How Liam Gallagher nearly persuaded Paul McCartney to play on an Oasis track
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Credit: Alamy
Mick Jagger’s problem with Oasis
Surprisingly, Mick Jagger never connected with the Britpop movement despite the similarities between the bands of the day and his era. While many bands contributed to the emergence of Britpop, Manchester icons Oasis were at the eye of the storm, and The Rolling Stones frontman had a particular problem with their live shows.
There wasn’t anybody more prominent than Oasis in Britain throughout the 1990s, and the gatekeepers of British rock ‘n’ roll were not willing to greet them with welcoming arms. Instead, the Gallagher brothers were regularly chastised by elder statesmen who reacted tempestuously to the acidic tongues of the Mancunians.
It wasn’t just Jagger who took offence at Oasis. The band’s ultimate heroes, The Beatles, also partook in insulting the group. George Harrison savagely quipped: “The music lacks depth, and the singer Liam is a pain, the rest of the band don’t need him”. Meanwhile, Paul McCartney added: “They’re derivative and they think too much of themselves. They mean nothing to me.”
Jagger’s complaint of Oasis was essentially to do with their live show, and the lack of movement from Liam Gallagher was a source of confusion for The Stones frontman. Jagger is a firm believer that rock ‘n’ roll has to be packaged in a certain way, and Gallagher doesn’t fit his mould. Jagger thinks a singer has to be the life and soul of a party who should be buzzing with energy throughout the concert, an objective the Oasis frontman failed to fulfil.
In an interview with Absolute Radio in 2010, Jagger praised the success of Kings of Leon and put this down to their killer arena show which he believed was the biggest downfall of Oasis. “Well that’s what they do, they don’t move – that doesn’t mean to say they don’t connect – they do connect sometimes, sometimes they’re not always good ways,” he explained.
Jagger continued: “What was that famous story when they were in New York, and they didn’t think the New York audience was loud enough, and they said something like ‘You’re rubbish’ or something, ‘New York, you’re a load of crap’ or something like that – which is not what you do anywhere really, especially in New York.”
This incident wasn’t the only time Jagger directed negativity towards Oasis, and he critiqued them in the ’90s for similar reasons. “You can’t dance to it, the new album’s impossible,” he said about their third album, Be Here Now, in 1997.
Ultimately, this is a stumbling block that stopped Jagger from appreciating the work of Oasis. It’s a golden rule for him that a singer must be full of vigour, where the Manchester natives let him down.
Even though Liam Gallagher’s style didn’t get Jagger’s approval, he’s likely not bothered. Furthermore, not only did audiences find his work infectious back then, but he’s still flying high as a solo artist, and he’s made a whole new generation of teenagers once again try to emulate him.
