The Greatest Mentors: The five musicians who gave the world to Noel Gallagher
There are very few artists in the world who manage to divide a room quite like Noel Gallagher.
Even though he would happily claim to be one of the best things to ever happen to the music world when Oasis first debuted, that kind of self-belief usually comes off as massive arrogance and more than an inflated ego for someone who doesn’t understand him or sees any number of his interviews out of context. But the only reason why he was able to bring so many people together was that he knew what kind of shoulders to stand on when he was making his first masterpieces.
The entire concept for Oasis didn’t come together by accident, and by the time that Noel began making their first records, he had already spent years internalising his favourite music. There were bound to be some clear inspirations that he pulled from that the rest of the world still isn’t over, but when you look at the inner workings of his music, there’s a lot more going on than strictly being a love letter to classic rock.
He grew up in the era that birthed the alternative movement in England, and he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind about bands that were the greatest in the country. His taste was fashioned more towards the greatest names of the pre-Britpop years, and there were always people from the punk scene who influenced him just as much as the British Invasion whenever he picked up a guitar to play.
But this isn’t just about picking the five best bands in his record collection or worrying about the ones with the most stable body of work. Noel was more interested in taking bits and pieces from every single one of his influences, and if it weren’t for people like this, chances are he would have still been slogging it out trying to come up with the next earth-shattering song in Manchester.
The five artists who gave the world Noel Gallagher:
Burt Bacharach
Anyone who’s seen a half-decent Noel Gallagher interview will tell you that the man isn’t one to be sophisticated. He’s more than happy to drag anyone through the mud if he thinks they deserve it, even if it means taking on some of the biggest pop giants in the world that he is sharing the charts with. But even if he claimed to be one of the biggest punks in Britpop, every bad boy does tend to have a sensitive side once you start breaking out the Burt Bacharach tapes.
Some of the finest melodies on Earth are Bacharach’s handiwork, and it wasn’t like Noel saw it as below his pay grade by any stretch. Bacharach had that knack for creating melodies that made people’s hearts dance, and when Noel wasn’t completely ripping him off on tunes like ‘Half the World Away’, a lot of his strange, jazzy chords usually came from him trying out some new chord that he picked up from Bacharach along the way.
That does somewhat go against the reputation of Oasis being one of the most unhinged rock and roll bands the world had ever seen, but it was never about making deliberately caustic music at all. The song is what mattered at the end of the day, and even if Noel wasn’t writing for Oasis, he would be trying to craft the perfect song that could hold up to tracks like ‘I Say A Little Prayer’ and ‘This Guy’s In Love With You’.
The La’s
When Noel was first getting into the music business, it looked a lot different from what he had grown up with during the British invasion. Even when people like David Bowie and Marc Bolan were ruling the charts, there was always the more flashy 1980s around the corner that made everything look a little bit more artificial than it was supposed to be. And while Kurt Cobain lit a fire under everyone’s ass on the other side of the pond, Noel had that revelation listening to The La’s debut album for the first time.
He had already become a fan of bands like The Smiths by this point, but Lee Mavers’s knack for pop songs was the first time a song that someone created felt within reach to him. He was never going to reach the same levels as someone like Johnny Marr whenever he played lead guitar, but the idea of playing amongst a bunch of scousers like Mavers was doing was going to be great, especially if they were capable of making tunes as great as ‘Way Out’ and ‘I Can’t Sleep’ in their spare time.
The lightbulb moment for Manchester and Noel’s little brother would come with The Stone Roses, but in terms of songwriting, a lot of those early La’s songs fit perfectly within ‘The Chief’s style. Mavers didn’t end up getting all the way to album number two, but if you look at the kind of track record that Noel set for himself, it was almost as if he was put into the rock and roll scene to finish what Mavers had started.
Paul Weller
There was never a second when Noel took the rock and roll journey for granted. Everyone usually only gets one shot at the big time, and he was going to make sure that he used up every single bit of his time in the spotlight to write the best tunes that he could. But if his idols taught him how to write something that mattered to people, Paul Weller was the one who taught him that he didn’t necessarily need to give everything up just because he split up his old band back in 2009.
The Jam never got back together, but Weller was still looking to make music no matter what the cost. Even if he would occasionally rub elbows with Noel on the touring circuit, the most important part of what Weller did usually involved going into new territory, always trying to find that one hook that hadn’t been discovered yet and never once thinking about going back to the same ho-hum groove that The Jam were doing on their last legs.
Noel might still blast some of the greatest hits that The Jam ever made, but even throughout his solo career, Weller was the role model that still seemed to be in the game for all the right reasons. A lot of people spend so much time in the music business that they forget what it’s all about, but Weller was the perfect example of what a grown-up could sound like after years of playing rock and roll.
Sex Pistols
Being one of the greatest bands of the 1990s definitely involved feeling a bit nostalgic every now and again. Noel was the first person to say that he loved the 1960s and 1970s eras of music, and though he would gladly put himself in the same company as Steve Marriott and John Lennon, he made every one of his songs count when it came time to show his stuff. But being that confident and brash in interviews also meant taking a few cues from what John Lydon was doing every single day.
Because while the Sex Pistols didn’t have to get by on their superior performance ability, what mattered to Noel was the energy that they created. Every kid from his generation could tell you where they were the first time that they heard Nevermind the Bollocks, and even when listening to tunes like ‘Anarchy in the UK’ years later, Noel felt that there wasn’t a greater statement that any band could have made about the state of the world.
Lydon’s baby flamed out far too quickly for anyone to really realise what was going on, but aside from Noel’s infatuation with them, Liam’s snotty delivery is half the reason why Oasis’ songs sounded the way that they did. This was the sound of Lennon and Lydon smashing up against one another, and for a kid like Noel, nothing sounded cooler than someone throwing caution to the wind with nothing but a blown-out speaker and a lot of anger rushing through their veins.
The Beatles
Yes, I know it’s a shocker, but Noel Gallagher is fond of The Beatles. Tune in next week, kids, and I’ll tell you that the sky is blue and that the ocean is wet. In all seriousness, though, a lot of Noel’s love for the Fab Four goes a lot deeper than most people give him credit for. Because, really, what Noel was doing wasn’t just copying the homework of Lennon and McCartney. He was internalising all of those melodies and coming up with his own unique thing.
Sure, a song like ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ does make liberal use of the ‘Imagine’-style piano at the beginning, but a lot of Noel’s greatest tunes flip those classics on their head. He wanted to make songs that lasted for as long as his idols did, and a lot of that involved having that one simple twist in every one of his songs, just like The Beatles did, whether it was throwing backwards music on something or trying out tunes that wouldn’t have been considered normal around that time.
This influence might be one of the most obvious entries on this list, but the reason why Noel always came back to them wasn’t because of him trying to leech off of their greatness. He could write more than his fair share of great tunes on his own, and giving it that Beatles shine was like the final quality inspection test before he showed his tunes to the rest of the band in the rehearsal room.
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