10 artists that Noel Gallagher hates the most
Noel Gallagher isn’t a man known for mincing his words all that often. If the man doesn’t like something, he will tell everyone why, as evidenced by his bitter rivalries over the years. Ever since the 1990s, though, Noel has become a lot more honest than he used to be, and his list of least favourite artists has grown to be fairly extensive.
From some of the biggest names in music to some of his contemporaries in Britpop, Gallagher has been ruthless when tearing his fellow musicians through the mud. Though everyone might not be an expert in their craft by any stretch, Gallagher’s commentary is sometimes more entertaining than his music, relying on his silver tongue to reprimand any artist who isn’t making music up to his standards.
Gallagher isn’t picky about which genres he’s attacking, either. From pop, metal, and standard rock and roll, Noel has voiced his opinion on some of the giants and landed himself in hot water over the years for his disparaging comments among a huge fanbase. While he might have made amends with some of the artists in question, that doesn’t mean his opinion of the music has changed.
With over a decade in the rearview since the split of Oasis, Gallagher has still not found anyone worthy of replacing them, especially not from this lot. It’s hard enough to try to make a name in the music community without trolls, but if Noel Gallagher suddenly stopped taking younger bands to task, there’s a chance the world could stop turning.
10 artists that Noel Gallagher hates the most:
10. Sam Smith
The state of music today is a different beast in comparison to when Noel was lighting up the charts with Oasis. The science behind getting a hit is much more calculated these days, and not every band can stomp onto the charts sounding like The Beatles. Although Gallagher has admitted to liking a lot of newer acts, he did feel the need to drag Sam Smith through the mud when talking about the charts.
When discussing some of his favourite acts going today, Noel got sidetracked and mentioned what a sorry state the charts have been through the 2010s, saying: “Music has become quite fractured, and chart music is dominated by pop. Pop music is alright if pop stars are cool but most of the pop stars today are fucking idiots.” Noel then proceeded to misgender Smith when pressed about his opinions, continuing, “Just look at him”.
Outside of British pop artists, Noel would go to lament about the sad state of affairs the charts have gone into when Taylor Swift is one of the biggest stars in the world. While rock music hasn’t had much airtime on the charts in a long time, Noel isn’t looking to roll over and feed what the chart algorithms are giving him, either.
9. Maroon 5
Oasis’s wide range of influence isn’t limited to just rock and roll. Throughout the years, everyone from the members of The Killers to Metallica have shouted the praises of Oasis for how they changed the world of rock in the late ‘90s. Granted, there was a particular pop group that Gallagher could have done without inspiring.
During a huge industry party in Los Angeles, Noel remembered coming across the bass player of Maroon 5 and being less than thrilled that he had anything to do with them, telling Jim Jefferies, “He said ‘I’m the bass player in Maroon 5’ and I went ‘Fucking shit! How the fuck have you gotten Maroon 5 from what I’m doing. Get the hell out of my sight.’” Given that lousy start, the rest of the evening was bound to get awkward once Noel went to another party.
After trying to find a restroom, Noel ran into the same guy once again and reprimanded him about what he was even still hanging around with the rest of his crew, only to be told that the party had relocated to the poor bass player’s house. Despite being one of the main cornerstones for him starting a group, the sharp contrast between a song like ‘Wonderwall’ and ‘Moves Like Jagger’ feels like both songs are from different planets.
8. The Kaiser Chiefs
The British music scene of the 2000s was still living in the house Oasis built. Outside of Oasis having to recover from their loss of momentum on Be Here Now, artists like Kasabian had popped up in their place, mining similar styles but with their own unique flavours. Although Noel had love for acts like Kasabian, The Kaiser Chiefs always got on his bad side.
Though songs like ‘Never Miss a Beat’ and ‘Ruby’ got onto the charts, Gallagher thought the band was completely derivative and were merely chasing a trend instead of actually pushing rock and roll forward. When asked about his opinion of the group, he dubbed them “wankers”, going on to say: “The worst thing about them is that they’re not very good. They play dress-up and sit on top of an apex of meaninglessness. They don’t mean anything to anybody apart from their fucking ugly girlfriends.”
