyrics aim for charm and land on novelty, and the production is cluttered. Musicologist Allan F. Moore compared the track to "When I'm Sixty-Four", and the comparison is accurate: both songs gesture toward older generations without much substance. "She's Electric" is the album's weakest full track, and it drags.

The title track borrows the mandolin chug and melodic shape of R.E.M.'s "The One I Love" and adds little of its own. The riff is strong enough to carry the verses, and the chorus has momentum, but the song never escapes its influences. Liam's vocal is committed, and the production gives the track a sense of scale, but the writing is too derivative to rank among the album's best songs. "Morning Glory" is solid filler, better than "Hey Now!" but nowhere near "Wonderwall".

The second untitled harmonica interlude, 39 seconds that add nothing. Like the first, it disrupts momentum without building atmosphere.

Seven and a half minutes of cosmic ambition that closes the album with Paul Weller contributing lead guitar, backing vocals and whistle to the extended outro. The verse melody is weak, and the lyrics are vague to the point of meaninglessness, but the chorus works as a singalong and the outro stretches into something larger than the song earns. The track reached number one on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart and spent five weeks there, proving that American modern rock radio was willing to embrace Oasis at their most indulgent. "Champagne Supernova" is more statement than structure, and at over seven minutes it tests patience, but the ambition is audible. The song works better in a stadium than on headphones, where the length and repetition become liabilities. This is the album's closer because it sounds like a closer, not because it develops into one.