M&P: No longer looking back in anger
Learning to love the Oasis Sonimatic Universe
Note: Every so often I write about non-soccer topics here. When I do, I label them so those uninterested in reading can easily skip them. In this case, M&P indicates a music and pop culture post.
As some may know, I was lucky enough to secure tickets to the first show of the Oasis reunion tour. That, in turn, has led to me contemplating my relationship with Oasis and the music of the Gallagher brothers. I started to write this in December 2024 as a way to process it all.
I used to write about music, back in 2008-10. That was prior to focusing on soccer almost entirely, which I have since 2011. Getting back to writing about music, along with other topics that speak to me, is important to me now. I hope some of you enjoy these non-soccer blogs, but, honestly, I’m mostly writing them for myself.
Don’t worry, the majority of topics here will still be about soccer.
In my defence, you had to pick a side. Back in 2009, it was either Team Noel or Team Liam.
That’s just how it was.
You either bought into the idea that it was Liam’s anger, refusal to let go of the 90s, and general, unbearable, lad-ness that was ruing Oasis, or that it was Noel’s stick-up-his-ass, cosmic pop, pretentiousness that was killing the vibe.
They hated each other, it appeared, so you had to hate one of them too.
I was Team Noel. Decidedly so. The brains of the operation — well, in so much as anyone who openly has admitted to doing cocaine in the Queen’s bathroom at 10 Downing can realistically be called the brains of anything — Noel always appealed to my sense of the artistic. Noel wrote important songs. He created culture.
I embraced High Flying Birds with something that approached desperation. It had to be great — better than Oasis, even! That would prove I was on the right side of the divide and it would give me a clear villain, in Liam, to blame the break-up on.
Ok, if I’m being totally honest with myself now, my initial take on High Flying Birds was more academic than emotional. I’ve come to love the work, but initially? It was just too soon.
Sure, Noel, I’ll go to your show. When are you going to play Don’t Look Back in Anger?
Being totally honest with myself about my experience of the non-Oasis, Oasis music is much easier now that I know that the feud has been put on pause long enough for me to give them all my money. In fact, I’ve been thinking a great deal about what Oasis and the brother’s music means to me.
The summary of that reflection is that their music means a great deal to me. It’s a body of work that connects me to nearly all periods of my life, from those electric days of discovery in the 90s, to lonely drives in the Maritimes when I was going to Journalism School in the aughts (and missing those 1990s days and mostly nights), to days of celebration with friends wearing Manchester blue, and beyond.
The brothers have given my life a soundtrack and a throughline and I am greatly appreciative of that. How much? Well, I spent nearly a paycheque for tickets and am flying to Cardiff to be there when they walk back out on the stage together again for the first time on July 4. So, quite a lot and, no, I don’t care if you think they are a couple of overrated wankers fronting a cheap Beatles cover band (aside: they don’t sound like the fucking Beatles anymore than about 5,000 other bands, but do stick with that oh-so-original narrative).
Speaking of wankers, as mentioned, I was Team Noel back then. Liam was a bit too, I don’t know, Id for what my self-identity as a music fan was 15 years ago.
I don’t regret this, exactly. I very much like Noel. He’s, obviously, a key component to Oasis and he’s produced great music since that infamous day in France when he decided he had had enough.
However, there was a few problems with this approach: Firstly, I’m a hell of a lot more Id than I used to pretend. Oasis isn’t high art. It’s rock music. It’s supposed to move you on an emotional/irrational level as much, if not more, than an intellectual one.
Secondly, and very much against my best interest, I mostly ignored Liam’s post-Oasis career up until about 2020.
I was simply too busy telling anyone who would listen that they just needed to give High Flying Birds a chance and they would understand how brilliant it was.
As I stated (and will continue to state), it was/is brilliant, but only focusing on one-half of the brother’s music is, obviously, only seeing one-half of the Oasis-less years. That, I regret.
“Liam’s work is just an Oasis cover band, I would scoff,” when someone would tell me to listen to it — as if I wasn’t a huge Oasis fan (or someone who had willingly paid to watch actual Oasis tribute bands).
Have I mentioned that I was a bit of a wanker, at times, in the 2010s?
What I’ve now come to realize is that the most tragic outcome of this choice was that I was denying myself the continuation of the Oasis story.
Stay with me here.
