Today (August 21st) marks 20 years since Oasis released 'Be Here Now'.
Famously released on a Thursday to match feverish international hype, the record became a by-word in bloated excess.
Selling 663,389 copies in the UK over a three day period, it was kept off the Billboard number one spot in America by Puff Daddy – the band would never again scale such heights in the United States.
Looking back, it remains a divisive yet truly special moment in pop history – one of the last occasions when queuing for an album felt like such an event.
In fact, MTV cameras caught a young Pete Doherty doing just that. Subscribing to the Umberto Eco view that Noel was a poet and Liam was a town-crier, he summed up Oasis in one word: "Trousers".
Wonderful.