The debut album by Oasis, the band that best spread the Britpop craze of the 1990s, has been voted the greatest album of all time in a major music poll published on Thursday.
Definitely Maybe, which featured chart-topping hits such as Live Forever and Supersonic, beat Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by the much-loved Beatles into second place in the survey of more than 40 000 music fans.
Another Beatles album, Revolver, came third, followed by Radiohead’s OK Computer and a second Oasis title, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?.
The poll to find the top 100 albums was organised by the book of British Hit Singles and Albums and music website NME.com, with votes coming from as far afield as New Zealand, Croatia and Colombia.
Fans were given no pre-ordained list to choose from in the survey, drawn up to celebrate 50 years of Britain’s official albums chart.
David Roberts, editor of British Hit Singles and Albums, said: “Usually these polls are full of records that people have only just bought because they are freshest in the mind.
“But this poll shows that the truly great albums always have longevity.”
Only two albums in the top 20 were released in the past five years.
Up the Bracket, the 2002 debut by drug-troubled bad boy Pete Doherty’s former band The Libertines, is the newest album in 15th place.
Only two bands from the United States had an album in the best 20. Nirvana came sixth with Nevermind and The Strokes were 20th with Is This It.
In seventh place was the Stone Roses’ self-titled album, followed by Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon and The Smiths’ The Queen Is Dead.
Definitely Maybe, which cost just £85 000 to produce, was released on August 30 1994 and debuted at the top of the British chart a week later, with seven million copies selling worldwide. — AFP