You see, bands may split, but music continues, and as long as the creative forces behind those groups continue to create, then the art of that band also continues.
It’s not that solo and new projects/bands don’t also have a creative arch that is separate from the original, but they also are part of the original band’s story. So, for instance, I believe that Wings can be considered part of the Beatles (I promise this is my last Beatles reference this article) story, as well as being something on its own.
Following that logic, Liam and Noel’s Oasis-gap-years work needs to be thought of the same way. The Oasis Sonimatic Universe, let’s call it.
To flush this theory out more would require a post of its own, so to bring it back to the topic at hand, I may still be a wanker, but it’s no longer because I restrict myself from listening to Liam’s post-Oasis work now. In fact, I may have come around to the shocking realization that Liam’s non-Oasis work might be better than Noel’s.
I know, right?
Don’t get me wrong, I still love HFBs and I still think it’s brilliant work from a brilliant songwriter. However, if you want an understanding of what Oasis might have sounded like had they not broken up taken a break, then you’re going to get a better understanding listening to Liam than Noel, I think.
That’s especially the case with Beady Eye, a band that I inexplicably ignored at the time it was active. I was unable to get over my, I don’t know, hurt, that Oasis was done to appreciate that a band featuring four previous members of Oasis, including the, you know, lead singer, might be of interest to an Oasis fan.
Did I mention my I-was-a-wanker-then theory?
Now, in my defence, Liam didn’t make it easy to move forward in a spirit of mutual respect and understanding back then. This is Liam we are talking about, after all and Beady Eye’s debut album leads off with the song Four Letter Word.
A song that contains the following lyrics.
The battle’s on and so is the prize
I don’t know what it is I’m feelin’
A four letter word really gets my meaning
Nothing ever lasts forever
Look, the song could be about romantic love falling apart. A surface reading of it would certainly point in that direction, but, delivered as it is, by the man that is delivering it (at the time it was delivered), it could also be seen as an angry man telling his older brother to go fuck himself.
Since it’s my theory that approximately 50% of Liam’s solo work was him talking to Noel (at various levels of consciousness), that’s always been my take on the song, anyway.
NOTHING EVER LASTS FOREVER. NOTHING EVER LASTS FOREVER. NOTHING EVER LASTS FOREVER…
Yes, Liam. Indeed. We get it. Oasis didn’t last forever.
Or did it?
Cynical thoughts about money grabs and tired jokes about punch ups killing it all in the rehearsal (no one hates anyone enough to turn away from the kind of money we are talking here) aside, the reunion tour isn’t likely the end of the Oasis story.
I suspect they will continue to be a band for, well, probably for the rest of their musical careers. Maybe not without more breaks — in fact, probably not without more breaks — but probably forever. Possibly, even, to create new Oasis music. The precedent has been set and the market has been proven. The nothing that is lasting forever is the break-up, not the band.
Beyond even that, however, the story of Oasis, the sonic narrative, the musical power of it, never went away. Those who loved the music kept loving it and finding new ways to experience it. They found new ways to appreciate it, and they shared it with new fans, who then heard it for the first time. That’s how music works and it’s why we love it.
The brothers also kept creating new material and much of it is good. Damn good. As stated above, that’s all part of the Oasis story now and if you failed to discover all or some of it, then do yourself a favour and do so.
Liam’s sounds like it was a literal continuation of Oasis (Let’s be clear about this: that is a good thing). Flick of the Finger could be a track on Standing on the Shoulder of Giants. Once is every bit the sing-along masterpiece that the more famous Wonderwall is. The previously mentioned Four Letter word is a certified banger. To name just a few examples.
Noel’s stuff is a bit more challenging. It stretches the boundaries, but is worth the investment. Council Skies is a brilliant record, full stop. It doesn’t not sound like Oasis, but it doesn’t sound exactly like it either, you know? And that, also, is a good thing.
Taken together, both continued the Oasis story and added to it. That would have been true with or without the reunion, but now that we know we are going to get some more of them together, it’s time we collectively started to appreciate what they did apart a little more.
I know I have. Ironically, I’ve been listening to more of their non-Oasis work than Oasis-proper since they announced the reunion. It’s like the reunion gave me permission to love it even more than I already did.
So, sorry, Liam, I’m going to have to disagree with you. The music did last forever.
And it will last forever more.