Song of the Day 2/12: Oasis, “Don’t Look Back in Anger”

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced this year’s nominees for induction and, as usual, the list shows the institution has all but lost interest in rock music.

Acts become eligible 25 years after their first commercial release, meaning everyone who debuted before Prince’s party date qualifies. Unfortunately for those who like actual rock, the form was already in eclipse, and for whatever reason the industry professionals and hangers-on who get to vote seemingly checked out by then, too.

Half the nominees aren’t rock even by the most charitable definition. Cher? Nope. Mariah Carey? Nope. Sade? Mary J. Blige? Eric B. and Rahim? Nope, nope, nope. But they’re all nominated, while most alternative bands from the ’90s continue to get the cold shoulder.

The institution has an opportunity to make up for its anti-UK bias with Oasis, the premier Brit-pop band of the ’90s, but I wouldn’t count on it. Lead singer Liam Gallagher took swipes at both the hall and his brother Noel, the band’s guitarist and songwriter, in response to their nomination. “Fuck the Rock n Roll hall of fame its full of BUMBACLARTS,” he wrote on Xitter, using a Jamaican slang word that means “ass cloth,” or toilet paper. “I don’t need some wank award by some geriatric in a cowboy hat.” He also said he wouldn’t attend even if Oasis is voted in, but Noel might. “The little fella loves hanging out with celebrities so he’d prob go,” he wrote.

Gee, Liam, listen to your brother’s words why doncha? “Don’t Look Back in Anger” was the fifth (!) single from the 1995 album “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?” It reached No. 1 in the UK in 1996 but couldn’t crack the Top 40 in the U.S., where people were too busy listening to Mariah Carey. In 2020 it was voted the No. 1 song of the ’90s by a British radio station. Even Rolling Stone readers voted it the second-best Brit-pop song ever, behind Pulp’s “Common People.” Noel Gallagher wrote the song in his Paris hotel room one night after a concert – he acknowledged nicking parts of it from John Lennon, including the line about starting a revolution from his bed – and he took the lead vocals on the track.

The single reached the British charts again in 2017 in the wake of the Manchester terrorist attack that killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert. Chris Martin of Coldplay sang it with Grande at the One Love Manchester charity concert the next month, and a single of the performance reached No. 25 in the UK.

Several artists, including Noel Gallagher himself, have recorded acoustic covers. Here’s one from British singer James Bay, who once sang it with Noel in his audience.