Don't Look Back in Anger - Oasis

It's a secret to very few (and will likely become more obvious as this list proceeds) that Oasis is my favorite band. Most people know them for "Wonderwall" and maybe one or two other songs from their first two albums, but they've been going strong since the mid-nineties, releasing a two disc "best of" last year after six studio albums, a live double set and one CD of B-sides (an album as good as any official release).

My love for Oasis happened somewhat by accident. I'd enjoyed the couple tracks that got radio play from their first album, Definitely Maybe, but didn't quite get the enthusiasm that had made it the number one debut album in British history. In the Spring of 1996, I was living in a dorm by myself at college for the first time. I was a subscriber to the Columbia House music club (cassettes...I still wasn't on board the CD train yet). The mail system at my school was spotty at best and if you remember the club, you had to return the card with their "Album of the Month," deciding to take that album, pick other selections or nothing at all. Sometimes I didn't receive these cards, so occasionally albums would show up unsolicited. One month, it was two albums, Candlebox's Lucy and Oasis (What's the Story) Morning Glory?. I planned to send both back being a poor college student, but a friend insisted I listen to the second album from the British band getting big attention on the American airwaves for "Wonderwall." Candlebox went back to Columbia House and my musical future changed forever.

Several more songs from (What's the Story) will make this list before I'm done, but "Don't Look Back in Anger" has always been my favorite. Opening with the familiar piano notes of John Lennon's "Imagine," it garnered my attention for a different voice than usual lead singer Liam Gallagher. This is the first song sung by his brother Noel, who, in the early albums at least, was the real force of the band, writing most of the tracks himself. Noel's sung a lot more on successive albums and most of those tracks are my favorites, possibly because his voice is more in my vocal range (and I'm big on singing along) or maybe he just chooses to sing the best songs himself.

A concert favorite, Noel often lets the audience sing the chorus while he jams away before leading into one of the band's best guitar solos. Oasis is often chastised for blatantly lifting riffs, lines and titles from classic bands and songs (The Beatles most notably, of course), but as Noel once put it in an interview, "If you're going to steal, might as well steal from the best."

17/365