"
Champagne Supernova" is a song by British
rockRock music is a genre of popular music that entered the mainstream in the 1960s. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, rhythm and blues, country music and also drew on folk music, jazz and classical music....
band
OasisOasis were an English rock band that formed in Manchester in 1991. Originally known as The Rain, the group was formed by Liam Gallagher , Paul Arthurs , Paul McGuigan and Tony McCarroll , who were soon joined by Liam's older brother Noel Gallagher...
, written by guitarist
Noel GallagherNoel Thomas David Gallagher is an English musician, best known as the former principal songwriter, lead guitarist, and occasional vocalist of British rock band Oasis...
. The seven-minute anthem is the closing track on the record-breaking album
(What's the Story) Morning Glory? Morning Glory? is the second album by English rock band Oasis. It was released in October 1995. The album was Oasis' most enduring commercial success, charting at number one in the UK and number four in the U.S. The album sold 346,000 copies in its first week in the UK and has sold 23 million...
. Only though released as a single in
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
and the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, a music video directed by Nigel Dick was released to the music channels and, as a result, the song received much television and radio airplay. The song achieved U.S. success, becoming the band's second #1 single on the
Modern Rock TracksAlternative Songs is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in Billboard magazine since September 10, 1988. It lists the 40 most-played songs on modern rock radio stations, most of which are alternative rock songs...
chart.
The song is considered a fan-favourite, and has received widespread critical acclaim.
"
Champagne Supernova" is a song by British
rockRock music is a genre of popular music that entered the mainstream in the 1960s. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, rhythm and blues, country music and also drew on folk music, jazz and classical music....
band
OasisOasis were an English rock band that formed in Manchester in 1991. Originally known as The Rain, the group was formed by Liam Gallagher , Paul Arthurs , Paul McGuigan and Tony McCarroll , who were soon joined by Liam's older brother Noel Gallagher...
, written by guitarist
Noel GallagherNoel Thomas David Gallagher is an English musician, best known as the former principal songwriter, lead guitarist, and occasional vocalist of British rock band Oasis...
. The seven-minute anthem is the closing track on the record-breaking album
(What's the Story) Morning Glory? Morning Glory? is the second album by English rock band Oasis. It was released in October 1995. The album was Oasis' most enduring commercial success, charting at number one in the UK and number four in the U.S. The album sold 346,000 copies in its first week in the UK and has sold 23 million...
. Only though released as a single in
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
and the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, a music video directed by Nigel Dick was released to the music channels and, as a result, the song received much television and radio airplay. The song achieved U.S. success, becoming the band's second #1 single on the
Modern Rock TracksAlternative Songs is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in Billboard magazine since September 10, 1988. It lists the 40 most-played songs on modern rock radio stations, most of which are alternative rock songs...
chart.
The song is considered a fan-favourite, and has received widespread critical acclaim. Noel Gallagher claimed, in a 2005 interview, that he has still not made up his mind as to what the song actually is about, though he thinks it might be about reincarnation.
Noel Gallagher then had this to say about the song's lyrical content on the bands official website:
Some of the lyrics were written when I was out of it. There's the words: 'Someday you will find me/ Caught beneath a landslide/ ln a Champagne Supernova in the sky'. That's probably as psychedelic as I'll ever get. It means different things when I'm in different moods. When I'm in a bad mood being caught beneath a landslide is like being suffocated. The song is a bit of an epic. It's about when you're young and you see people in groups and you think about what they did for you and they did nothing. As a kid, you always believed the Sex Pistols were going to conquer the world and kill everybody in the process. Bands like The Clash just petered out. Punk rock was supposed to be the revolution but what did it do? Fuck all. The Manchester thing was going to be the greatest movement on earth but it was fuck all. When we started we decided we weren't going to do anything for anybody, we just thought we'd leave a bunch of great songs. But some of the words are about nothing. One is about Bracket The Butler who used to be on Camberwick Green, or Chipley or Trumpton or something. He used to take about 20 minutes to go down the hall. And then I couldn't think of anything that rhymed with 'hall' apart from 'cannonball'. so I wrote 'Slowly walking down the hall/ Faster than a cannonball' and people were like, 'Wow, fuck , man'. There's also the line 'Where were you while we were getting high?' because that's what we always say to each other. But the number of people who've started clubs called Champagne Supernova is fucking unbelievable. And the album isn't even released yet.
