Oasis’ comeback is a less than ideal sign of the times in music

It appears that the famed British rock band Oasis will reunite—just in time to announce a massive 30th-anniversary performance of their legendary first Glastonbury Festival outing.

Cryptic teasers from usually feuding brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher hinted strongly at an unlikely reformation, causing widespread excitement. Then, the news dropped that it’s official: Oasis is reuniting for a new tour, playing 14 shows in the U.K. and Ireland next year.

Why are we so eager to resurrect a past we don’t need?

As a group that rose to fame in the fantastic euphoria and optimism of the Nineties, they had already served as a magic conduit to a romanticized version of rock ‘n’ roll’s misremembered collections of golden ages. Their apparent comeback after a 15-year breakup represents not only a nostalgic retrieval of an era as one of the rock’s last god-like bands but also a longing for a past that was, itself, nostalgic.

This phenomenon details a broader issue in contemporary, post-9/11 culture: our collective inability to generate new cultural touchstones of such magnitude since the turn of the century.

There is a word for this cultural stasis: the concept of hauntology, as introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida and later further edified by cultural theorist Mark Fisher. According to Fisher specifically, hauntology in music refers to how the present is “haunted” by the ghosts of past futures or styles and innovations once viewed as futuristic but that never fully materialized for various reasons. Fisher argued that music has been stuck in a loop of revivalism and pastiche, since at least the early 2000s, unable to produce anything genuinely unique.

The reunion of Britpop iconoclasts, for the moment, serves as a quick study of our being trapped in cycles of nostalgia that offer comfort in our very uncertain times but ultimately hinder progress. Are we finally prepared to face the future and envision new ideas, or are we content to keep … looking back in anger? (I’m sorry, I really am.)

Oasis’ Significance

The bona fides of Oasis are easily Google-able. Still, very briefly, the brother-led group is the definitive icon of 1990s Britpop—the decadent result of a few other movements that positioned British guitar rock at the center of the music universe for a short-lived period. Their first two albums, 1994’s Definitely Maybe and 1995’s (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? soundtracked a generation on both sides of the Atlantic, with big stadium anthems “Wonderwall” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger” achieving near-mythical, chart-topping status.

Paradoxically, and more to our point, the band exuded a nostalgic appeal that recalled a potent blend of Beatles pop melodies and Sex Pistols attitudes. Their sound somehow covered all the highest points of British rock, from the romanticized vision of the 1960s “British Invasion” to Led Zeppelin’s heyday to the Pistols mentioned above and the post-punk act Joy Division. However, their extension also covers the “Madchester” period of the late Eighties and early Nineties, including The Stone Roses (an apparent influence), The Charlatans, James, and others.

The band’s working-class roots in Manchester also play into their rise and, as a connection point, embodied a particularly British narrative of social mobility. Eager to shed the constraints of Thatcherism, just as Americans had shed the Reagan/Bush I era, Oasis presented ambition and a vision of success still based on their roots.

The problematic loop of retrospection

But even as they dominated the charts, Oasis’ cultural significance lies in their discography and the role of a cultural time traveler. They tapped into a collective nostalgia, creating a complex temporal dynamic where their fans were simultaneously living optimistically in the moment and longing for a mythologized past. In a weird paradox, their reunion represents a nostalgia for nostalgia, a longing for a time when we were free to long for simpler times that we had no concept of.

Running down the mass of contemporary stars to further exemplify is unnecessary because no current rock or pop stars work without the economic incentivization of tried-and-true retro aesthetics. From this reality, the appeal of an Oasis reunion becomes apparent, and this goes beyond nostalgia or profit-seeking—though they absolutely stand to make millions. It reflects a broader cultural malaise, our collective inability to envision new cultural paradigms and touchstones. The trap of the retrospection loop is alluring and addictive because it enables us to forego the responsibility of building out the future.

It is a testament to Fisher’s theory that we’re relinquishing our potential and becoming enrapt in “retromania,” where the past continually haunts the present, preventing us from creating futures that don’t reflect a future we’ve already killed. Oasis is the sign of the times past in which we’ve agreed to be collectively trapped.