Oasis

Rock group

For the Record…

“So I Started Me Own Band”

Definitely Wowed Critics, Fans

Unfazed By Skeptical Yanks

Morning Glory Showed Growth

Founding Members Departed

Selected discography

Sources

Noel Gallagher, lead guitarist, songwriter and musical director of the English band Oasis declared, “I could say to any band member from any era, ‘Give me the best song you think you’ve written, and I’ll pick mine.’ And I think the best of ours would be above the best of theirs.” This pronouncement from an interview with Spin’s Neil Strauss gives a fair indication of Gallagher’s confidence. Yet unlike many other British hopefuls, Oasis managed with their first two records to match their voluminous hype with large-scale success. After a critically lauded debut and a couple of strong radio singles, they returned with an even more popular sophomore album; and despite alienating some listeners with their foul-mouthed, cocksure behavior and often lackadaisical live shows, they showed every indication of continued growth.

The story of Oasis begins in the industrial, northern English town of Manchester, where Noel and his younger brother Liam grew up. Their father poured concrete floors by day and worked parties at night as a country-and-western disc jockey. Though Noel was introduced to some classic country artists through his father, he discovered classic rock on his own. The crafted, eclectic pop of the Beatles, Led Zeppelin’s

For the Record…

Members include Gem Archer (joined group, 2000), guitar; Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs (left group, 1999), guitar; Andy Bell (joined group, 2000), bass; Liam Gallagher (born on September 21, 1972, in Manchester, England; divorced from Patsy Kensit; children: Lennon), vocals; Noel Gallagher (born on May 29, 1967, in Manchester, England; divorced from Meg Mathews; children: Anaïs), guitar, vocals; Tony McCarroll (left group, 1995), drums; Paul Mc-Guigan (left group, 1999), bass; Alan White (joined group, 1999), drums.

Group formed in Manchester, England, c. 1992; signed with U.K. label Creation, released debut album Definitely Maybe, 1994; released by Epic Recordings in U.S., 1994; first American tour, 1994; released record-breaking (What’s the Story) Morning Glory, 1995; cancelled American tour due to in-band fighting, 1996; released Be Here Now, 1997; released B-sides disc Masterplan, 1998; released Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, 2000; released Heathen Chemistry, 2002.

Awards: European MTV Award, Best U.K. Band, 1994; NME Awards, Best New Band, Best Album for Definitely Maybe, Best Single for “Live Forever,” 1995; British Recording Industry Trust (BRIT) Awards, Best British Newcomer, 1995, Best Video for “Wonderwall,” Best Album for (What’s the Story) Morning Glory, Best Group, 1996; NME Awards, Best U.K. Band, 2003.

Addresses: Record company —Epic/Sony, 550 Madison Ave., 22nd Floor, New York, NY 10022. Website —Oasis Official Website: http://www.oasisinet.com.

thunderously adventurous rock, the glam-rock opuses of T. Rex, and punk standard-bearers the Sex Pistols’sneering iconoclasm all melded in his mind. He received his first guitar at age 13 and learned the Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride”; soon he was writing his own songs. He gave up on school early on, as did many of his working-class peers. “As soon as I learned to read and write,” he revealed to Jason Cohen of Rolling Stone, “I didn’t even bother turning up half the time. There was just nothing there for the musician in me.” A period of rootlessness and petty crime followed.

“So I Started Me Own Band”

Liam Gallagher played soccer, which most of the world calls “football,” and didn’t gravitate toward music until the end of the 1980s, when Manchester became England’s hot music town. Hosting a variety of successful bands that mixed post-punk energy with dance beats, “Madchester,” as it was briefly known, swirled with excitement. Liam got together with some of his “mates,” Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs and Paul McGuigan, and started up a band. McGuigan told Liam he couldn’t play anything, he informed Musician, to which the younger Gallagher replied “Then play bass, ‘cause you only have to play the top string if you want.’ so I said okay.” They enlisted the only drummer they knew, Tony McCarroll, to round out the lineup. “We had f*** all else to do,” guitarist Arthurs recollected to Rolling Stone. “It was either get in a band or get drunk every night.” The two pursuits turned out not to be mutually exclusive.