In a 2009 interview, Noel told the following anecdote:
This writer, he was going on about the lyrics to "Champagne Supernova", and he actually said to me: ‘You know, the one thing that’s stopping it being a classic is the ridiculous lyrics.’ And I went: ‘What do you mean by that?’ And he said: ‘Well, Slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball — what’s that mean?’ And I went: ‘I don’t fucking know. But are you telling me, when you’ve got 60,000 people singing it, they don’t know what it means? It means something different to every one of them.’
Paul Weller, former frontman of
The JamThe Jam were an English rock band active during the late 1970s and early 1980s. While they shared the "angry young men" outlook and fast tempos of their punk rock contemporaries, The Jam wore neatly tailored suits rather than ripped clothes and incorporated a number of mainstream 1960s rock...
and friend of Oasis, provided the lead guitar and some of the backing vocals on the track, making it one of the rare times someone other than the Gallagher brothers
provided backing vocals on an Oasis song.
The song is included on Oasis'
compilationA greatest hits album is a compilation album of successful, previously released songs by a particular music artist or band...
album
Stop the ClocksStop the Clocks is a compilation album by English rock band Oasis, released on 20 November 2006. The "retrospective collection" is an 18-track double album with the featured songs chosen by Noel Gallagher; however, it does not actually include their song Stop The Clocks after which the album is named...
.
"Champagne Supernova" is claimed by
Greg KotGreg Kot has been the rock critic of the Chicago Tribune since 1990. His biography of Wilco and the state of the music industry, Wilco: Learning How to Die, was published in 2004 by Doubleday/Broadway Books. He is a regular contributor to Rolling Stone and other national periodicals, and is the...
and
Jim DeRogatisJames "Jim" DeRogatis is an American music critic. DeRogatis has written articles for magazines such as Spin, Guitar World and Modern Drummer. He is also the Pop Music Critic for the Chicago Sun-Times...
of the
Chicago Public RadioChicago Public Radio is a noncommercial, public radio station broadcasting from Chicago, Illinois. Financed primarily by listener contributions, Chicago Public Radio is affiliated with both National Public Radio and Public Radio International; they also broadcast content from American Public...
show
Sound OpinionsSound Opinions is a radio talk show focusing on rock music. It airs Friday night at 8 PM CST and Saturday morning at 11 AM CST on Chicago Public Radio...
to be the number one song to hum to yourself when
another song is stuck in your headEarworm, a loan translation of the German Ohrwurm, is a term for a portion of a song or other musical material that repeats compulsively within one's mind, known colloquially as "music being stuck in one's head". Use of the English translation was popularized by James Kellaris and Daniel Levitin...
. The other song will be unstuck, but the drawback is that you will then have "Champagne Supernova" stuck in you head due to its infectious and memorable melody.
The song is played at the majority of Oasis concerts. Noel Gallagher has stated that "I think it's the only song, that since it was written, that we've played every night." During the Morning Glory Tour in 1995/96 and the Be Here Now Tour in 1997/98 the song's ending was usually stretched out by often 5 or so minutes, with Noel Gallagher playing a long improvised guitar solo. An example of one of these performances can be seen on the DVD "...There and Then".
After Noel's abrupt departure from the band in August 2009, Champagne Supernova became the last original song Oasis performed live together.
Alternate versions
An official remix of the song was produced by
Brendan LynchBrendan Lynch is a British music producer, most famous for working with Paul Weller, Primal Scream, The Rakes, Asian Dub Foundation, Carleen Anderson and Ocean Colour Scene. He produced the HELP album which involved amongst many Paul McCartney, Noel Gallagher, Paul Weller and Johnny Depp.- External...
, and was issued on the b-side on a promo-only 12" of Oasis's cover of "Cum On Feel the Noize". Known as the "Lynchmob Beats Mix", this track has been reissued on promotional material for Oasis's "best-of" album
Stop the ClocksStop the Clocks is a compilation album by English rock band Oasis, released on 20 November 2006. The "retrospective collection" is an 18-track double album with the featured songs chosen by Noel Gallagher; however, it does not actually include their song Stop The Clocks after which the album is named...
