Critics shrugged at Morning Glory, then it became Britain's best-selling studio album
When Oasis released their second album in October 1995, many reviewers called it weaker than the debut. It still sold 345,000 copies in its first British week, a record, and in July 2026 the Official Charts Company named it the best-selling studio album in UK history, at 6.2 million units.
Noel Gallagher, the band's guitarist and songwriter, co-produced the record with Owen Morris for Creation Records. Compared with Definitely Maybe in 1994, the new songs leaned toward ballads, enormous choruses and string arrangements. It was the first Oasis album with drummer Alan White, although his predecessor Tony McCarroll still plays on one track.
That track, Some Might Say, was the first recorded, at Loco Studios in Wales in February 1995. After a drunken listen to the demo, Gallagher and Morris decided the band was playing it too fast and roused everyone to redo it; the new take actually sped up badly in the first chorus, but Liam Gallagher's vocal was too good to lose, so Morris spent three mixes disguising the flaw. The single went straight to number one, and McCarroll's departure was announced the same day. White joined by 2 May, and sessions at Rockfield Studios in Wales ran from May into June. That August, the chart duel between Oasis and Blur known as the Battle of Britpop pushed the band into the mainstream.
The album spent 10 weeks at the top of the UK chart and yielded four big British hits; Wonderwall became the band's biggest-selling UK single, lasting 30 straight weeks on the chart, and Don't Look Back in Anger reached number one. In the United States it climbed to number four and went four times platinum. It won Best British Album at the 1996 Brits, and a vast world tour played to some of the largest crowds seen at that time.
Critical opinion turned quickly, as reviewers came round to its broad popular appeal, though some still call it overrated. It has sold over 22 million copies worldwide, and at the 2010 Brit Awards it was voted the best British album since 1980.
Source: (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
