(What's the Story) Morning Glory? is the second studio album by the English rock band Oasis. Released on 2 October 1995 by Creation Records, it was produced by Owen Morris and the group's lead guitarist and songwriter Noel Gallagher. The structure and arrangement style of the album was a significant departure from the band's previous album, Definitely Maybe (1994). Gallagher's compositions were more focused in balladry and placed more emphasis on "huge" choruses and string arrangements. Morning Glory was the group's first album with drummer Alan White, who replaced Tony McCarroll (though McCarroll still appeared on the album, drumming on the track "Some Might Say").
The album propelled Oasis from being a crossover indie act to a worldwide rock phenomenon, and is seen by critics as a significant record in the timeline of British indie music.Seven Ages of Rock: What the World is Waiting For Morning Glory sold a record-breaking 345,000 copies in its first week in the UK before going on to spend 10 weeks at number one on the UK Albums Chart. It was also the band's breakthrough in the United States, reaching number four on the US Billboard 200 and being certified 4× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The album yielded four major hit singles in the band's native Britain: "Some Might Say" and "Don't Look Back in Anger" reached number one, and "Roll with It" and "Wonderwall" peaked at number two; the latter has emerged as the band's biggest-selling UK hit, spending 30 consecutive weeks on the chart. "Champagne Supernova" and "Wonderwall" reached number one on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart. At the 1996 Brit Awards, the album won Best British Album. Over several months in 1995 and 1996, the band supported the album with an extensive world tour, which saw them play to among the largest audiences ever at the time.
Although a commercial success, the record initially received lukewarm reviews from mainstream critics; many reviewers deemed it inferior to Definitely Maybe, with the songwriting and production being particular points of criticism. However, critical opinion of the album reversed dramatically in the ensuing months and years, with critics recognising its strengths and its "populist appeal". Despite some views since that the album is overrated, Morning Glory is still considered a seminal record of both the Britpop era and the 1990s in general. It has appeared on several lists of the greatest albums in rock music, and at the 2010 Brit Awards, it was named the greatest British album since 1980. It has sold over 22million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. As of July 2025, the album has been certified 19× platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for earning 5.3 million units in the United Kingdom. In July 2026, the Official Charts Company certified (What's the Story) Morning Glory? as the best-selling studio album in UK history with 6.2million units.
Background and recording "Some Might Say" was the first track written and recorded for Morning Glory, with recording taking place between 24 and 26 February 1995 at Loco Studios in Wales. The track proved problematic to record: the backing track was recorded in one take after Noel Gallagher and Morris drunkenly listened to the demo and decided the new version was played too fast, and Noel woke the rest of the band to re-record it. The backing track was faster than intended, with what Morris described as "a really bad speed up during the first three bars of the first chorus", but the take had to be used because those involved were impressed with Liam Gallagher's vocals, and Morris had to mix the track three times, using delay and other processing to hide the mistakes. The single was released on 24 April and went in at number one on the UK Singles Chart a week later; that same day, original Oasis drummer Tony McCarroll's departure was announced on their website.
By 2 May 1995, the band had found a replacement in Alan White, and six days later Oasis began recording Morning Glory at Rockfield Studios in Wales, with Owen Morris and Noel Gallagher producing. By the time they had finished in June 1995, Oasis were on the brink of becoming one of the most popular bands in the UK; the August 1995 "Battle of Britpop", in which Oasis and Blur had a chart battle over their respective singles "Roll with It" and "Country House" would propel them to mainstream awareness.
Despite the friction between the Gallagher brothers, Owen Morris reflected in 2010 that: "The sessions were the best, easiest, least fraught, most happily creative time I've ever had in a recording studio. I believe people can feel and hear when music is dishonest and motivated by the wrong reasons. Morning Glory, for all its imperfection and flaws, is dripping with love and happiness." Paul Weller joined them in the studio and provided lead guitar and backing vocals for "Champagne Supernova", and harmonica for the two untitled tracks known as "The Swamp Song". Noel wrote the last song for the album, "Cast No Shadow", on the train as he returned to the studio. - the track was written for his good friend Richard Ashcroft.
Morris claimed the album was recorded in 15 days, at a pace of one song a day, with the first five tracks recorded being "Roll with It", "Hello", "Wonderwall", "Don't Look Back In Anger" and most of "Champagne Supernova", respectively. When the album was finished, Morris said it would "wipe the field with any competition ... It's astonishing. It's the Bollocks for this decade." Creation Records boss Alan McGee was similarly enthused, saying that "You just cannot slag this record. It's gonna speak to real, working-class lads in a way that a Suede or Radiohead could only dream of doing." The album's title was inspired by Noel's friend Melissa Lim answering the phone with the phrase, which is itself derived from a line in the song "The Telephone Hour" from the film Bye Bye Birdie.