.
Live versions of the track were released on
…There and Then, and
Familiar to MillionsFamiliar to Millions is a live album by British rock band Oasis. It was recorded at Wembley Stadium on July 21, 2000. It debuted at #5 in the UK charts with 57,000 copies sold in the first week. To date Familiar to Millions has sold around 310,000 copies in Britain alone , about 70,000 units in the...
.
A 'clean' version, editing out the '
wavesIn fluid dynamics, wind waves or, more precisely, wind-generated waves are surface waves that occur on the free surface of oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, and canals or even on small puddles and ponds. They usually result from the wind blowing over a vast enough stretch of fluid surface. Some waves...
' effects at the start of the track was released on 'Assorted' - a free CD issued with the January 1996 edition (No. 113) of
Q MagazineQ is a music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom, with a circulation of 130,179 as of June 2007.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new...
.
Covers
- Angie Aparo
Angie Aparo is an American musician and songwriter from Atlanta, Georgia. He is currently recording an album and touring with his long-time drummer, Derek Murphy....
covered "Champagne Supernova" on the album The One With The Sun released 2003See also:* 2003 in music Record labels established in 2003-Events:* January - following an investigation by The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and London detectives, police raids in England and the Netherlands recover nearly 500 original Beatles studio tapes, recorded during...
.
- Ben Folds Five
Ben Folds Five was an alternative rock trio formed in 1993 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The group comprised Ben Folds on vocals, piano, and principal songwriting; Robert Sledge played bass and provided backing vocals; and Darren Jessee played drums, sang backing vocals and co-wrote some of the...
released a live cover of this song as a B-side of their single "Battle of Who Could Care Less". The performance, which took place in London, was introduced as a countryCountry music is a blend of popular musical forms originally found in the Southern United States and the Appalachian Mountains...
song and performed in an exaggerated country-music style.
- The song was covered by American
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
band Matt Pond PAMatt Pond PA is an indie band formed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1998 by singer/songwriter Matt Pond.- History :...
specifically for use on the TV show The O.C.The O.C. is an American teen drama television series that originally aired on the Fox network in the United States from August 5, 2003, to February 22, 2007, running a total of four seasons...
.
- Urban Cookie Collective
The Urban Cookie Collective are a British techno and house band, who are best known for their hit single The Key The Secret, which was originally released in 1993.-Career:...
did a dance cover of this song but Noel Gallagher stopped them from releasing it as a single.
- The Early November
The Early November is an emo/indie-rock band from Hammonton, New Jersey. The group formed in 1999 and signed with Drive-Thru Records in 2002. , they have released two EPs , as well as two full-length albums...
covers this song as the end of "No Good at Saying Sorry (One More Chance)" when played live.
- Hootie & the Blowfish
Hootie & the Blowfish is an American rock band that enjoyed widespread popularity in the second half of the 1990s. They were originally formed in 1986 at the University of South Carolina by Darius Rucker, Dean Felber, Jim Sonefeld, and Mark Bryan. The band has recorded seven studio albums to...
covered the song at their live shows during their 2007 and 2008 summer tours. But was not actually released.
- The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra".- History :...
performs an orchestral cover of the song on the album "Symphonic Rock."
- Snow Patrol
Snow Patrol are an alternative rock band, with members from Northern Ireland and Scotland. Formed at the University of Dundee in Dundee, Scotland in 1994, the band is now based in Glasgow...
covered "Champagne Supernova" at V-festival 2009 as a tribute to Oasis who pulled out due to Liam Gallagher's illness.
Track listing
- "Champagne Supernova" (Radio Edit
A radio edit is a major remix of a musical performance to make it more suitable for broadcast to the public via commercial radio. When compared with the original version, a major radio edit is usually shorter or has censored most profanity in the song compared to "clean versions" provided by record...
) - 5:08
- "Champagne Supernova" (Album Version) - 7:30
- "Slide Away
Definitely Maybe is the debut album by English rock band Oasis, released in 1994. It was an immediate commercial and critical success in the UK, having followed on the heels of singles "Supersonic", "Shakermaker", "Live Forever" and "Cigarettes & Alcohol"....
" - 6:29
External links