In retrospect it all seems so obvious. Form a band, plunder the Beatles’ back catalogue for riffs, guitar tabs, chord changes and song structures, then bang it out in a key that a stadium crowd could put their lungs into but which suited the subway busker, too.
The resulting success now looks so inevitable. In 1994, dance music flooded the UK charts but not everyone thought a rave DJ wearing oversized headphones and playing records counted as a gig. Some people – a vast number, it turned out – still yearned for meat-and-two-veg pop-rock with guitars and drums, and for songs played by groups. Throw in some Manc bluster, the death throes of a Tory government that had occupied Downing Street since for ever, and the first glimmers of a cooler Britannia, and hey presto: Oasis.
