A relatively unknown Soho street sits as the backdrop to an iconic album cover that anyone who was interested in music (or, indeed, alive) in the 90s will remember.

 The year was 1995 and the bad boys of the Brit Pop revolution, Oasis, were looking to follow-up on their debut album.  Photographer Brian Cannon was hired to do the artwork – originally having met Noel in a lift where they discussed trainers.  The shoot would cost an unheard of £25,000 and Soho’s Berwick Street was picked because it was a popular location for record shops at the time.

Shooting at 5am to try and get an empty street, most of the people in and taking the photographs appear to have been fairly smashed.  Liam and Noel were supposed to be the two key characters in the picture itself but, having been up all night themselves, they thought better of it and stayed in bed.  Instead, Cannon and DJ Sean Rowley took their place which I think adds something to the mystique of not quite knowing the whole back story to the encounter that the picture depicts.  In fact, that was supposed to be the aim of the sleeve – two blokes obviously having a word with each other and one wandering off on the back of the album.  No one knows what was said and the picture creates more questions than it answers.

 One question that it is possible to answer is whether you can recreate the iconic image.  Yes.  If you wait until a Sunday morning and a global pandemic.  The pictures we took were taken using film (just like the originals) so there was a risk in not knowing exactly how they would come out and whether they would work.  Apparently, the picture used on the cover was almost the first taken during the day and the crew could have retreated to the pub for hair of the dog far earlier than they did.   They wouldn’t know that until days later when the pictures were developed.

 The album went on to sell a record-breaking 347,000 copies in its first week.  It also happened to be the first album that I learnt by heart and represents (along with Pulp’s A Different Class) the real sound of my childhood.  My big brother once spent an entire day with his best friend attempting to find the street in a pre-internet age (ultimately failing and getting suitably lubricated at the same time).  I will never get the opportunity to do this with him but it gives me a heady and happy feeling of silliness to take these photos.