The album Noel Gallagher played for 20 days straight: “Obsessed”
If there’s one thing Noel Gallagher absolutely loves, it’s being taken by surprise.
It’s also a feature that defines Oasis, being able to do the exact opposite of what anyone is expecting at any given time. Even if it’s as simple as holding an air of unpredictability on stage, or people constantly guessing whether they were going to keep sweet enough to last an entire tour run.
This is also a constant thing in conversations today. Does Liam Gallagher hate his brother? Has Noel Gallagher just had enough? Are they faking their peace so they can endure sharing a stage together one last time? All of this isn’t exactly anything new. But it does give them an everlasting edge that keeps people enticed, because you just don’t know what they’re about to do at any given moment.
This stretches into their musical tastes, too. In fact, whenever one of them discusses another musician, it’s sometimes hard to tell whether they’re praising them or not, like their passion could be seen as genuine appreciation or some kind of complicated aggression regarding anybody else who got it right. Like Morrissey. Although he’s not exactly a shining example of someone whose praise easily follows, Noel once said he had swagger and arrogance in the exact same sentence.
Liam is worse for it, obviously. But Noel has always had a bit of a bite too, just numbed somewhat against the explosiveness of Liam’s. But it’s there, though only when it counts. And only with people whose controversial reputation satisfies his need to satiate both sides of his cynical attitude. Because what’s even more telling about all this is that the one person who seems to be immune to such ambiguities is David Bowie.
Looking at someone like Noel, it’d be easy to guess his favourites. He’s probably like all of us and respects the classics while secretly knowing the Berlin trilogy was him at his best, him at his most creatively free. But what he also loves is how much Bowie could quite literally spawn out of nowhere and take you by surprise all over again. This was the case in 2013 with Bowie’s The Next Day – his first release in ten years at the time.
But what’s especially funny about this was that Noel wasn’t just taken by surprise musically. It literally came out of nowhere, to him at least, and was only brought to his attention by his wife, who charged in one day going on about a new song. “I came downstairs and my missus, Sara, said, ‘David Bowie’s got a new single out,’” he recalled.
“I’m like, ‘Are you sure it wasn’t ‘Heroes’?’ She shoots back: ‘I know what fucking ‘Heroes’ sounds like and it isn’t that!” he continued. “Nothing will match the jaw-dropping moment of going online and playing ‘The Stars (Are Out Tonight)’ for the first time. I’m lying on my bed listening to it, get to the end and think, ‘Hang on, it can’t be that good, I’ve got to listen to it again!’ I must have played the album 20 days in a row when it came out. I obsessed over it.”