Noel, meanwhile, became the “guitar tech” for the band Inspiral Carpets, accompanying them on the road to keep their instruments and other equipment in shape. “I knew how to change strings, how to tune a guitar, and change a fuse or a plug, and that’s about it, really,” he told Musician. Though other guitar technicians he met possessed all manner of arcane knowledge about the gear, he admitted, “I haven’t got a clue, mate. Not a clue. I just lied when I got the job.”

Going on tour with the Inspirals was frustrating for him, since they didn’t have any spirit. “They were just going through the motions for the money. And then, well, I’d be looking at them and thinking, ‘F***ing hell, if they can get away with it, I can.’ so I started me own band.” In reality, he offered to take over Liam’s band. Having written a number of songs during the Inspirale tour, he felt that his kid brother’s group had little to offer beyond Liam’s surprisingly powerful, sneering voice. He therefore announced that he would join—provided they stand aside and play his songs according to his exacting instructions. In Rolling Stone he reported having said, “I can only do this one way: with me in complete control of it.”

Definitely Wowed Critics, Fans

Oasis began working far more intensively. “All our friends would say, ’Let’s get drunk, let’s chase some women, let’s take some drugs,’” Noel recounted in Musician. “We’d say, ’No, no, we have to practice.’ They all thought we were mott [crazy] for quite a while.” After spending the requisite period learning to play Noel’s songs exactly as he wanted to hear them, Oasis talked themselves onto a bill at a Glasgow, Scotland club. Closing their set with an earsplitting rendition of the Beatles’ “I Am the Walrus,” they got a record offer from a member of the audience, Creation Records founder Alan McGee.

Their debut album, Definitely Maybe, was released in 1994 and synthesized the pop, glam-rock, and punk influences that had informed Noel’s youth. The band immediately became the darlings of the passionately fickle British music press. Thanks in part to singles like the evanescent ballad “Live Forever,” the album rocketed up the English charts. Their status as darlings of United Kingdom rock scribes certainly derived in large part from their way with a pop tune, but the band’s bad-boy attitude also contributed. “We always knew we were going to be good,” Noel said with characteristic immodesty in Guitar Player, “because you don’t write a song like ‘Live Forever’ and disappear. We weren’t surprised that the album reached #1 in England and went gold. It was just surprising how fast it got there.”

Unfazed By Skeptical Yanks

Things took a bit longer in the United States. Despite largely glowing reviews for the album, the band’s live shows often drew fire. Onstage, Jason Cohen wrote in Rolling Stone, “Oasis act completely oblivious to the rich nuances and joyous, thudding impact of their music,” and described their performance as “frustratingly passive-aggressive.” A disgruntled concertgoer interviewed by Musician’s Charles M. Young, meanwhile, dismissed the band as “a very loud version of 1970s bubblegum popsters The Bay City Rollers.” Yet the record fared quite well, thanks in large part to the airplay earned by “Live Forever.”

Oasis very loudly replied to such criticism that they didn’t care. They toured relentlessly and proudly indulged in classic rock and roll pursuits like drinking, drugs and the trashing of hotel rooms. They also engaged in a very public feud with fellow Brit band Blur and derided most other bands, especially American ones. Their acerbic esprit de corps had its limits, of course; Liam and Noel quarrelled constantly. “Some days we get on really well,” Noel reported to huH’s Mark Blackwell. “Other days we f***ing ’ate the sight of each other. But that’s life.” And the band’s high opinion of itself was recorded faithfully in a stream of interviews. “I’m always sayin’, ’We’re the best band in the world,’” Liam informed Blackwell. “The reason I say it is because we jus’ f***ing are. I don’t say it for the sake of just sayin’ it. I believe it, man.”

