Oasis books are like buses, you wait for one for ages then about 19 come along at once. Such is the euphoria felt across the UK and beyond that every couple of weeks it seems there's a new Oasis book coming out at the moment. This book; 'A Sound So Very Loud, The Inside Story of Every Song Oasis Recorded' caught my attention early on when it went on pre-sale. I loved Mark Lewisohn's book of the complete Beatles recording sessions, and hoped it would be something similar. The result penned by Ted Kessler and Hamish MacBain is in the end, much more than a simple chronicle of the Oasis songbook. It's a biography set to the chronology of each and every song the band released, with the authors somehow finding legitimate musical and/or cultural significance in every song they put out.
Kicking off with a re-print of their WhatsApp messages when first discussing the book, and their excitement at hearing the rumours of a reunion for the first time, the book intersperses the inside story of Oasis' back-catalogue with recollections of the writers' experiences interviewing the band during their time as music journalists. Mixed with genuinely revealing stories about the songs (a lot of anecdotes even for me were new), there's a journalistic foundation to the cultural insights connected to many of the releases. It's genuinely fascinating to see how the 90s and 00s progressed with Oasis reflecting the changing foundations of politics, technology and culture, and in some cases earlier on in their career, causing it.
Setting a biography to the timeline of a band's releases is a great way of refreshing a story that's well told by now, and whilst there are plenty of recollections familiar to a lot of Oasis fans (Noel visiting Downing Street, told via Magic Pie, or the Blur v Oasis story, told obviously through the release of Roll With It), there are so many nuggets of revelations from their interviews, or from digging through the archives. There's a lot of insight on recording sessions, and several of-their-time influences on songs I had no idea about, for example how The Beta Band were a massive influence on Go Let It Out.
I suspect a fair few Oasis biographies this summer will be £2 in FOPP by Christmas so i'd hold out on most of them, but this is certainly one worth buying early for a good summer read.
Will there be a second volume?...
The book is out on July 3rd 2025 and is available from here and here.