Editor Reviews:

Album Description:
Limited Edition Japanese pressing of their debut album, originally released in 1994, comes housed in a miniature LP sleeve. 11 tracks including 'Live Forever', 'Supersonic' and 'Cigarettes And Alcohol'. Sony. 2006.

Amazon.com:
With the swaggering chords of the opening "Rock'N'Roll Star," Oasis announced that big, brash Brit rock was here to stay--at least for a few years. They wore their rock & roll with an angry young sneer, a Mancunian petulance wedded to a vision of cathartic release. Their supersonic two-guitar attack took them "Up in the Sky," where they would "Live Forever" or burn out in a blaze of alcoholic glory. Noel Gallagher's songs weren't subtle--or shy of overt plagiarism--but, spat out in the Lennonesque snarl of little brother Liam, they took on a venomous power that had millions of young Brits taking them at their own arrogant word. In the U.S., meanwhile, the response was more Maybe than Definitely. --Barney Hoskyns

Rating : - Oasis revisited -after almost 14 years still great!
On the occasion of the release of the band's seventh full length cd I thought that I would pull out all of their cds and re-assess each one. In doing so I must first admit that the combination of a series of disappointing records, childish in-fighting, idiotic public pronouncements and generally boorish and juvenile behaviour have not exactly endeared these lads to me over the last decade and a half. So, let me wipe clean the slate and, as George Michael once suggested, listen without prejudice.

This is most definitely English music. Oasis has always worn its influences on it sleeves - Beatles, most obviously, but also Stones, Kinks, Small Faces. This "Englishness" is a logical reason why certain British artists have been less successful in the US than at home and else ware. Starting with the great Small Faces in the 60's and continuing through Queen in the 70's and 80's to The Arctic Monkeys more recently there has been a long line of Brit bands that have been tremendously successful at home and less so on the southern half of this continent. From the beginning of rock and roll I have always recognized a musical hall or theatrical element in much of the popular music from the UK. I suspect that for many in the potential American audience this is off-putting. To the American ear these artists can sound affected or pretentious and are therefore often described as poseurs. To the British ear, and indeed the Australian and Canadian as well, they are merely continuing a long recognized and much revered tradition. I may be totally out to lunch on this one. However, there has to be a logical reason why, over the course of over forty years, a slew of bands who were immensely popular in the UK struggled to make headway in the US but were able to carry that popularity to, for instance, Canada. The aforementioned Queen, Supertramp and Genesis are other examples. Now I do appreciate that each of these bands had varying degrees of popularity in the US. However, they were each much more successful in Britain AND in Canada. It isn't the accent! We up here in the Great White North sound much more American than we do English - even if we tend to use English spelling!

Maybe starts of with the snarling rocker Rock `n' Roll Star. The record never lets up. Live Forever is one of my favourite anthems from the 90's. Supersonic is another driving, snarling, gem that, like many of the band's best songs, has silly lyrics but is ideal for screaming along with at parties or alone in the car. After its initial and welcome excitement, grunge, like most "new things" in music, became repetitive and lost its way. Straight ahead rockers like Bring it on Down and Cigarettes and Alcohol were therefore a breath of fresh air. Slide Away, the penultimate song, is another anthemic party piece. The album closes with Married With Children - just the kind of innocuous but catchy little ditty in which The Beatles specialized.

Definitely Maybe is a sterling debut album. To me it is cleaner and less cluttered than the later releases (purely subjective observations of course). The variety of the music and the brevity of the recording allow the listener to play the entire thing without any risk of the onset of boredom - something that, regretfully, I cannot say of their post 1995 catalog. The band's second effort is even better. Therefore I'll give this one four and a half stars and save full marks for Morning Glory.