Standing on the Shoulder of Giants

The fourth studio album by the English rock band Oasis, released on 28 February 2000 by Big Brother Records. It is the 16th fastest selling album in UK chart history, selling over 310,000 copies in its first week.

The album at first received generally mixed reviews from the media. It was a darker album possibly reflecting the times, or perhaps reflecting the loss of two founding members, Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs and Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan.

The album’s title was taken from the words made famous by Sir Isaac Newton: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Songwriter Noel Gallagher chose the name after reading it printed on the edge of a £2 coin; he scribbled the phrase down but spelled it incorrectly (Shoulder is wrong, Shoulders is right) because he was drunk at the time. The phrase means “discovering truth by building on previous discoveries.”