Noel Gallagher vs jazz

Noel Gallagher’s music is heavily entrenched within the world of rock. When you listen to the eruption that is Oasis, you’re met with big choruses, eccentric guitar lines, and the kind of vocals that leave your head ringing. Noel himself described his brother Liam’s vocals as “ten shots of tequila on a Friday”, which makes it evident he wants to pack energy into his music and make fans feel something.

While that may be his aim, he also doesn’t approve of music that achieves this in a haphazard way, which is why he takes umbrage with jazz. When discussing genres of music that he doesn’t like, Noel admitted that he felt jazz was too chaotic on all fronts.

“I’ve got a broad taste in music. I’m still struggling with jazz,” he said, “I mean, what is it all about? Four guys on stage enjoying themselves more than anybody else in the audience, all playing the wrong notes at the same time. ‘But that’s jazz’. Alright, is that what they’re calling it now? ‘Cuz it used to be called shit when I was growing up.”

Phil Collins vs early rock ‘n’ roll

Rock ‘n’ roll has been around for so long now, and has taken so many different forms, that it’s hard to pin down exactly what version of the genre people are referring to when they mention it.

Musicians like Elvis Presley popularised the style, but prior to him, there were a lot of artists making the same. While Phil Collins doesn’t dismiss the importance of such musicians, it was a style of music he could never get on board with.

“My brother was eight or nine years older and he was always listening to Radio Luxembourg which played Bill Haley, Eddie Cochran, stuff like that, which didn’t interest me at all,” he said, “I never ever liked that music, but when I started playing seriously, the English beat thing was just happening, The Shadows and bands like that.”

Gene Simmons vs hip-hop

When Gene Simmons was talking about the bands Kiss modelled themselves on, he admitted that creating a unified look (in other words, faces caked in paint) was inspired by The Beatles, and with that unification came creative freedom.

“We also took pride in having the same freedom The Beatles had,” said the bassist, “Their philosophy was, ‘No matter what kind of music we do, it’s still The Beatles’. That’s what was amazing about them… The Beatles were not trapped in that way. They could do music hall, psychedelia, anything, and they did. Yet somehow it always sounded like The Beatles.”

With such an affinity for creative freedom, you would think that Simmons had an open mind when it came to music, and for the most part, he did, but the buck stopped at rap. When talking about hip-hop, Simmons wasn’t afraid to highlight just how little he thought of the genre. “I’m looking forward to the death of rap,” he said, “I’m looking forward to music coming back to lyrics and melody, instead of just talking.”

Bob Dylan vs rock ‘n’ roll

While Bob Dylan didn’t unilaterally hate rock ‘n’ roll, he did despise what the genre became. While this style of music has innovative origins, once it proved a commercial success, you had bands who were just trying to outdo one another.

This meant bigger distortion, bigger hair, and a bigger image, all of which lacked nuance and led to a version of rock music that Dylan couldn’t stand.

His religious affiliation also played a part in his disdain towards this version of the sound, to the extent that during a show in Arizona, when a born-again Bob Dylan was singing about Christ, the crowd started to make their disapproval known. Bored of this unwanted feedback, Dylan retorted, “If you want rock ‘n’ roll, you can go see Kiss and rock ‘n’ roll all the way down to the pit”.

John Lydon vs Punk

In the same way Frankenstein grew to hate his monster, John Lydon quickly became disassociated with the genre of music he helped pioneer. While it wasn’t the sound of it that he had disdain towards, Lydon felt that a lot of the bands which came after the Sex Pistols lacked authenticity, and didn’t get what his initial vision was.

When you read his comments on the punk bands that followed in his footsteps, it’s rare you’ll find a good word said, to the extent that he borderline hates the genre.

“Early ’70s Britain was a very depressing place. It was completely run-down, there was trash on the streets, total unemployment; just about everybody was on strike,” he said, “Everybody was brought up with an education system that told you point blank that if you came from the wrong side of the tracks… then you had no hope in hell and no career prospects at all. Out of all that came pretentious moi, and the Sex Pistols and then a whole bunch of copycat wankers after us.”