Was Oasis the biggest band in the world?

I wonder when butthurt became an expression? Anyway, I think in these debates, there's always those who blindly say opinion with no proof on both sides. You can't say they were the biggest or weren't without some evidence. Once I read "I think they were"- I know that the opinion is meaningless. Especially if there's no reason behind it. Posts like "They were" or "they weren't" don't really do anything to the thread. Nobody's going to care without a reason given either way. It is ridiculous to think they had no popularity in South America or Japan-they obviously were big just about everywhere.

 

Correct, but expand across the pond to "just about the entire world" (excluding pockets such as Australia and certain parts of western Europe).

Oasis were never a phenomenon except: in the UK, in the Gallagher brothers own mind and in certain fans dubious imaginations.

 

Yes, Oasis were only a phenomenon in the one country where rock'n'roll phenomena are invented and are the most important. America might be where all the albums and tickets are sold but it's a barren desert when it comes to advancing the art, isn't it?

EDIT: disco and hip hop, OK there is that in America's list of contributions

 

Bon Jovi "These Days" released in 1995 (during peak Oasis) reached number 1 in Japan. Does that make you happy?

Bon Jovi were a FAR bigger band than Oasis in: Japan, America and South America. You can't be the biggest band in the world and not be the biggest in those markets.

Hence, how is it possible that Oasis could have been the biggest band in the world? There were not ever, not even close.

 

It's not about crapping on America or musical styles. And we are speaking about the world. Conquering South America is damn important if you want to claim biggest band in the world title.

It's about the central question of how big was Oasis at its peak. I've given example after example of how Oasis was a huge local act in the UK and a 2nd tier act pretty much everywhere else.

In band rankings they can never stand alongside these bands who have been the biggest band in the world at certain times:

- The Beatles (d'oh)
- Led Zeppelin (double d'oh)
- The Who
- Rolling Stones
- Pink Floyd (around the time of The Wall)
- Queen
- The Police (around 1983 they were as big as Michael Jackson)
- Dire Straits (around 1985, Brothers in Arms)
- Bon Jovi (especially around Slippery)
- Guns N' Roses
- Metallica (around Black album)
- U2 (at many times during their long career)

The first two listed above I believe are clearly separated from the rest since they ruled their decades (60s and 70s) like no one else has done.

Oasis was a massive regional success in the UK, but not a global iconic band. If you never headline Rock in Rio then you are very much 2nd tier.

 

Apologies, I allowed my national chauvinism to get the better of me

 

The Beatles' comparisons were never particularly accurate for their sound. Noel and Liam were big fans of the Beatles, but their 90's music sounded a lot more like a mix of 50% Stone Roses, 25% Sex Pistols and 25% Beatles. You are much more likely to enjoy Oasis if you like the Stones Roses than if you like the Beatles.

The touring numbers are all practically bigger for the dinosaur rock acts. Basically any act that established itself before the 1990s had a bigger platform for their music due to distribution, the changing nature of radio and culture. That gave them gigantic legacy fanbases which have followed them on tours up to the present.

 

Longtime lurker, first time poster. Was a big fan of Oasis around their peak and a casual fan for a couple years after so I'll be adding a bit of my two cents here. Also, I've had a bit to drink tonight.


Not really given too much thought to them since they broke up, but this thread has gotten me doing a wee bit of research, taking a trip down memory lane since I feel there are a fair amount of people here who were too old to have been in touch with the rock world at that time (no The Rolling Stones were not the most mainstream rock band of the mid-90s) or think that because they lived in the Yukon with no radio or cable and didn't hear of Oasis, no one else did.


Well that and that they're an easy target for people to dismiss because of the Beatles comparisons, plagarism, and jerky attitude of the Gallaghers (because everyone knows that it's okay for MY favorite artist to be a rude, drug snorting jackass in the 60s and 70s, but any band after that was just unacceptable). But I digress.


One, I don't know why people keep bringing up 1995. 1996 was definitively was the year that Oasis really blew up (yes, even in England, to greater degrees than before).


U2 may have been the biggest band in the world after Achtung and ZooTV (saw them in Saint Louis in ‘92 - great show!), but Zooropa was no Achtung and ‘96 they were busy in the studio working on POP. Bon Jovi too at that point, sure they were filling stadiums on their world tour, but they hadn’t had a real hit (in America anyway) in a couple of years and quite frankly they were NOT EVEN CLOSE to being one of the most relevant big name rock bands for anyone, you know, under 30. They were big and still a big concert draw, but at that point just riding the coattails of their 80s glories. Just like how Voodoo Loungue may have sold and charted well and the accompanying tour a complete sellout, but that doesn’t make the Rolling Stones the biggest rock act of ‘94.



