Stop the Clocks

Stop the Clocks is Oasis’s first greatest-hits album, released on 20 November 2006 on Big Brother Recordings. Noel Gallagher personally chose its 18 tracks, cutting a longlist of over 30 songs. The double album reached number two in the UK, mixing number one singles with album tracks and famous B-sides.

The compilation exists because Noel refused to let anyone else compile it. Oasis were leaving Sony BMG, and the label planned a best-of with or without the band’s help. Gallagher took control of the tracklist himself, and the Oasis albums hub places his statement in the full catalogue.

How was Stop the Clocks put together?

The album arose from a contract ending rather than a celebration, as Sony BMG planned a compilation when the band’s deal expired. Noel insisted on choosing the songs himself if a best-of had to exist. He told NME he cut the list from over 30 tracks down to 18.

His selections favour feel over chart statistics, judging songs rather than sales. The running order places B-sides beside number one singles as equals: Acquiesce, Talk Tonight, Half the World Away and The Masterplan. Album tracks such as Slide Away and Morning Glory survive the cut as well.

Two decisions define the album as much as any inclusion, starting with the tracklist’s silence on Be Here Now. The band’s third album sold record-breaking numbers in 1997, yet none of its songs appear here. Despite giving the album its title, the unreleased song Stop the Clocks does not appear, a joke or a wound depending on the telling.

For the cover, the band turned to a piece of British pop history. Sir Peter Blake designed the artwork, nearly forty years after he created the sleeve for The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The official Oasis site presents the album as the band’s own authorised history, and Blake’s involvement underlined that claim.

How did Stop the Clocks do on release?

Stop the Clocks sold over 50,000 copies in the UK on its first day. Its first-week total reached 216,000, yet Westlife’s The Love Album held it at number two on the main chart. It did reach number one in Japan and on the Scottish Albums Chart.

By the end of 2006, the album had sold 898,000 copies in the UK alone. That total made it the seventh biggest-selling album of the year, a striking result for a compilation released in late November. The BPI now certifies it 5x Platinum, covering 1.5 million UK units.

For context, the band’s official site gives the release its sharpest context. It calls Stop the Clocks the best-selling Oasis album since Be Here Now, which means a self-curated best-of outsold three studio albums. The compilation had become the catalogue’s shop window, a role it kept until Time Flies arrived in 2010.

Which songs define Stop the Clocks?

First, disc one opens with Rock ‘n’ Roll Star and Some Might Say. The pairing announces the album’s intent immediately: the debut’s opening track, then the first number one single. Lyla and The Importance of Being Idle, the most recent number ones, arrive early enough to prove the later band belongs in this company.

Wonderwall and Slide Away anchor the middle of the first disc. Noel places the biggest song Oasis ever recorded beside the album track that many fans rate even higher. Cigarettes & Alcohol closes the disc’s argument with the debut album’s manifesto still intact.

Meanwhile, disc two runs from Live Forever to Don’t Look Back in Anger. In between, Acquiesce, Supersonic, Half the World Away and Champagne Supernova trace the whole arc from first single to Knebworth-era anthem. Go Let It Out represents the fourth album, and Songbird carries Liam’s songwriting flag.

Songbird, tucked between Go Let It Out and Morning Glory on disc two, remains the only Liam-written song in the eighteen. Its presence shows the curator judging the song rather than the surname. A Noel-chosen canon still found room for his brother’s best three minutes.

Morning Glory, the title track of the second album, earns its place without ever having been a UK single. Noel sequenced it late on disc two, where it bridges Songbird and Champagne Supernova like a hinge between eras.

In the end, the B-sides do the quiet argumentative work. Four of the 18 tracks first appeared on The Masterplan rather than on any studio album. A greatest-hits set that finds a quarter of its room on B-sides tells you exactly how this band’s catalogue is shaped.

The omissions argue as loudly as the inclusions across the whole list. Columbia and Shakermaker lose out from the debut, and Stand by Me, a number two single, stays home too. The eighteen feel chosen rather than compiled, which was the point of the exercise.

How does Stop the Clocks stand now?

Today, the album reads as the closest thing to an official Oasis canon. Noel’s choices have aged into a reference point that fans argue with rather than accept, which keeps the record alive in conversation. Its omissions generate as much debate as its inclusions, and both debates flatter the catalogue.

Since then, its commercial role has shifted. Time Flies, the complete singles collection, now serves the casual buyer more thoroughly, and streaming playlists have taken over the entry-point job. Stop the Clocks survives as something narrower and more interesting: the band leader’s own edit of his band.

For collectors, the Blake artwork keeps the physical editions desirable. The double album also remains the only place where this exact 18-track sequence exists as Noel sequenced it. In an era of shuffled playlists, a fixed running order chosen by the songwriter carries its own value.

Meanwhile, the double album also fixed the band’s public story at a useful moment in the band’s story. Oasis entered their final years with a ready-made narrative of greatness that the music press could cite. That narrative carried the band through the split and into the reunion, when new fans used this album as their first map.

Its sequence also taught later compilers how to present this band. Time Flies kept the completeness, but every Oasis playlist since has borrowed Noel’s instinct for placing B-sides beside the hits. The album survives as a lesson in editing, not only a souvenir of one.

Will you hear Stop the Clocks at Live ‘27?

Still, almost everything on this album has a live life, because Noel largely chose songs the band already played. Rock ‘n’ Roll Star, Some Might Say, Wonderwall, Live Forever, Supersonic and Don’t Look Back in Anger form the spine of the modern stadium set. A fan hearing those six alone hears a third of this compilation in one night.

The B-side quarter holds up equally well in 2027. Acquiesce opens Oasis concerts on the reunion run, and Half the World Away and The Masterplan anchor Noel’s sung section whenever the band includes them. Slide Away, the album track fans champion loudest, also holds a regular place.

Use the Oasis setlist page to count how many of the 18 tracks the band plays at your show. Most nights, Stop the Clocks quietly functions as the set’s draft blueprint, fifteen years after Noel drew it up.