And you can't really separate Oasis like just as like a set of records or a set of people

from the way in which a whole kind of media apparatus produced a particular way of understanding them,

which the BBC were massively invested in, and sections of the music press were massively invested in from very early on.

And what this whole sort of assemblage of elements produced is a situation in which they

seemed to be accessible and appealing and kind of okay to like for sets of audiences who previously

would have would have identified with very different iterations of guitar rock. As I used to say

to students at the time, the thing about Oasis was

people who like would have been into the Smith like Light Oasis because they were like a white

guitar band from Manchester. And then people who had been into Guns and Roses were into Oasis

because they were like swaggering macho guitar band. And people who had been into, you know,

who would have been into like simple minds and

you too like to Aasis because they were just, they were kind of guitar rock with big chords and

choruses. So it was through the kind of shameless exploitation of these kind of lowest denominator

features in a way, to be honest, of kind of white male guitar rock, that they were able to,

you know, create this sound and this persona, which was accessible to all these people. But of course,

that did make them massively popular. I used to always use this an example to students of, like,

the logic of hegemony in the commercial market for popular culture. And so, look, effectively

what they did is they created a sort of coalition of these

previously fragmented audiences. And that is why they were so popular. That's why they became

such a phenomenon. If you'd like to hear the rest of this episode of PTO Extra, then please

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