With regard to the Rock in Rio thing, you're talking about Oasis 5 years after their worldwide peak. Nobody's denying that in 2001 Oasis were has beens in the eyes of most people. We're not talking about 2001, we're talking about 1996.


Also, that year's Rock in Rio (except for the inexplicable boyband night on Thursday), every single rock headliner was an act that had a good 10, 20, 30 years of hits and a back catalog to work with, cross-generational appeal, and (some more than others) had been firmly established as major tenets of the classic rock canon. At the same time, ALL those headliners, with the exception of RHCP were at least a decade past their peak in relevancy and fame. However, none of those headliners had an album sell more copies than Morning Glory did worldwide in the past 5 years, nor a hit single as popular and far-reaching as Wonderwall and (to a slightly lesser extent) Don't Look Back in Anger.


Hell, according the admittedly incomplete wayback machine of worldwide charts "20 years ago this week" from March 16, 1996 had Oasis' Wonderwall as the #5 single in the entire world: Global Chart 20 Years Ago . And this is well after the initial flurry of sales that would have occurred in the UK and Ireland back in October when the single was first released there. Wonderwall went top 10 in a good 15 countries (including places like Zimbabwe for goodness’ sake) and #1 in four countries (including your precious Australia, where national youth station Triple J voted in #1 on the “Top 200 Hottest Songs of the Past 20 Years” in 2013. Your comment about how it wasn’t a REAL hit in America because it only went to #8 is idiotic because one, you weren’t even there at the time so how would you know? Two, it was at the time (and still is) such an obvious singalong tune: easily hummable, simple lyrically, very catchy, relatable to even your parents in a way that transcends charts and sales figures to the point where it was easily more omniprescent and universal than any song by any other rock band not only in 1996 but from that era in general. And three, it got a lot of exposure from the video being played in heavy rotation on MTV for months on end, which charts certainly don’t account for.


That being said, here’s a good 100,000+ Brazilians going mad for the song at RiR ‘01:




If only they turned the ambient mics on the crowd, it would be enough to drown out Liam’s awful voice.


Also, yes, Oasis did play stadiums outside of England. On their South American tour in 1998 (aka during the Oasis backlash), they played some stadiums there and would continue to do so even until the bitter end. Same thing with some cities in Asia too. And frankly, some of the arena and amphitheatre shows they did outside of the UK/Ireland were still bigger than the capacity of a number of Aussie football stadiums, for what it’s worth.


And fun fact, Oasis had the same attendance at River Plate Stadium, Argentina in 2009 that Bon Jovi did in 2o10. And just look at how mad this crowd is going for an album track! (it was only released as a commercial single in… Australia, where it peaked at #25 in 1995). They’re singing along to the guitar riffs and just going ****ing nuts for Oasis:

The Best Oasis Crowd? - Morning Glory Argentina 2009


Of course, filling stadiums isn’t all its cracked up to be. Often times you get a better experience doing an arena tour, much like the boys of Bon Jovi themselves are doing as we speak...


Longtime lurker, first time poster. Was a big fan of Oasis around their peak and a casual fan for a couple years after so I'll be adding a bit of my two cents here. Also, I've had a bit to drink tonight.


Not really given too much thought to them since they broke up, but this thread has gotten me doing a wee bit of research, taking a trip down memory lane since I feel there are a fair amount of people here who were too old to have been in touch with the rock world at that time (no The Rolling Stones were not the most mainstream rock band of the mid-90s) or think that because they lived in the Yukon with no radio or cable and didn't hear of Oasis, no one else did.


Well that and that they're an easy target for people to dismiss because of the Beatles comparisons, plagarism, and jerky attitude of the Gallaghers (because everyone knows that it's okay for MY favorite artist to be a rude, drug snorting jackass in the 60s and 70s, but any band after that was just unacceptable). But I digress.


One, I don't know why people keep bringing up 1995. 1996 was definitively was the year that Oasis really blew up (yes, even in England, to greater degrees than before).


U2 may have been the biggest band in the world after Achtung and ZooTV (saw them in Saint Louis in ‘92 - great show!), but Zooropa was no Achtung and ‘96 they were busy in the studio working on POP. Bon Jovi too at that point, sure they were filling stadiums on their world tour, but they hadn’t had a real hit (in America anyway) in a couple of years and quite frankly they were NOT EVEN CLOSE to being one of the most relevant big name rock bands for anyone, you know, under 30. They were big and still a big concert draw, but at that point just riding the coattails of their 80s glories. Just like how Voodoo Loungue may have sold and charted well and the accompanying tour a complete sellout, but that doesn’t make the Rolling Stones the biggest rock act of ‘94.



