Was Oasis the biggest band in the world?

I cut my honeymoon in Italy short by a day because I got 4th row seats to see Oasis in New York’s Jones Beach Theater.

It was a few weeks after they played to 250,000 people at Knebworth (2.5 million requested tickets) and here Oasis was in the biggest market in the US playing before 11,200 people in a beach bandshell. Must have been bizarre for them.

Another memory, I was the only person in the place that knew the words to Listen Up. Proximity to the NYC bootleg and import record shops in Greenwich Village for obscure CD B-sides was a big plus back then.

 

What happens in the US, in context to UK bands (amongst other topics really), is very much followed and reported on. If Oasis had played a show the size of Knebworth in the US, it would've been reported on and celebrated yearly for decades and mentioned in every Oasis, Liam or Noel article forever. BBC4 would've had a documentary about it at some point as well.

Breaking the US is a big thing, as is not breaking it and saying you don't give a **** about the US.

 

The biggest band in the Wold.

 

No.

 

The RAH is totally pointless. There are too many acts not recognized for it to matter.

Same goes for the Oscars, you snub Kubrick, Welles, Hitchcock, Penn, Leone, Lumet, Chaplin, and Bergman among many others, anybody who then uses the "they didn't win an Oscar" argument just looks desperate.

 

Awesome story and a keen look at the shocking difference between their popularity in the UK and in the US at the same time. Probably also explains why Liam got off the rails constantly in the middle of (what he saw as) painful US tours.

"Most everyone else" is saying yes. Only people who lived in the US are saying "No". Which is quite understandable, really.

No one is saying their were the biggest in the US. Just that they were the biggest in the world, bar the US. If that is more or less important, that's another discussion.

 

This. Oasis proved that a band could actually be the biggest in the world without having to "conquer" America. The world is a very big place indeed.

 

I think not, no, never.

 

The RAH is very important. It's the RNRHOF that's pointless

And btw, Oasis did play RAH in 1994, I checked it
Oasis Setlist at Royal Albert Hall, London

 

They were the biggest in the world.... In their heads.

 

OOPS. Indeed. The RAH is awesome. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, not so much.

 

Yes they were the biggest both inside and outside of their heads.

Seriously bettsaj I usually agree with your posts but you have to admit that at least for a short time in the summer of 1996 Oasis truly were the world's biggest band.

 

I suspect that's an issue for a bunch of "huge outside of the US but not so much here" artists, albeit on a smaller scale.

Kylie Minogue played stadiums and arenas in her "normal territories", but when she came here in the 00s, she had to play clubs.

That has to be humbling!

 

Not desperate, their less than stellar sales here during that time shows that in the US, the effect of their music was small. Sure, if you are a big fan, you’ll think different. While I own their two most popular albums, I never found them very good and definitely not influential. I have lots of friends interested in music and Oasis just didn’t do it for any of my friends. And you are right, tons of wildly more talented bands/performers than Oasis still not in the RNRHOF

I use Hootie and the Blowfish as an example of a very average band IMO (nothing special) who were wildly more popular here in the US.

 

the question i have for you is can you accept that a band can be the most popular act in the world for a period, while not being the most popular act in the usa? because this topic is about the world, not the usa. the usa is an important market, but it is not the whole world. hootie sold nothing around the world, i don't understand how they are relevant to this topic.

also i think 4 million copies sold of Morning Glory in the usa is something, calling that" less than stellar" isn't really accurate. for instance neil young's best selling album Harvest only sold 4 million copies in the usa. was that album a less than stellar success? Bob Dylan's best selling records (Blood on the Tracks, Desire, Blonde on Blonde) are stuck at 2 million copies sold. Are they failures?

 

No

 

And unbearably lame.

Remember what Bowie said: "This ain't rock and roll. This is genocide."

 

To be clear, I am a massive fan yet throughout this thread have been clear that I don't think they were the biggest band in the world. I am of the thinking that to be the biggest you have to dominate the major markets, which Oasis didn't do in the US. Others think differently and that is fine. We all have differing views. But their sales were decent rather than your claim of "less than stellar sales".

Using the RRHoF as some sort of validation though has no credibility.

 

Are you familiar with the song "Don't Look Back in Anger" by Oasis? : AskAnAmerican

Found this recently. Interesting to see other internet people's/non-hardcore music nerd perspectives... It just goes to show that again, I think Oasis had more impact in America than people realize...

 

I did concede the Hall of fame point as acts highly more talented than Oasis are still not in.

I did say they were successful, but when you put it in the rarified air of “biggest band in the world”, none of their albums cracked the Top 100 in sales in the USA in the 90’s. The last one on that list is the Offspring at #100 with over 6 million sales of their album “Smash”. Still a pretty far cry from the 4 million Oasis sold.

I am more in line that you have to dominate all major markets and they clearly did not have that kind of popularity or influence in America. America the largest market in the world by a pretty wide margin.

I don’t begrudge the group or their fans, just an over bloated claim IMO that drew me to respond. I certainly love groups that others do not think are as good as I do.

Regardless, not looking to crap on your thread, i’ll Leave it at that and return the conversation to Oasis fans that believe the above claim.

Enjoy your day and continue to support the music and groups you love!!

 

Just the truth, America is the by far the biggest and most important western market for film and music. If you don't make it there then you are automatically not the biggest in the world. Your obsession to ignore the biggest market is the more silly position to take.

British/Irish bands such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Police and U2 did what Oasis could not, that being to big throughout all the western world including in America.

Laughable.

Biggest bands in the world do not get slotted as an opening act in Rock in Rio 3 / 2001. Yep, they opened for Guns N' Roses, whilst the tier 1 acts where all given prime closing slots: Sting, R.E.M, Guns N' Roses, N' Sync, Iron Maiden, Neil Young and Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

Riddle me that? Brazil slotted them where they deserved to be, a tier 2 band. Not so massive in Brazil either.

Someone else brought up Kylie Minogue, and that is the perfect comparison for Oasis. Oasis are the Kylie Minogue of bands. Huge in the UK, and a few other markets, but a tier 2 act in many important markets included the biggest one.

 

The discussion has always been about one short period in the mid-90s.

Do biggest bands in the world (at one flicker of time) play casinos and state fairs?

 

Biggest bands retain the sheen, just look at The Police Reunion world tour in 2007/2008. Look at some of the stadium attendences:

The Police Reunion Tour - Wikipedia

79,000 at Chicago, 67,000 at Boston, 104,000 at Twikenham, 93,000 at Amsterdam, 158,000 at Paris, 81,000 at Dublin, 88,000 at Buenos Aires, 56,000 at Tokyo.

That's what a biggest band in the world does, and in The Police's case 25 years after their prime.

 

Ridiculous comparison. Kylie could never sell out 250,000 tickets for two nights in a row as Oasis did at Knebworth in August 1996. In fact Oasis received over 2.5 million applications for tickets, which was not only a record but also accounted for 4% of the British population. No way could Kylie (or most other bands) get 2.5 million ticket applications for a single venue event.

 

No one is talking about longevity at the top here. The question is "Was Oasis the biggest band in the world?". And for a very brief time in the summer of 1996 (Knebworth as stated in my above post) they were the biggest.