Morning Glory Showed Growth

While the band’s meteoric rise and unflinching arrogance invited many a prediction—and no doubt a fervent wish or two—that they would wind up as one-hit wonders, Oasis instead came back stronger on their sophomore effort. They replaced McCarroll with Alan White before going back in to the studio, however. McCarroll would later file suit against the band for firing him wrongfully. The new album, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, showed greater songwriting depth, according to reviewers like Rolling Stone’s Jon Wied-erhorn, who called it “more than a natural progression; it’s a bold leap forward that displays significant personal growth.”

Morning Glory stormed up the American charts on the strength of “Wonderwall,” another anthemic ballad. The album became the second biggest-selling British record of all time after the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Such triumphs hardly stunted Noel Gallagher’s already towering self-regard. If Oasis had existed at the same time as the Beatles, he told Spin, “I think we’d be the Beatles.” The press began to faithfully follow and report every last move the band made, focusing especially on Liam and Noel’s increasingly heated arguments. Their volatile relationship lead to the cancellation of an American tour in support of Morning Glory and a tour the following year in support of their next album, Be Here Now.

The name of the album was taken from a comment John Lennon once made when asked what the “message” of rock ‘n’ roll was. A shortened version of his reply, “to be here now,” became the title of Oasis’s third studio album. Hastily recorded in a drug-induced environment, the album failed to meet expectations set after the huge success that was Morning Glory. Noel later acknowledged the extreme lifestyle he and his bandmates were living: “We did our share [of partying], and then we did everyone else’s who couldn’t afford it.” The work was generally dismissed by critics for its close stylistic resemblence to the Beatles. A Time reviewer remarked, “Oasis would be a better band if it started to innovate more and imitate less.” Noel, in an attempt to regain his musical focus, sobered up late in 1997 and asked that the other band members do the same for the length of their next recording session.

Founding Members Departed

Arthurs left the band in 1999, reasoning that he’d like to spend more time with his family. McGuigan also left the band around this time. Noel’s comment to NME after the two founding members departed was, as reported by All Music Guide, “It’s hardly Paul McCartney leaving the Beatles.” Changes in the band’s record label also occurred that year. Alan McGee sold the rest of Creation Records to Sony (Sony previously owned only 49 percent of the once-influential independent label). Oasis planned to finish the two albums remaining on their six-album obligation on Sony, but Noel was wary of signing with another label after their contract expired. “Somebody’s got an awful flicking long way to go to convince me record companies are worth anything these days—they’re just a bank.”

Oasis recruited two new band members for the recording of their fourth album. Guitarist Gem Archer and bassist Andy Bell joined the group, adding more musical input and songwriting skills than the previous members had offered. The result, Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, was released in 1999. The name came from Noel’s drunken misinterpretation of the Isaac Newton quote inscribed on the British £2 coin, which reads, “If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.” This title seemed to acknowledge the debt Oasis owed to their predecessors. The official Sony biography that was sent out with the record spoke to that: “Oasis have always stood on the shoulders of giants, which is why they towered above their peers.” A live album recorded at London’s Wembley Stadium, Familiar to Millions, was released later in 2000.

Oasis’s fifth studio album, Heathen Chemistry, was released in 2002. Deciding to forego big-name producers, the members of Oasis instead produced the album themselves at their own studio near London. Liam had previously contributed one song he penned to an Oasis album (“Little James” on Giants), but the songwriting balance was even further shifted from Noel on this album, with Liam contributing three songs and Archer and Bell one each. Noel, with characteristic immodesty, told Music & Media, “It’s far and away the best record since Definitely Maybe —I’d probably say the whole thing will be an eight out of 10.” Some critics seemed to agree. A Guitar Player reviewer commented, “Obvious style-checking notwithstanding, Heathen Chemistry is full of well-crafted and enthusiastically performed material.”

Even Liam and Noel’s well-publicized sibling rivalry seemed to be dying down. “I’ve grown to love that boy so much,” Noel remarked about his younger brother on a Sony biography posted on their website. “Now he understands that when you’re working you can’t go on acting like you’re sixteen when you’re thirty.” But some old habits apparently die hard. A ruckus in a Munich nightclub in December of 2002 between Liam and Alan White and five Italian businessmen ended with Liam and Alan in jail.

