Be Here Now Released

At midnight on 21 August 1997, Oasis finally released their third album, Be Here Now. Unlike most albums of the era, which came out on a Monday, Be Here Now arrived on a Thursday. The official Oasis site notes that the album was “released at midnight on Thursday 21st August 1997” and sold a staggering 400,000 copies in the UK on its first day, with 663,400 copies sold within three days. It topped the charts in fifteen countries and remained at the summit of the UK Album Chart for four weeks. As fans queued outside record shops, BBC News cameras filmed the frenzy; one young fan, future Libertines frontman Pete Doherty, was shown in the queue on the BBC Ten O’Clock News.

The hype reached fever pitch the night before when BBC1 aired a documentary called Right Here Right Now, described as a “panegyric” to Oasis. Guitarist Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs called the new album “the best thing we’ve done,” while Liam declared Oasis “the most important rock’n’roll band in the world”. Within hours of release, Be Here Now became the fastest‑selling album in British history, shifting over 696,000 copies in its first week. The record’s immediate success was the apogee of Britpop: an entire country seemed to stop to buy it, and headlines likened the event to Beatlemania.

Critics initially showered the album with five‑star reviews and hyperbolic praise, but its reputation would soon wane. In later years even Noel Gallagher admitted the record was bloated and over‑produced. Still, at the moment of release, Oasis looked unstoppable. The album’s singles “D’You Know What I Mean?,” “Stand By Me,” and “All Around the World” dominated the airwaves and the record’s sheer scale – nine‑minute tracks, layered guitars and lavish production – epitomised the excess of late‑1990s rock. Be Here Now remains a snapshot of a time when Oasis were the biggest band in Britain and the music industry could still stage a national event around a new release.