Is Noel Gallagher doing anyone else’s head in?
10 years since Oasis’ appearance at Slane – and 10 years since the band’s last performance together – the musical legacy of the Gallagher brothers remains as important as ever.
While Liam’s vocals added an edge and presence that made the group unlike any other on the scene, it was the songs Noel wrote that ensured Oasis would go down in history as one of the greatest rock bands of all time.
The controversial Mancunian’s contribution to modern music will not, and should not, be forgotten. But his more recent contributions to the endless noise of celeb interviews that compromise so much of existence would really be better off ignored.
His latest outburst on veganism is just the latest in a long list of extremely boring takes, disguised as his penchant combination of belligerence and nonchalance.
Speaking about a bandmate of his who is vegan, he said: “When we were in South America they didn’t know what a vegan was. I passed her the menu and said you might as well eat the f***ing menu.
“But yeah vegans, what’s the point? It’s like no animal products at all. These people would literally have fucking animals roaming the world, cows everywhere in the fucking streets, sheep in phone boxes.”
It sounds like something you might say if you were pulled out of the crowd and told to perform stand-up comedy at gunpoint. Animals roaming the world.
It’s this kind of mind-numbing stuff that comes out pretty much whenever Gallagher tries to act like the bad boy he once was.
On the subject of modern music, Gallagher said just weeks ago: “”Music is fucking wank at the moment. Who’s this Lewis Capaldi fella? Who the fuck’s that idiot?”
He says at the moment, but this has always been Gallagher’s attitude to music. In 1994, he repeatedly told interviewers that Oasis’ purpose was to take aim at everyone else in the charts and “stamp the fuckers out.”
Gallagher has always seen it as his role to take aim at the other top musicians of the day. He’s slagged off Radiohead, U2, Blur, Coldplay, Eminem, 50 Cent, Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian, Kaiser Chiefs, Keane, any act that has ever had a “moment”. Not that any of it means anything. You could probably make up a band, ask Noel for an opinion and he’d tell you they’re shite.
He called on Capaldi to inject some joy into his tunes. It seems like Gallagher could do with injecting some joy into his life.
It’s not to make the ageist point that rock ‘n’ roll is a young man’s game, it’s to specifically say that whatever rock ‘n’ roll is, Noel Gallagher has become the opposite of it.
What about other kinds of art? In a 2013 interview with GQ, Noel said: “People who write and read and review books are fucking putting themselves a tiny little bit above the rest of us who fucking make records and write pathetic little songs for a living … I don’t get it. Book sellers, book readers, book writers, book owners – fuck all of them.”
Gallagher is much revered for his wit and wisdom. You could be forgiven for thinking that much of his wit and wisdom rests on the founding principles of “I hate music and I hate thinking, but I love myself.”
It was fun when he was in his 20s, smashing hotel rooms and bringing something new to mainstream culture.
Noel Gallagher has been dizzyingly rich for 25 years. He does interviews where he brags about spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on cars even though he doesn’t have a driver’s license. He can turn up on the pitch, or even in the dressing room, after Man City win the league.
The idea that he can maintain credibility as an angry everyman while enjoying the lifestyle he has for the past two-and-a-half decades is totally nonsensical. He is the embodiment of the rich middle-aged men who somehow think they are breaking the mould by upholding the same beliefs and principles set by generations of rich middle-aged men who went before them.
Russell Brand addressed the facade once mid-interview when Gallagher pretended not to know what the word ‘contextualise’ meant. Having none of it, Brand said “Yes you do. Don’t be all like ‘Oh, we never had no education. Oh, if not for my guitar I’d be down the coal mine.'” The audience erupted in laughter.
His younger brother Liam put it even better when Noel declined to perform at Ariana Grande’s charity concert organised for the victims of the Manchester bombing in 2017.
“Just get on a fucking plane and play your tunes for the kids you sad fuck.”
While Oasis were the best band on the planet, Gallagher’s grandstanding made him look godlike. Now, like any other High Flying Bird, we’re just tired of him shitting on the rest of us.
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