Despite ongoing internal and external band struggles, a changing lineup, and constant criticism from the press that they take too much from their predecessors, Oasis shows no sign of falling apart. Speaking to NME in early 2003, Noel told them that they band was too “important” to him to break up, calling it “the best gig in the world.” He acknowledged in another NME report that Oasis hasn’t change their style much: “We do Oasis music and that’s it,” which had been a criticism from the press, but said he was content with the music they play.

Selected discography

Definitely Maybe, Creation; reissued, Epic, 1994.

(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, Epic, 1995.

Be Here Now, Epic, 1997.

Masterplan, Epic, 1998.

Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, Epic, 2000.

Familiar to Millions (live), Epic, 2000.

Heathen Chemistry, Epic, 2002.

Sources

Periodicals

Billboard, January 20, 1996.

Entertainment Weekly, March 10, 1995; September 5, 1997.

Europe Intelligence Wire, December 4, 2002.

Guitar Player, March 1995; September 2000; November 2002.

huH, April 1995.

Interview, January 1998.

Music & Media, July 6, 2002.

Music Connection, March 6, 1995.

Musician, September 1995.

New Statesman, October 10, 1997.

Newsweek International, March 6, 2000.

Rolling Stone, December 15, 1994; May 18, 1995; August 5, 1995; October 19, 1995.

Spin, January 1995; November 1995; December 1995; February 1996.

Time, August 25, 1997.

Time International, July 29, 2002.

Variety, August 18, 1997.

Online

“D’You Know What I Mean?,” NME, http://www.nme.com/news/104045.htm (January 28, 2003).

“Oasis,” All Music Guide, http://www.allmusic.com (January 17, 2003).

Oasis Official Website, http://www.oasisinet.com (January 27, 2003).

“Roll With It,” NME, http://www.nme.com/news/104028.htm (January 28, 2003).

—Simon Glickman

Oasis

Rock band

“So I Started Me Own Band”

Definitely Wowed Critics, Fans

Unfazed By Skeptical Yanks

Morning Glory Showed Growth

Selected discography

Sources

Noel Gallagher, lead guitarist, songwriter and musical director of the English band Oasis declared, “I could say to any band member from any era, ’Pick your best song. Give me the best song you think you’ve written, and I’ll pick mine.’ And I think the best of ours would be above the best of theirs.” This pronouncement from an interview with Spin’s Neil Strauss gives a fair indication of Gallagher’s confidence. Yet unlike many other U.K. hopefuls, Oasis managed with their first two records to match their voluminous hype with large-scale success. After a critically lauded debut and a couple of strong radio singles, they returned with an even more popular sophomore album; and despite alienating some listeners with their foul-mouthed, cocksure behavior and often lackadaisical live shows, they showed every indication of continued growth. And unlike many of their American compatriots, these self-proclaimed “lads” embraced stardom unequivocally. “I can’t stand snivelling rock stars who complain about being famous,” Noel groused to Entertainment Weekly. “Why not just work at a car wash or a McDonalds? There’s no point in starting a band unless you wanna be famous.”

The story of Oasis begins in the industrial, northern English town of Manchester, where Noel and his younger brother grew up. Their father poured concrete floors by day and worked parties at night as a country and western disc jockey. Though Noel was introduced to some classic country artists through his father, he discovered classic rock on his own. The crafted, eclectic pop of the Beatles, Led Zeppelin’s thunderously adventurous rock, the glam-rock opuses of T. Rex, and punk standard-bearers the Sex Pistols’ sneering iconoclasm all melded in his mind. He received his first guitar at age 13 and learned the Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride” ; soon he was writing his own songs. Though he shared his music with no one for many years, little else interested him. He gave up on school early on, as did many of his working-class peers. “As soon as I learned to read and write,” he revealed to Jason Cohen of Rolling Stone,” I didn’t even bother turning up half the time. I can’t even spell, but who needs to spell? There was just nothing there for the musician in me.” A period of rootlessness and petty crime followed.

