In the storied Blur vs. Oasis battle of 1995, when the bands’ respective singles “Country House” and “Roll With It” were released on the same day in the UK (August 14), Blur debuted at #1 with the Gallaghers coming in at #2. But Oasis won the war just a couple of months later when their second album was released on October 2 in the UK (October 3 in the US) and quickly made them worldwide superstars. Blur’s 1995 album, The Great Escape, was very good but just a little too British for its own good, while Noel Gallagher wrote the kind of rock anthems that lodged in your head, made you sway, and knew no borders.
Coming hot off the fastest-selling debut in UK history, Oasis’ Definitely Maybe, Noel Gallagher was at the top of his confident game. He was still swiping bits from his heroes but had also nailed Oasis’ style by this point, mixing equal parts melody and swagger, with sing-along choruses that sound good even when the lyrics don’t make a lot of sense (which was often). Beyond singles like “Wonderwall,” “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” and “Champagne Supernova” (which was not actually released as a single in the UK), Morning Glory‘s deep cuts — “Hello,” “She’s Electric,” and “Cast No Shadow” — are just as good.
(What’s the Story) Morning Glory? — which has one of the most baffling parenthetical titles of all time — was a smash out of the gate in their homeland, selling 345,000 copies in its first week and becoming the second-fastest-selling album in UK history (Michael Jackson’s BAD was first). It didn’t leave the Top 3 for seven months. In the US, the album hit its peak in February 1996 when fourth single “Wonderwall” pushed it to #4 on the Billboard 200, where it spent a total of 78 weeks.
The week Oasis played their first reunion show on July 4, 2025, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? was at #2 on the UK charts, with their best-of comp Time Flies at #1 and Definitely Maybe at #4 (Sabrina Carpenter was #3). It has remained in the Top 20 ever since.
The new 30th anniversary edition features the original album remastered and sounding a little fuller than it did in 1995 (Oasis were ahead of the Loudness Wars of the ’00s, thanks in part to their party-forward reputation that made “bigger” always seem better). It sounds great, as the songs always have been. There are also newly recorded unplugged versions of Morning Glory tracks “Cast No Shadow,” “Morning Glory,” “Wonderwall,” and “Champagne Supernova,” plus b-side “Acquiesce,” which has become one of Oasis’ signature songs over the last 30 years.
Things went south not long after the long world tour for (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, when they had to make its follow-up. The band’s partying finally outweighed their ability to crank out great songs — or at least to tell which ones weren’t so good (or were too damn long) — while the Gallaghers’ arrogance, and their volume knobs, remained at maximum. Their boasts of being “bigger than the Beatles” grew tiresome, but at their peak, Oasis made a very good argument.
The band’s diminishing returns don’t take away from Morning Glory’s greatness, as this year’s smash reunion tour has proven. Those songs, and this album, have stayed with us.
Find out where (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? falls on our list of The Best Britpop Albums of 1995.