“Don't Look Back in Anger” by Oasis

"Don't Look Back in Anger" was the fifth single from Oasis' second album, (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, released on Creation on 19 February 1996, and it's the moment Noel Gallagher stepped out from behind his brother. He wrote it, produced it with Owen Morris, and, for the first time on an Oasis single, took the lead vocal himself; until then he had only sung lead on B-sides.

It's Noel's big, rolling singalong: stately piano, a melody that feels as if it's been around forever, and a chorus built for thousands of voices at once. Paul Arthurs fills it out with Hammond organ, piano and electric guitar next to Noel's own, Paul McGuigan and Alan White hold down bass and drums, and Liam, relegated for once, bangs the tambourine. It swaggers where it could have wallowed, bittersweet but never sorry for itself.

It became the band's second number one in Britain and was eventually certified seven times platinum there. Nigel Dick directed the video, the band playing at a mansion surrounded by a crowd of women. Critics liked it from the start, and it has since become one of the band's signature songs, played at almost every Oasis show and hailed again and again as an anthem.

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