Supersonic The complete, authorized, and uncut interviews

The world of the Britpop mega-group seethes with offstage mayhem, electrifying music, and intense sibling rivalry in this rollicking oral history. Bandmembers and brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher are joined by bandmates, associates, and relatives in recapping the group's rise from Manchester obscurity to superstardom in the 1990s and 2000s thanks to their Beatles-meet-Sex Pistols sound. The account traces a classic rock 'n' roll arc from mildly delinquent, working-class adolescence through obsessive rehearsals, grungy early gigs, breakout albums (Definitely Maybe and Morning Glory), frenzied tours, and nearly incessant ingestion of drugs. At the heart of the saga is the perpetual feuding between songwriter Noel's sober devotion to the music and frontman Liam's unruly appreciation for excess. The two regularly came to blows--sometimes over Liam's habit of "walking off stage halfway through countless fucking gigs because he'd been on a bender," in Noel's exasperated telling--though it was their unique chemistry that made the band more than the sum of its parts ("When it all came together, in a venue or in a field.... We made people feel something... indefinable," Noel recalls). Unvarnished, high-spirited, and full of pungent Mancunian eloquence ("It was biblical, man, it felt fucking biblical. All the rest of it is a load of bollocks really"), this captivates. (May)

The lads from Manchester look back in anger (and some other emotions). It's hard to overstate the hold that Britpop band Oasis had on the music world in the mid-1990s. Even today, countless music fans of any age have heard the band's hit single, "Wonderwall," either on the radio or at a party, when that one guy busts out his acoustic guitar. In the band's new oral history, drawn from interviews the members and others did for a documentary that's also calledSupersonic, Oasis details the early lives of brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher. As Noel puts it, their rivalry started when they were teenagers, when Liam "was just a pain in the arse…and has remained that way ever since." The book moves on to the early days of the band, when they sounded like, in Liam's words, "a really shit Stone Roses." It covers the success of their first two albums,Definitely Maybe and(What's the Story) Morning Glory? and concludes with their now legendary concert in 1996 at England's Knebworth Festival. The book doesn't mention their messy breakup in 2009, but much ink is given to the Gallaghers' relationship, which seems to swing from mild annoyance to galactic hatred ("Noel has a lot of buttons," one friend explains. "Liam has a lot of fingers. It's that simple really.") and their propensity for making controversial comments to the press (Noel: "Writing songs is difficult; talking shit is easy"). The Gallagher brothers have reunited for a planned tour this year, and this book serves as a fun, enlightening look at the band for their fans as well as a good introduction to Britpop newbies. Like the brothers themselves, it's profane and hilarious. Are they just talking shit? Maybe, but few are better at it. Fans will find more than just cigarettes and alcohol. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.