Oasis

For years, it seemed like there’d never be another band with enough guts, grandeur, and glory to add their name to the British rock pantheon alongside legends like the Kinks and the Who . . . until Oasis came along. Just when rock seemed destined to remain mired in grunge-soaked moodiness forever, Noel and Liam Gallagher stormed out of Manchester with rock anthems as big, bold, and brash as the battling brothers themselves. The air-guitar-ready riffs and shout-along choruses of “Champagne Supernova” and “Wonderwall” filled stadiums with girls atop their boyfriends’ shoulders, arms aloft in celebration of Britpop’s second coming. And the huge hooks and stomping grooves of glam were part of the band’s makeup, too, from the supersized swagger of “Supersonic” to the Gary Glitter sample on “Hello.”

In Next Steps, uncover Oasis’ connection to rock’s first British Invasion.

From their moptops to their mod granny glasses, Oasis never shied away from their debt to '60s British rock, but they were torch carriers, not imitators — their larger-than-life output was tailor-made to take on the mantle of Britain’s Biggest Band. With its Moody Bluesy Mellotron and psych-pop chord changes, “Let There Be Love” proudly embraced the legacy that was Oasis’ Britpop birthright, while the Kinks-y choruses of “The Importance of Being Idle” show that Oasis had more in common with the Brothers Davies than their sibling rivalry. And for all of Liam and Noel’s notorious feuding, the band busted out its own hands-across-the-water anthem with “All Around the World."

Listen as Liam and Noel’s talents grow, together and apart, in Deep Cuts.

Oasis’ flame burned big and bright for nearly two decades, as Liam and Noel Gallagher and a shifting cast of fellow travelers started a Britpop revolution but made trend-defying music built to stand the test of time. They took the core values of forebears from the Who to the Jam and the Stone Roses, and amped them up into arena-sized, brash-but-beautiful statements of sonic grandeur. With a brand of braggadocio that was pure rock ’n’ roll, they had no qualms about taking their rightful place as the biggest band in the land. To the everlasting joy of the millions who value big guitars and glorious hooks above fleeting, flavor-of-the-month fads, the Britpop kings pounded out a seemingly nonstop string of smash singles and multiplatinum albums. And even though the Gallagher brothers eventually parted ways to pursue their own projects, you can still soak up the ultimate Oasis experience with the all-killer-no-filler cluster of classics we’ve compiled right here.

Forget being bigger than Jesus. How about a band that's bigger than the Beatles? (Or at least aspires to be.) That's exactly what the Brothers Gallagher set out to do in 1994 with the wind-tunnel rush of its leadoff "buzz clip," "Supersonic," and its high note-hitting follow-up, "Live Forever." Like other natural-born stars before them, Oasis never did breach the staggering heights of the Fab Four, but they did become instant icons of the Britpop movement — offering stadium-sized solos, dazzling harmonies, and unavoidable hooks right alongside Suede, Elastica, and their bitter foes, Blur.