Why all the hate Oasis gets in the United States is simply wrong

Oasis is beloved in the United Kingdom. We know that. They should be. Maybe they were never bigger than the Beatles, as Noel Gallagher once said, but they were still huge. Also, Gallagher walked those comments back eventually and said he was "high" when he said them.

To be fair, any band being "bigger" than the Beatles is impossible. Gallagher was wrong when he said that, but that does not mean that Oasis was not worthy of attention. They deserved all the love they got.

The band was always bigger in the UK than in the United States. Oasis never had a number-one album in the US. They had three that were top-ten. That is not the band's fault. Americans just needed to pay better attention. Mostly, Americans seem reticent about anything that is oversold to them, and Oasis had a lot of media pushing them and trying to get them to be huge.

Oasis deserves more love in the United States

The fact is that no matter what Noel or Liam Gallagher said about their band, there should be no argument that they were a proper rock and roll band and made proper rock and roll songs. Oasis is not alternative or emo. They are simply straightforward rock and that was something even in the 1990s that was rare.

The band made great songs. "Supersonic" borrows from AC/DC but still remains pure Oasis, for instance. "Champagne Supernova" was overplayed but still great.

That last part is important because if Americans did not take the time to check out anything other than "Champagne Supernova" or "Wonderwall" (and maybe a few other tracks played on the radio) then the brilliance of the band was missed. Heck, a lot of the best songs by the group would have never made it to the radio.

The best rock bands do several things. One, of course, is to make a bunch of great tunes. Without the excellence of the tracks, the hyperbole of the band is far too much and, ultimately, shallow and unwarranted.

A second bit that a pure rock band has to have is swagger and confidence. If the group is going to force you to shake your money maker then they need to deliver their songs as if they know full well what they are doing and that they expect you to appreciate them. Arrogance isn't always a good thing, but in rock music it's almost a must. Oasis bleeds swagger.

Listen to "Supersonic." The pace is mid-tempo but completely controlled to the point where Oasis knows you are going to completely buy in by the end of the track. You should. The song is ridiculously good.

Even the group's slower songs such as "Don't Look Back in Anger" - the band's most sing-along track - exude confidence. New bands could learn several things from Oasis even if the bands do not want to sound like them.

Possibly, Americans don't have attention spans to dig into Oasis because they only know the radio songs. That is not meant as a disrespect to the United States (I am American, after all), but due to social media and the way music is streamed currently, it's a get-in and get-out situation. The fact is the back catalog of Oasis is rich with gems that deserve to be mined.

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