The brickwall mastering technique used during the recording of the album has led to some journalists claiming that it was responsible for initiating the loudness war, as its heavy use of compression, first widely used by Morris on Definitely Maybe, was leaps and bounds beyond what any other album up until then had attempted. Music journalist Nick Southall, who has written extensively on the loudness war, commented, "If there's a jump-the-shark moment as far as CD mastering goes then it's probably Oasis." In Britpop and the English Music Tradition, Andy Bennett and Jon Stratton noted that as a result of this technique "the songs were especially loud. [Liam] Gallagher's voice is foregrounded to the point that it appears to grow out of the mixes of the songs, exposing itself to execute a pseudo-live quality."
Composition The music on (What's the Story) Morning Glory? has been characterised by commentators as rock, and Oasis as an essential part of Britpop culture. Music critic John Harris commented in his music history Britpop!: Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of English Rock that much of the music seemed to be "little more inspired than a string of musical hand-me-downs". Among the musical cues Harris noted on the album were Gary Glitter's "Hello, Hello, I'm Back Again", John Lennon's "Imagine" ("Don't Look Back in Anger"), the theme to the 1970s children's programme You and Me and the Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends" ("She's Electric"), and the influence of R.E.M.'s "The One I Love" on "Morning Glory". One song, "Step Out", bore such a close resemblance to the song "Uptight (Everything's Alright)" by Stevie Wonder that it was removed from the album shortly before release due to the threat of legal action. Musicologist Allan F. Moore compares "She's Electric" to the Beatles' "When I'm Sixty-Four", writing that both songs can be claimed by an older generation.
In Britpop ..., Bennett and Stratton analysed Liam Gallagher's vocal style in significant detail, stressing its importance to the songs of the album; "[Liam's] Mancunian accent blends into a register and timbre that works the gestural contours of the melody and lyrics." Bennett and Stratton went on to conclude that Liam's 'over-personalized' style on songs such as "Wonderwall" resulted in "a beautiful sense of sentimentality that bespeaks the despondency of a generation. This occurs through the narrative structure of the song, vocal production, and the conventions of the singer's cultural context." Music critic Derek B. Scott remarked "a Beatles-influenced vocal harmony that includes falsetto and echoing of words is heard in 'Cast No Shadow'".
Noel Gallagher summed up his own perspective on the album's aesthetic in an interview with Rolling Stone in 1995; "Whilst [Definitely Maybe] is about dreaming of being a pop star in a band, What's the Story is about actually being a pop star in a band." The album has a notable anthemic theme to its songs, differing from the raw-edged rock of Definitely Maybe. The use of string arrangements and more varied instrumentation in songs such as "Don't Look Back in Anger" and "Champagne Supernova" was a significant departure from the band's debut. This style had first been implemented by the band on their fifth single, "Whatever", released in December 1994. It was produced in conjunction with the London Symphony Orchestra, resulting in a much more pop-oriented and mellower sound; this would be the template that would come to define many of the songs on What's the Story. In the BBC documentary Seven Ages of Rock, former NME chief editor Steve Sutherland noted that "with Morning Glory, [Noel] began to take seriously the notion of being the voice of a generation".
Cover
The cover is a picture of two men passing each other on Berwick Street in London. The two men are London DJ Sean Rowley (facing the camera) and album sleeve designer Brian Cannon (back to the camera). The album's producer Owen Morris can be seen in the background, on the left footpath, holding a box containing the album's master tape in front of his face. The location was chosen because the street was a popular location for record shops at the time. The cover cost £25,000 to produce. In the documentary Squaring the Circle: The Story of Hipgnosis, Noel Gallagher expresses his displeasure with the cover, admitting that he had not paid enough attention to the art design process. Long after the album's release, he recalls asking "Who okayed that [cover]?" Only to be told "Er, you did."
Promotion While "Some Might Say", a number one hit, had been released in April, the single chosen to precede the album's release was "Roll with It", planned for release on 14 August, six weeks before the album was due to hit the shelves. This was an unorthodox method for the time, contrasting the standard industry procedure of releasing the lead single three weeks before its parent album.: "Blur had assumed that Oasis would follow standard music business protocol, releasing a single three weeks before the album." Blur's management had become worried that this would hinder the chances of the group's forthcoming "Country House" single reaching number one the following week. As a reaction, Food Records pushed the release of "Country House" back a week. The NME hailed this oncoming chart battle as a "British Heavyweight Championship" between the two bandsNME 13 August 1995 cover story "British Heavyweight Championship Blur vs Oasis" and thus started what became known as "The Battle of Britpop".