“Trying to make it small”: the band Noel Gallagher called the opposite of Oasis
What I find most compelling about an artist is when they create outside commercially refined norms. It’s when you hear something truly transgressive, something that seems to appear out of nowhere, fully formed and unapologetic. That’s the kind of music that sticks. The moment an artist loudly declares their ambition to be the biggest band in the world, as Oasis did from the very start, you have to accept that a fair bit of contrived nonsense will follow in service of that goal. Artistic success and commercial success rarely coexist peacefully, and there’s something refreshing, almost noble, about an artist who seems to reject that goal entirely.
Noel Gallagher once captured this contrast perfectly, saying, “[Babyshambles are] kinda the opposite of Oasis in a way, in that we were trying to make it big, and [they] are trying to make it small.” And he’s right; Babyshambles never sounded like a band trying to climb the charts. They sounded like a band barely holding themselves together. But that scrappiness, that chaotic edge, is what makes them interesting. There’s a distinct difference between crafting songs to dominate stadiums and writing songs that sound like they were scribbled in a pub bathroom at 3am.
One chases mass appeal, the other barely considers the listener at all. And maybe that’s where artistic integrity really thrives, not in the scale of the ambition or brotherly beef, but in the refusal to compromise your sound for anyone else. There’s a weird kind of purity in that. You get the sense Babyshambles would’ve been making the same music whether anyone was listening or not.
Clearly, there is a pretty weighty bias forming here, coming from a teenager who worshipped everything Pete Doherty touched and who thought Oasis were total shite. But there’s something about Babyshambles’ complete disregard for polish that still feels more honest than anything Oasis ever put out. Where Oasis felt engineered for singalongs and festival fields, Babyshambles sounded like they might fall apart mid-song and often did. But that unpredictability gave the music life. It was rough and often incoherent, but it never felt like it was made with radio play in mind.
Maybe that’s the real difference between the two. Oasis knew exactly what they wanted, which was to be huge. And they got there, but not without diluting the very thing that once made them exciting. Babyshambles, on the other hand, never seemed interested in playing that game. They didn’t care if the edges were frayed or the vocals were slurred (often, Doherty couldn’t help that either due to excessive alcohol/drug consumption). But if anything, he leaned into it. There’s a kind of freedom in that approach, a commitment to the mess, to making something that feels lived-in rather than carefully produced. And maybe that’s what artistic integrity looks like sometimes. It’s not about chasing perfection but mastering your own chaos.
To be honest, I’m not really a fan of Babyshambles these days, either. The romanticising of drug and alcohol abuse feels like an amoral distraction rather than a reflection of Doherty’s talent. Honestly, he’s a far better writer now that he’s sober and a much more approachable interviewee, too!