Around the same time that Oasis were going through their internal tailspin in 2009, The Kaiser Chiefs persisted, riding the momentum of their hits and gaining a decent following on the charts at a time when rock bands were starting to wane. If Noel had thought that music was looking too dire during his heyday, it doesn’t look like the passage of time made things any better for him.
7. Harry Styles
The beginning of Oasis coincided with the glory years of the boy bands. As much as Oasis might have notched singles on the charts, everyone from Take That to NSync to The Backstreet Boys were winning the hearts of teens all around the world. Once the phenomenon started all over again with the rise of One Direction, Noel had absolutely no time when Harry Styles decided to go solo.
Though Styles’ new artistic direction borrowed heavily from classic rock heavyweights like David Bowie, Noel was not buying it for one second. As Styles emulated Bowie by wearing dresses during photoshoots, Noel had some questions about the sausage that got made on Styles’s albums, telling Yahoo, “People of my age have let themselves go, they’re fat, balding idiots with fading tattoos. They sit in their garage and write shite like ‘Sign of the Times’ for Harry Styles. Which, quite frankly, my cat could have written in about 10 minutes.”
Regardless of the jabs, members of One Direction have expressed their love for Oasis, even using them as inspiration for some of their recent albums. For as much mugging for the camera that Styles tries to do with every song he sings, all Noel sees is a facade of what used to be classic artists.
6. Radiohead
Radiohead fell into a weird middle area when it came to Britpop. Though their album The Bends was widely popular among fans who bought their fair share of Blur CDs, Ok Computer was a send-off for the glory years of music, as Thom Yorke predicted a future where everyone was more subservient to technology than ever before. Yorke may have been right in lots of ways, but Noel had no time for the whiny nature of the songs.
As Oasis were starting their comeback tour for Standing on The Shoulder of Giants, Gallagher couldn’t be arsed about Radiohead’s new material. When watching their documentary Meeting People is Easy, Noel was disgusted that the human cyborgs didn’t enjoy being on the road, remarking, “They’re stuck in the back of limousines telling you how bored they are being in a group. If you don’t enjoy it, retire. Do us all a favour. Or move to a mansion in Oxford so we don’t have to listen to you bleeding on about how shit your life is.”
Then again, Noel didn’t have tolerance for that style of songwriting even with his favourite acts, writing ‘Live Forever’ as a pseudo response to Kurt Cobain’s depressive songs with Nirvana. Music is supposed to be about having a good time for Noel, and anything less than that is not to be tolerated.
5. Blur
The feud that existed between Blur and Oasis during the ‘90s is the stuff of rock legend at this point. Even though Blur might have been roped into the Britpop train, the clear dividing lines came when they started a chart war with Oasis, releasing their single on the exact same day that Oasis were releasing their next smash hit. Although both bands didn’t offer their best foot forward, Noel walked away with a fairly low opinion of his rivals.
When talking to NY Rock, Noel said his piece on every member of the band, recalling, “Damon Albarn is a fucking knobber. And his guitarist – who I thought was all right – seems to think that he’s some intelligent superhuman being, the fucking idiot. I never met the drummer, and the bassist, who I first didn’t like and thought he was a c***, turned out to be quite all right.” There was a line in terms of insults, and Noel crossed it when he wished that both Albarn and Graham Coxon would catch AIDs, after which he apologised for being insensitive.
As the years have passed, though, Noel has actually eased up on his wrath, collaborating with Albarn on the track ‘We Got the Power’ from the Gorillaz album Humanz and even covering the Blur song ‘Beetlebum’ when playing live with them. Noel isn’t one to forgive and forget, but he does have the foresight to own up when he feels he got something wrong.
