1994 Hit Birthed A Legendary Rock Career — And It's Now A Modern Classic

On April 11, 1994, British rock band Oasis released their debut single, "Supersonic". While the song was a modest success in their home country, it found even more acclaim in the United States and climbed to No. 11 on Billboard's Modern Rock chart.

The band were still relatively unknown when "Supersonic" hit the charts. It wouldn't be until the release of Definitely Maybe almost five months later that Oasis would become such a worldwide phenomenon.

"Supersonic" was written by Oasis' lead guitarist Noel Gallagher and recorded in a single day, with Noel's brother Liam Gallagher performing the iconic lead vocals.

As the story goes, Noel wrote the song in just half an hour while his Oasis bandmates left the studio to order a Chinese takeaway. When they returned, he'd finished the track entirely—and the live demo they recorded that afternoon is the version that was released as a single, and later appeared on the album.

"Noel's just sat there with the guitar and he just wrote the music, that will do, and then he wrote the words," guitarist Paul Arthurs recalled. "He started singing it and we nailed it and mixed it that night, rapid, because that's what we'd been doing every night in the Boardwalk, you know, and it sounded massive, absolutely massive."

"Supersonic" was the beginning of an untouchable rock career for Oasis, who went on to become the defining voices of the Britpop movement throughout the 1990s. They followed the single up with "Shakermaker" and "Live Forever", which were both equally huge successes, before releasing Definitely Maybe as their debut album in August 1994.

Since its release, Definitely Maybe has been widely cited among the greatest debut records ever made, with Rolling Stone placing it at No. 65 on their ranking. The album built upon the emerging Britpop sounds of the '90s and blended it with classic rock influences and distorted, grunge-like guitar sounds.

Oasis' follow-up album, (What's The Story) Morning Glory?, was another huge success that topped charts across the world and broke sales records right away. The band were an unstoppable force of rock-and-roll for their generation, and none of it would have been possible without the sheer success of "Supersonic".