The 30-year-old album "Definitely Maybe" from the band Oasis is back at No. 1 on the U.K. charts—the first time the band has topped the chart in almost 15 years—as excitement for the band's recently announced reunion tour grows.
Liam Gallagher of Oasis performs on stage in Scotland, on Aug. 4, 1996.
"Definitely Maybe" topped the Official Albums Chart this week, the Official Charts Company said Friday, after a "408% week-on-week uplift" following the reunion announcement and the release of a 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition.
The album was also on the top of the Official Vinyl Albums Chart and the Official Record Store Chart, meaning it was the most popular album in U.K. independent record shops in the last week.
The chart-topping resurgence comes one week after tickets to the band’s first tour in 15 years went on sale on Ticketmaster and instantly sold out as millions of fans in Europe and North America joined virtual queues and waited for hours for the chance to buy tickets—many appeared to inflate in value at the last minute, which some fans blamed on the website’s “dynamic” pricing structure.
Get Forbes Breaking News Text Alerts: We’re launching text message alerts so you'll always know the biggest stories shaping the day’s headlines. Text “Alerts” to (201) 335-0739 or sign up here.
Liam Gallagher and his older brother Noel Gallagher were co-frontmen of the British rock band Oasis from 1991 to 2009. The band was one of the most successful and acclaimed of the 1990s and was nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year. Oasis was nominated for three Grammy Awards and won three World Music Awards. "Wonderwall," one of the group’s most recognizable songs, charted in the top 10 songs in 15 countries and is the band’s only song to have charted in the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. The career of the band came to a famously abrupt end in 2009, days before the end of the year-long Dig Out Your Soul Tour that took the group to North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. After pulling out of a planned show set for Aug. 23, 2009 and canceling a concert at the Rock en Seine festival near Paris set for Aug. 28, Noel Gallagher released a statement on the band's website reading "It's with some sadness and a great relief to tell you that I quit Oasis tonight. People would write and say what they liked, but I could not continue working with Liam for a day longer." On Aug. 27, Oasis confirmed it would reunite for the Oasis Live '25 reunion tour.
Sales of tickets for the Oasis reunion tour was seen as the biggest test for Ticketmaster since Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour rollout went famously wrong two years ago. The website didn't crash this time around and fans seemed to have fewer issues buying tickets until they sold out, but many were upset about what appeared to be last-minute hikes in prices. Tickets that were advertised as costing $195 were actually listed for $468 by the time tickets went on sale, The New York Times reported, and Oasis fans were quick to blame Ticketmaster's "dynamic pricing" structure that can change prices based on demand. Britain's Competition and Markets Authority said it has opened an investigation into Ticketmaster’s handling of the sale. Oasis said pricing was left up to the band’s managers and the concert promoter.
Oasis was not inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year after Liam Gallagher took to social media to slam the institution following the band's nomination. Gallagher called the nomination "a load of bollox" and suggested his band wasn't as worthy of the nod as fellow nominee Mariah Carey.