“So I Started Me Own Band”

Liam Gallagher played soccer, which most of the world calls “football,” and didn’t gravitate toward music until the end of the 1980s, when Manchester became England’s hot music town. Hosting a variety of successful bands that mixed post-punk energy with dance beats, “Madchester,” as it was briefly known, swirled with excitement. Liam got together with some of his “mates,” Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs and Paul McGuigan, and

For the Record…

Band members include Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs (guitar); Liam Gallagher (born c. 1972, vocals); Noel Gallagher (born c. 1967, guitar, vocals); Tony McCarroll (drums; left 1995); Paul McGuigan (bass); and Alan White (drums; joined 1995).

Band formed c. 1992 in Manchester, England. Signed with U.K. label Creation and released debut album Definitely Maybe, 1994; released by Epic Recordings in U.S.

Selected awards: Gold Record for U.K. sales of Definitely Maybe, 1994.

Addresses: Record company —Epic/Sony, 550 Madison Ave., 22nd Floor, New York, NY 10022.

started up a band. McGuigan told Liam he couldn’t play anything, he informed Musician, to which the younger Gallagher replied “Then play bass,’cause you only have to play the top string if you want.’ So I said okay.” They enlisted the only drummer they knew, Tony McCarroll, to round out the lineup. “We had f—all else to do,” guitarist Arthurs recollected to Rolling Stone. “It was either get in a band or get drunk every night.” The two pursuits turned out not to be mutually exclusive.

Noel, meanwhile, became the “guitar tech” for the band Inspiral Carpets, accompanying them on the road to keep their instruments and other equipment in shape. “I knew how to change strings, how to tune a guitar, and change a fuse or a plug, and that’s about it, really,” he told Musician. Though other guitar technicians he met possessed all manner of arcane knowledge about the gear, he admitted, “I haven’t got a clue, mate. Not a clue. I just lied when I got the job.”

Going on tour with the Inspirals was frustrating for him, since “they didn’t treat us well at all, and I didn’t like the music. They had a couple of good tunes, but they didn’t have any spirit. They were just going through the motions for the money. And then, well, I’d be looking at them and thinking, ’F—ing hell, if they can get away with it, I can.’ So I started me own band.” In reality, he offered to take over Liam’s band. Having written a number of songs during the Inspirals tour, he felt that his kid brother’s group had little to offer beyond Liam’s surprisingly powerful, sneering voice. He therefore announced that he would join—provided they stand aside and play his songs according to his exacting instructions. In Rolling Stone he reported having said, “I can only do this one way: with me in complete control of it.”

Definitely Wowed Critics, Fans

Oasis began working far more intensively. “All our friends would say,’Let’s get drunk, let’s chase some women, let’s take some drugs,’” Noel recounted in Musician. “We’d say,’No, no, we have to practice.’They all thought we were mott [crazy] for quite a while.” After spending the requisite period learning to play Noel’s songs exactly as he wanted to hear them, Oasis talked themselves onto a bill at a Glasgow, Scotland club. Closing their set with an earsplitting rendition of the Beatles’ “I Am the Walrus,” they got a record offer from a member of the audience, Creation Records founder Alan McGee. “It was agreed that we were going to sign [a contract] that night,” Noel told Rolling Stone, “but we didn’t sign until two or three months later.”

Their debut album, Definitely Maybe, was released in 1994 and synthesized the pop, glam-rock and punk influences that had informed Noel’s youth. The band immediately became the darlings of the passionately fickle British music press. Thanks in part to singles like the evanescent ballad “Live Forever,” the album rocketed up the English charts. Their status as darlings of U.K. rock scribes certainly derived in large part from their way with a pop tune, but the band’s bad-boy attitude also contributed. “We always knew we were going to be good,” Noel said with characteristic immodesty in Guitar Player, “because you don’t write a song like’Live Forever’ and disappear. We weren’t surprised that the album reached #1 in England and went gold. It was just surprising how fast it got there.”

