“Shit anyway”: The 1970s classic rock band Noel Gallagher called overrated
Getting into the mind of a rock star is a tricky task, particularly if you don’t have a gifted psychologist lurking around. In the case of Noel Gallagher, though, you don’t typically need an expert to guess what the Oasis songwriter is thinking; invariably, he will tell you.
From his drug habits to his opinions on every other band under the sun, Gallagher always tends to wear his heart on his sleeve. Particularly during Oasis’ hedonistic heyday in the mid-1990s, the songwriter could scarcely open his mouth without some shocking comments crawling out, ripe for the front pages of the music press and, in many cases, tabloid sensationalism.
One of Gallagher’s favourite pastimes, for instance, is slagging off fellow artists. Over the years, everybody from Kaiser Chiefs to Lewis Capaldi has faced the ire of the Oasis guitarist, and during the days of Britpop, he, of course, fostered a rather antagonistic relationship with Blur. While it would be easy to suggest that the Blur and Oasis rivalry was concocted by the press, the Gallagher brothers certainly helped it along with their arsenal of cutting comments.
Throughout his life, in fact, there have only been a handful of groups that have remained in Gallagher’s favour. Unsurprisingly, one of those groups is The Beatles, who acted as the core inspiration for virtually every aspect of Oasis’ existence, right down to their haircuts. Throughout the band’s discography, Noel Gallagher regularly drew inspiration from the Fab Four’s output and even covered a few classic songs.
Following that Beatles obsession to its natural conclusion, you might assume that once Oasis ran out of material to be inspired by, they would move on to Jeff Lynne’s Electric Light Orchestra, a band that claimed to be picking up “where The Beatles left off”.
That was the idea that was put to Noel Gallagher during an interview back in the 1990s, but it wasn’t one that the songwriter gave much credit to.
“Once we’ve stopped ripping off Beatles tunes, we’ll do ones by the Stones or summat,” he declared, unapologetic about the idea of Oasis borrowing from other artists, “and then The Who”.
As for Jeff Lynne’s group, Gallagher couldn’t find much to borrow from, frankly stating, “I don’t like ELO. ELO were shit anyway, weren’t they?”
That abrupt and rather harsh dismissal was not out of character for Gallagher, particularly during that time period, so his dislike of ELO is not all that surprising. After all, the expansive ambition at the heart of Lynne’s outfit was pretty far removed from the grassroots rock and roll rebellion of Oasis. Nevertheless, given Gallagher’s adoration of The Beatles, you might assume he could see the appeal in ELO, who imbued a similar spirit to the Fab Four’s more experimental years.
Whether or not Gallagher’s opinion of ELO changed as he matured is a topic that is up for debate. Looking at certain High Flying Birds efforts, though, it doesn’t take much of a stretch to connect them with the sound and inspiration of Jeff Lynne, with ‘Easy Now’ being one such example. In the end, then, maybe Gallagher did end up ripping off ELO, it just took him longer to appreciate their genius than he first thought.
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