With regard to the Rock in Rio thing, you're talking about Oasis 5 years after their worldwide peak. Nobody's denying that in 2001 Oasis were has beens in the eyes of most people. We're not talking about 2001, we're talking about 1996.


Also, that year's Rock in Rio (except for the inexplicable boyband night on Thursday), every single rock headliner was an act that had a good 10, 20, 30 years of hits and a back catalog to work with, cross-generational appeal, and (some more than others) had been firmly established as major tenets of the classic rock canon. At the same time, ALL those headliners, with the exception of RHCP were at least a decade past their peak in relevancy and fame. However, none of those headliners had an album sell more copies than Morning Glory did worldwide in the past 5 years, nor a hit single as popular and far-reaching as Wonderwall and (to a slightly lesser extent) Don't Look Back in Anger.


Hell, according the admittedly incomplete wayback machine of worldwide charts "20 years ago this week" from March 16, 1996 had Oasis' Wonderwall as the #5 single in the entire world: Global Chart 20 Years Ago . And this is well after the initial flurry of sales that would have occurred in the UK and Ireland back in October when the single was first released there. Wonderwall went top 10 in a good 15 countries (including places like Zimbabwe for goodness’ sake) and #1 in four countries (including your precious Australia, where national youth station Triple J voted it #1 on the “Top 200 Hottest Songs of the Past 20 Years” in 2013. Hell, a quick wikipedia scan shows that Wonderwall was the #4 single worldwide for that year. Your comment about how it wasn’t a REAL hit in America because it only went to #8 is idiotic because one, you weren’t even there at the time so how would you know? Two, it was at the time (and still is) such an obvious singalong tune: easily hummable, simple lyrically, very catchy, relatable to even your parents in a way that transcends charts and sales figures to the point where it was easily more omniprescent and universal than any song by any other rock band not only in 1996 but from that era in general. And three, it got a lot of exposure from the video being played in heavy rotation on MTV for months on end, which charts certainly don’t account for.


That being said, here’s a good 100,000+ Brazilians going mad for the song at RiR ‘01:

Oasis - Wonderwall Rock In Rio 2001


If only they turned the ambient mics on the crowd, it would be enough to drown out Liam’s awful voice.


Also, yes, Oasis did play stadiums outside of England. On their South American tour in 1998 (aka during the Oasis backlash), they played some stadiums there and would continue to do so even until the bitter end. Same thing with some cities in Asia too. And frankly, some of the arena and amphitheatre shows they did outside of the UK/Ireland were still bigger than the capacity of a number of Aussie football stadiums, for what it’s worth.


And fun fact, Oasis had the same attendance at River Plate Stadium, Argentina in 2009 that Bon Jovi did in 2o10. And just look at how mad this crowd is going for an album track! (it was only released as a commercial single in… Australia, where it peaked at #25 in 1995). They’re singing along to the guitar riffs and just going ****ing nuts for Oasis:

The Best Oasis Crowd? - Morning Glory Argentina 2009


Of course, filling stadiums isn’t all its cracked up to be. Often times you get a better experience doing an arena tour, much like the boys of Bon Jovi themselves are doing as we speak...

 

Rock phenomenon wasn't invented in the UK. It was invented in the US IMO. The bands might have come from somewhere else, but without America there really is no phenomenon.

 

The problem is, how do you define big?

But I think the question isn't if they were big but if they were the biggest. So even if they were big, which they were, does it mean they were the biggest? I don't think it really matters anyway.

I bet if they reunited they'd probably pull in some big audience numbers around the world and would probably be playing way bigger gigs in some markets than they did when they were still a going concern.

 

Well that's the problem when posters come on an try to use one road of reasoning. There are so many factors involved and only a few people here want to really do the research to determine all of them. It also helps if you lived in multiple countries at the time and were aware of the alt. rock scene. Most of us did not happen to live in multiple countries at the time so it's a little harder without the first hand info, but I think the first thing is to step back and realize that usually when someone brings up 'the biggest', the fan is looking for affirmation about their taste. We all have emotional attachments to music if we want to admit it or not. Not every song/artist but the ones we love best. That's why we use the word 'love' a lot-or 'like'. We don't just think something is 'good' but we put an emotional claim on it - "'Wonderwall'? - I love that song." People say they don't care what others think, but then they come on a forum to share opinions about good and bad music so I think we all care a little.