Unfazed By Skeptical Yanks

Things took a bit longer in the United States, where audiences and reviewers scarcely took Oasis’ purported Godhead on faith. Despite largely glowing reviews for the album, the band’s live shows often drew fire. Julia Rubiner complained about their “lackluster live set” in Music Connection, faulting Liam’s “unvaried vocal presentation” and tendency to stand still with his hands behind his back most of the time. “Maybe delusions of grandeur pass for entertainment in England,” Rubiner wrote, likening the band’s performance to “the fulfillment of a contractual obligation.” Onstage, Jason Cohen wrote in Rolling Stone, “Oasis act completely oblivious to the rich nuances and joyous, thudding impact of their music,” and described their performance as “frus-tratingly passive-aggressive.” A disgruntled concert-goer interviewed by Musician’s Charles M. Young, meanwhile, dismissed the band as “a very loud version of [1970s bubblegum popsters] The Bay City Rollers.” Yet the record fared quite well, thanks in large part to the airplay earned by “Live Forever.”

Oasis very loudly replied to such criticism that they didn’t care. They toured relentlessly—so much so that McGuigan had to take a break from the band, citing “exhaustion,” and was briefly replaced—and proudly indulged in classic rock and roll pursuits like drinking, drugs and the trashing of hotel rooms. They also engaged in a very public feud with fellow Brit band Blur and derided most other bands, especially American ones. Their acerbic esprit de corps had its limits, of course; Liam and Noel quarrelled constantly. “Some days we get on really well,” Noel reported to huhfs Mark Blackwell. “Other days we f—ing’ate the sight of each other. But that’s life.” And the band’s high opinion of itself was recorded faithfully in a stream of interviews. “I’m always sayin’,’We’re the best band in the world,’” Liam informed Blackwell. “The reason I say it is because we jus’ f—ing are. I don’t say it for the sake of just sayin’ it. I believe it, man. Every band should be able to go,’Yeah, we’re the best band in the world,’” though he added that not many bands could say so with conviction.

Morning Glory Showed Growth

While the band’s meteoric rise and unflinching arrogance invited many a prediction—and no doubt a fervent wish or two—that they would wind up as one-hit wonders, Oasis instead came back stronger on their sophomore effort. They replaced McCarroll with Alan White before going back in to the studio, however. “Tony’s a nice guy and all that,” Noel explained to Elysa Gardner of Rolling Stone.” But the band is moving on, and he wasn’t really up to standards.” McCarroll would later file suit against the band for firing him wrongfully. The new album, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, showed greater songwriting depth, according to reviewers like Rolling Stone’s Jon Wiederhom, who called it “more than a natural progression; it’s a bold leap forward that displays significant personal growth.”

Morning Glory stormed up the American charts on the strength of “Wonderwall, “another anthemic ballad. By its fourteenth week in release it had reached the num-ber-eighteen position on the Billboard200 album chart, and was dubbed the week’s “pacesetter” disc. Such triumphs hardly stunted Noel Gallagher’s already towering self-regard. If Oasis had existed at the same time as the Beatles, he told Spin,” I think we’d be the Beatles.” He described his band, “an unstoppable ball that is rolling down a mountain, and when it gets to the end, that’s it. It’s finished. I don’t think any of us will be able to go off and do something else and have it be as big as that.” In Musician he proclaimed, “I just want a back catalog, something for the kids to plagiarize. I’ll have done my service to rock⁴ n’ roll. So long as I have my music and I feel enthusiastic, that’s all I want. I want to realize my own potential.”

Selected discography

Definitely Maybe (includes “Live Forever”), Creation; reissued on Epic, 1994.

(What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (includes “Wonderwall”), Epic, 1995.

Sources

Billboard, January 20, 1996.

Entertainment Weekly, March 10, 1995.

Guitar Player, March 1995.

huH, April 1995.

Music Connection, March 6, 1995.

Musician, September 1995.

