SUPERSONIC

The lads from Manchester look back in anger (and some other emotions).

It’s hard to overstate the hold that Britpop band Oasis had on the music world in the mid-1990s. Even today, countless music fans of any age have heard the band’s hit single, “Wonderwall,” either on the radio or at a party, when that one guy busts out his acoustic guitar. In the band’s new oral history, drawn from interviews the members and others did for a documentary that’s also called Supersonic, Oasis details the early lives of brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher. As Noel puts it, their rivalry started when they were teenagers, when Liam “was just a pain in the arse…and has remained that way ever since.” The book moves on to the early days of the band, when they sounded like, in Liam’s words, “a really shit Stone Roses.” It covers the success of their first two albums, Definitely Maybe and (What's the Story) Morning Glory? and concludes with their now legendary concert in 1996 at England’s Knebworth Festival. The book doesn’t mention their messy breakup in 2009, but much ink is given to the Gallaghers’ relationship, which seems to swing from mild annoyance to galactic hatred (“Noel has a lot of buttons,” one friend explains. “Liam has a lot of fingers. It’s that simple really.”) and their propensity for making controversial comments to the press (Noel: “Writing songs is difficult; talking shit is easy”). The Gallagher brothers have reunited for a planned tour this year, and this book serves as a fun, enlightening look at the band for their fans as well as a good introduction to Britpop newbies. Like the brothers themselves, it’s profane and hilarious. Are they just talking shit? Maybe, but few are better at it.

Fans will find more than just cigarettes and alcohol.