Once it's established, we're looking for approval of our selection and how 'big' it is, we can assess what makes someone the biggest. Comparison to other artists immediately comes up and then you have to have knowledge of those artists or no one will believe you.

I think people like to 'feel' a certain way-therefore it's true. But what's the reason for one poster's 'feeling' over anothers? A thorough researched response is the best answer. So then a criteria has to be set: most sales, artists discussing the band, record company respect, fan respect, critic respect, ticket sales, timeframe, multiple countries' sales figures in tix, releases, (downloads nowadays too), media coverage, chart action for singles, EP's, albums.

You have to be successful in most of the criteria and #1 in some of it to be the biggest. When all that's done, you have to think 'does it matter that they were the biggest? Is it okay they were 2nd biggest or 3rd? What # is acceptable for a fan depends on the fan. Still, that's just one opinion. It's better to have lots of informed opinions, but here we have stuff like 'yes cause I love them'. Then another question is- 'if they were the biggest, for how long, and what's the length anybody should care?' If it's one day in 1996, this whole debate wasn't worth it.

A lot of us don't have time to go through hours of research to truly determine it so we try shortcuts on both sides by looking up 1 song, 1 concert, 2 albums. It's a whole lot more research but people rather just go with how much they themselves like the band just like on other threads when music history comes up.

 

To be the biggest there needs to be some form of consensus and obviousness.

We are very very far away from forming a consensus that Oasis were ever the biggest band in the world here in this very thread. Maybe that in and of itself explains a lot. It would have been good to have a poll attached to this thread.

I am a stubborn bastard in the no camp for the simple fact that Oasis never conquered America, and if you don't conquer America you can't claim to be the biggest band in the world. By extension, they did not conquer South America either which is a hugely important rock market.

Remember we are talking the biggest, not simply just big.

Even Noel Gallagher himself admits that Oasis failed to crack America (Google it). He blames his brother Liam, shock horror! Maybe their disgusting rotten attitudes were part of the reason they were not far bigger.

I think a similar comparison would be Garth Brooks; absolutely massive in the States but not so anywhere else in the world. I doubt anyone would claim Garth as ever being the biggest solo artist in the world (emphasis, in the world). Oasis and Garth I would classify as massive local successes but not global phenoms.

 

And THAT is a helluva first post!

 

The first time Oasis ever appeared on American MTV, they announced that they are the greatest group on the planet, and how their new album was better than Sgt. Pepper.

Nobody bought into it. They pretty much made a laughing stock of themselves.

 

Right as Oasis started becoming big, MTV shifted their daily programming more and more to Rap music and manufactured teen pop. Wonderwall's video got some play on the channel but MTV's programmers were beginning to abandon the traditional Rock audience right around that period. MTV had made a conscious decision to go after a younger, more urban American audience after the Grunge movement started fading.

 

I don't hear much of the Stone Roses in Oasis. Firstly there isn't the dance music aspect at all and also the Roses were more open sounding, not the in your face snarl that was Oasis. Of course being a big Manchester band a few years earlier they were an influence in the cultural and ambition sense but not musically.

From a Brit perspective I would say it is:

Sex Pistols 20%
The Smiths 20%
Beatles 30%
Slade 10%
T. Rex 10%
Pixies 5%
Nirvana 5%

 

I think that Ian Brown was a big influence on Liam. It may not be obvious in their music but if you focus on Liam I think you will see the influence.

 

Noel tends toward hyperbole, or bragging as we call it Round Are Way. It's a Manc thing.

 

I saw them play Roseland Ballroom in NYC right after Morning Glory came out and for the duration of that show I would have agreed that they were the greatest/biggest band in the world. Stunning show. They were unbelievable in a (relatively) small club.

 

I don't hear any Pixies in Oasis. If I did, I would like Oasis 5%.

 

Yeah I'd say there very little Stone Roses in terms of the music but I always felt Liam used Ian Brown as his front man template. (EDIT: @DownInAHole beat me to it)

On that list, I'd remove the Pixies, Nirvana and even the Pistols. I'll have to think about that one a bit more.

 

You should really stop quoting Wikipedia when it comes to records sales, their numbers are garbage. Spice Girls debut sold nowhere near 31m, the same way DM sold half of 15 million.

 

Surely if they were a pop band then they were also a band.

 

That's close to the percentage of thread pages that the "what's the greatest Pixies album" poll has, in comparison to this 45 page thread ( 6%, 3 vs 45)!

 

I actually like Oasis a bit, atleast the hits that is. And I did think they were quite big but the biggest in the world?! Not really.