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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
There's Definitely No "Maybe" About It, April 4, 2005
In 1994, Grunge rock had deteriorated from the fresh, brooding energy of Stone Temple Pilots and Nirvana to the contrived repetitions of Bush and Silverchair. The once mighty Pearl Jam ("Ten," and "Vs.") had evaporated artistically with Eddie Vedder's recession into increasingly greater self-obsession and personal misery. The era was clearly in its final throes and rock fans were primed for something different. A record that spoke to the idea of rock as possibility and exuberance.
Into this greasy world of longhaired suicide cases and pseudo-nihilism came Liam and Noel Gallagher with brash English smiles and swaggering Manchester impudence. "Definitely Maybe" is an album seemingly replete with one simple message - I wanna be a rock-`n'-roll star! It is this mantra that makes the record, and indeed the band itself, so important in an era where mediocre substance too often supersedes rock's spirit. "Definitely Maybe" brings us back to the days when lusty-eyed youths willed fame and fortune through guitar strings and makes us forget the languid, whining, shallow psychology that cried its way into so much of 90's rock.
While each song on the album stands on its own, it is the entirety of this effort that warrants notice. The message is clear: "In my mind my dreams are real," Liam grinds in the opening track, unsurprisingly named "Rock `N' Roll Star." And while so many of the songs are just out-and-out Brit-rock fun (i.e. "Shakermaker," "Up in the Sky," "Digsy's Diner," etc.), there are several seriously arresting tracks as well. "Supersonic" features Oasis at their punkiest, while "Slide Away" seems to transcend the album itself, leaning, in a way, toward much of Oasis' more mature work yet to come. "Cigarettes and Alcohol" is as appropriate a maxim as can be expected from the Gallagher's - defiant, working-class urban dissenters first and artists second. And "Live Forever" is a salient single with some of the greatest in recent rock lyricism: "Maybe I just wanna fly / wanna live, I don't wanna die / Maybe I just wanna breathe / maybe I just don't believe / Maybe you're the same as me / we see things they'll never see / You and I are gonna live forever."
"Definitely Maybe" is not an album of subtle orchestration or complex conception, but then that was never the point. In the mid-90's, as in the mid-70's, rock had begun to take itself too seriously as a genre, and had consequently rendered itself an overblown parody. Oasis is to grunge what the Sex Pistols (and Punk in general) were to 70's rock - a slap on the wrist. A reminder that rock is not about art - it is about anti-art. It is about fun; expression; defiance. And with these as standards, "Definitely Maybe" is an album that immerses itself deeply within the spirit of rock stardom as it was once perceived - and an album that proves beyond any doubt that the spirit is still alive.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A rock 'n roll masterpiece, March 30, 2007
In the history of rock n' roll*, there probably aren't 20 better albums than Definitely Maybe. Oasis, under pressure to throw together enough material for a full album after signing with Creation Records on the strength of a handful of songs, accidentally made one of the best albums ever. It's not hyperbole to say that every song on this album is damned good, if not great.
Oasis has always been accused of being derivative, and there's alot of evidence of that on Definitely Maybe. "Cigarettes and Alcohol" is T-Rex's "Bang A Gong (Get it On)" retooled. The chorus of "Shakermaker" is lifted directly from the Coca-Cola song, "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing." Yet, the album is fresh. Liam Gallagher's vocals are fantastic; he's a one-of-a-kind singer. The guitars are big and loud. Swagger just drips from every song. Whatever their sources of inspiration, the Gallaghers have always put their own stamp on their songs, made their own sounds. Paradoxically derivative and unique, Definitely Maybe was so groundbreaking that bands have been trying for the last decade to capture its sound, its magic. There's a lot of Definitely in both of Jet's albums, for example.
This is a must-have album for any rock fan. Like Revolver, Kick (INXS), Joshua Tree, and Achtung Baby (just a few examples off-the-cuff), Definitely Maybe captured the spirit of the time in which it was released and sent rock in a different direction. What "She Loves You" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand" were to the British Invasion, the Definitely Maybe album was to the "Brit Pop" movement.
If you're a rock n' roll fan and this album hasn't found its way into your collection, you've really been missing out. Order it today. If I could give it 10 stars, I would!
*By "rock 'n roll" I mean straigh-forward, guitar-driven music. I don't mean to include soul, R & B, hip-hop, "soft rock" or other styles that sometimes get lumped in the "rock 'n roll" category.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
They're not the messiahs..., March 17, 2000
Whan Oasis exploded onto the British music scene in 1994, many thought them the true successors to that other great underground Manchester band, The Stone Roses. They had the swagger, they had the sneer, and more importantly, they had the songs. Definitely Maybe is testament to that. From the opening bars of Rock N Roll Star, the bravura of a band who knew they had the world at their feet was agressively evident and in Liam Gallagher they possessed one of the truly great frontmen of the 90s. Definitely Maybe is an astonishing debut and far superior to the 12 million selling (What's the Story) Morning Glory. It is rawer, heavier and more confident than the subsequent Oasis albums, and all the better for it. Noel Galagher betrays not the merest shadow of a doubt that he knew he was one of the greatest songwriters Britain had produced in years. His lyrics have often been cricicized, but with the supreme arrogance and honesty of youth he put some fantastic lines into his brother's mouth - "I can't tell you the way I feel, cos the way I feel is oh so new to me", "I'll be scraping your lives from the sole of my shoe tonight". There are no bad tracks on the album, and some real monsters too. Supersonic, Colombia, Cigarettes and Alcohol, Bring it on Down and Live Forever are all fantastic songs, but none of them surpass Slide Away, a raw, tender, joyfully euphoric six minutes of Gallagher brilliance. That Oasis were not the messiahs is now painfully evident. They have never managed to recapture the exuberant majesty of their first album, and although they have displayed the odd flash of greatness since (on songs such as Some Might Say, Do You Know What I Mean and I Hope I Think I Know) I fear Oasis are a spent force. But if you want to know how great they once were, ignore the last three albums and head straight for Definitely Maybe - you won't be disappointed.
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