Rolling Stone, December 15, 1994; May 18, 1995; August 5, 1995; October 19, 1995.

Spin, January 1995; November 1995; December 1995; February 1996.

—Simon Glickman

oasis , an area within a desert where the water table reaches the surface, with enough moisture to permit the growth of vegetation. The water may come up to the surface in springs, or it may collect in mountain hollows. In deserts such as the Sahara, artificial oases have been successfully created by using tube wells, which tap deep sources of groundwater. Oases vary in size, ranging from a pond with a group of date palms to the oasis cities of the deserts of Arabia with extended agricultural cultivation. The ice-free dry valleys of Antarctica are also called oases because they support life surrounded by a barren ice desert.

oasis
1. In an arid region, an isolated area that supports water-loving plants throughout the year. Oases most commonly occur in depressions, where the water-table lies close enough to the surface to be within the reach of plant roots. The groundwater supplying the vegetation is often enriched with salts and the vegetation can be zoned according to the concentration and type of salts present.

2. By analogy, a small area supporting vegetation of one type (e.g. woodland) which is surrounded on all sides by a much larger area supporting vegetation of a quite different type (e.g. an arable field).

oasis
1. In an arid region, an isolated area that supports water-loving plants throughout the year. Oases most commonly occur in depressions, where the water table lies close enough to the surface to be within the reach of plant roots. The groundwater supplying the vegetation is often enriched in salts and the vegetation can be zoned according to the concentration and type of salts present
.
2. By analogy, a small area supporting vegetation of one type (e.g. woodland) that is surrounded on all sides by a much larger area supporting vegetation of a quite different type (e.g. an arable field).

o·a·sis / ōˈāsis/ • n. (pl. -ses / ōˈāsēz/ ) 1. a fertile spot in a desert where water is found. ∎ fig. a pleasant or peaceful area or period in the midst of a difficult, troubled, or hectic place or situation: an oasis of calm in the center of the city. 2. (Oasis) trademark a type of rigid foam into which the stems of flowers can be secured in flower arranging. ORIGIN: early 17th cent.: via late Latin from Greek, apparently of Egyptian origin.

oasis Fertile location that has water in an arid landscape. Usually, groundwater is brought to the surface in a well, but an oasis may occur where a river flowing from a wetter region crosses the desert on its way to the sea, such as the Nile.

oasis A fertile spot in the desert, the basis of which is a supply of water that is available throughout the year and which normally originates as groundwater.

oasis XVII. — late L. — Gr. óasis, presumably of Egyptian orig.; cf. Coptic ouahe dwelling-place, oasis, f. ouih dwell.

oasis •glacis, Onassis •abscess •anaphylaxis, axis, praxis, taxis •Chalcis • Jancis • synapsis • catharsis •Frances, Francis •thesis • Alexis • amanuensis •prolepsis, sepsis, syllepsis •basis, oasis, stasis •amniocentesis, anamnesis, ascesis, catechesis, exegesis, mimesis, prosthesis, psychokinesis, telekinesis •ellipsis, paralipsis •Lachesis •analysis, catalysis, dialysis, paralysis, psychoanalysis •electrolysis • nemesis •genesis, parthenogenesis, pathogenesis •diaeresis (US dieresis) • metathesis •parenthesis •photosynthesis, synthesis •hypothesis, prothesis •crisis, Isis •proboscis • synopsis •apotheosis, chlorosis, cirrhosis, diagnosis, halitosis, hypnosis, kenosis, meiosis, metempsychosis, misdiagnosis, mononucleosis, myxomatosis, necrosis, neurosis, osmosis, osteoporosis, prognosis, psittacosis, psychosis, sclerosis, symbiosis, thrombosis, toxoplasmosis, trichinosis, tuberculosis •archdiocese, diocese, elephantiasis, psoriasis •anabasis • apodosis •emphasis, underemphasis •anamorphosis, metamorphosis •periphrasis • entasis • protasis •hypostasis, iconostasis

OASIS (əʊˈeɪsɪs) optimal aircraft sequencing using intelligent systems