4. The Beach Boys
Amid the British Invasion drifting towards American shores, The Beach Boys were being just as innovative as their English counterparts. As The Beatles were breaking down barriers left and right, Brian Wilson’s teenage hymns to God lit a fire under the belly of his fellow artists, with Pet Sounds becoming Wilson’s magnum opus. Even though Pet Sounds played a hand in inspiring the Fab Four, no one’s going to find such inspiration with Noel.
When speaking to Mark Hoppus about some of their favourite albums, Noel is disgusted when the Blink-182 frontman brings up Pet Sounds, retorting, “I think they’re the most overrated group of all time. The only reason they’re in any way successful is because they’re next to The Beatles in alphabetical order, and Paul McCartney likes them. That’s it. Just barbershop quartet music.”
Whereas Wilson was looking to create layers of different harmonies stacked on top of each other, Noel’s music was always about lulling the listener into a bit of a daydream in their headphones where they could forget about their problems. There might be some intricate vocal work done on The Beach Boys’ greatest hits, but as far as Noel is concerned, no one should have to think that hard to enjoy the music.
3. Phil Collins
Noel Gallagher’s mission at the beginning of Oasis was to stomp out any other artists that have come in their wake. From the various dance music that was going on at the time to the manufactured pop music, Noel wanted to show the world what could be done if he got a hold of the pop format. That meant no more cookie-cutter artists, no safe music, and definitely nothing involving Phil Collins.
In the clips taken from the Supersonic documentary, Noel can be heard talking about needing to stamp out everything else in the charts, saying, “We’re gonna get rid of Phil Collins and Sting — junk food music, McDonald’s music — we’ve got to get in the charts and stamp them out. I want the severed head of Phil Collins in my fridge by the end of this decade. And if I haven’t, I’ll be a failure.”
The feud only escalated when Noel did an interview referring to Collins as the antichrist, which led to Collins wanting absolutely nothing to do with anything the Gallaghers did from that point forward. Despite warranting a passing mention in his book, there are most likely not going to be any collaborations between Noel and Collins on the next High Flying Birds track.
2. ALL heavy metal bands
Noel Gallagher tended to have a very specific formula for getting to the top of the charts. As he started to mine his own songs, he always cited the same handful of bands as an influence on him, from The Beatles to The Stone Roses to The Smiths. When asked about his tastes outside of the classics, Gallagher swore off any association with any heavy metal bands.
Though he did have an affinity with some of the forerunners of the genre like Led Zeppelin, Noel found both metal musicians and their fans to be absolutely insufferable. After tearing jazz through the mud, Noel said he never had the time for heavy metal, calling the genre “Goth music. There’s a reason why they slit their wrists, really. All that nihilism, whatever the hell it’s called. But apart from that, I have a very broad taste in music.”
Despite Noel not liking heavy metal, heavy metal certainly loves him, with Lars Ulrich waxing poetic about Oasis time and time again and often featuring him as a guest on his radio show. For all of the classic metal that has come and gone over the years, it’s going to have to take something really special to get a rise out of ‘The Chief’.
1. Liam Gallagher
Most people who are even passive Oasis fans knew that it was building to this. Throughout the storied history of the Britpop legends, the rivalry between Noel and his brother Liam has been fodder for the tabloids, taking every chance he can to talk trash about his sibling. While Noel broke off all contact with his brother once Oasis broke up, it’s a miracle they even made it over a decade playing music together at all.
From the beginning of Oasis, the bitter rivalry between Noel and Liam left the band hanging in the balance more than a few times. While Liam usually played the role of the true rock star of the group, Noel would constantly be trying to keep the band on track, even leaving the group on a few occasions in the ‘90s when he was convinced that any future with the band would be pointless.
The biggest indication of his hatred for his brother came with ‘Wibbling Rivalry’, a recording of both Gallaghers having a violent argument during an interview, which actually managed to see some chart success in their ‘90s heyday. With a decade past since their breakup, Noel hasn’t grown fonder of his brother either, confirming that Oasis reunions are not in the cards at the moment. Though Liam might be eager to get the show on the road, Noel has no desire to work with the man who is the equivalent of “a man with a fork in a world of soup” (via SPIN).
