Heathen Chemistry by Oasis

Heathen Chemistry, Oasis's fifth album, came out on Big Brother on 1 July 2002, and it's the first sound of a rebuilt band. Gem Archer and Andy Bell had joined too late to play on Standing on the Shoulder of Giants; here they're in from the start alongside Liam and Noel Gallagher and drummer Alan White, who was making his last Oasis album. Cut at Wheeler End and Olympic Studios in London and produced by the band, it drops the psychedelic drift of its predecessor and the bloat of Be Here Now for the plain, loud rock of the early records.

The bigger news is who's writing: for once Noel isn't carrying the whole songbook, and Liam's "Songbird" became the first Oasis single he wrote himself. "The Hindu Times" went to number one in the UK, "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" gave them a lighters-up ballad, and "Little by Little" rode out on the band's only double A-side. Reviews were mixed; the sales were not.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.