Noel Gallagher on the album that will teach you how to play rock and roll
There are few guarantees within the music industry and no infallible formula for creating hit singles. However, if you are looking to craft a hit rock and roll anthem, Noel Gallagher is the person you should be speaking to. Over the course of his long and illustrious career, the Oasis songwriter has penned a wide range of utterly iconic songs and become a regular feature of the singles charts in the process. On top of that, Gallagher has always been open about his methods and tips for songwriting – namely, theft.
Well, theft is a strong word, but Gallagher has certainly used a lot of ‘inspiration’ from other artists and songs within his own work. During the heyday of Oasis, at the peak of Britpop infamy, the band were often accused of plagiarism, lifting riffs from the likes of The Beatles, T-Rex, Nirvana, and even Stevie Wonder. To his credit, the songwriter has always been open about the artistic influences he has taken from other artists over the years, viewing music as an ever-expanding repertoire of sounds that can be manipulated for new generations and genres.
Inevitably, this liberal approach to music-making has gotten Gallagher in hot water over the years, attracting various royalty lawsuits and battles. For instance, the aforementioned Motown legend Stevie Wonder caused the Oasis track ‘Step Out’ to be removed from the tracklisting of (What’s The Story) Morning Glory after he pointed out that the chorus was nearly identical to ‘Uptight (Everything’s Alright)’. As such, Gallagher coveted the inspiration given to him by more obscure artists, as they tended to be less likely to sue for royalties.
During a 1998 Oasis interview, Gallagher delivered some advice to budding young songwriters, revealing the secret to playing and writing rock and roll records. That advice, once again, was centred around using all the inspiration available to you. “If you want to write a good rock song, go back to those old ’60s Nuggets albums,” the songwriter shared. “And the geezers are all bound to be dead or mad or sold their publishing for two bob to some bloke with a piece of straw in his mouth.”
Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era was the title of a compilation album curated by future Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye and released by Elektra in 1972. The aim of the record was to shed light on the various obscure and compelling releases from the age of 1960s garage rock and psychedelia.
With few exceptions, the tracklisting of the compilation – which went on to spawn multiple different volumes over the years – was composed of impossibly obscure and largely forgotten DIY bands that only ever released a handful of singles, yet their quality in performance and songwriting cannot be disputed.
Learning to play along with Nuggets would likely give a budding young musician a good education in rock, particularly given the simplicity of many of the included tracks. However, Gallagher’s advice comes from the fact that the songs included on the album are obscure enough that not many people would notice if you ripped them off. Certainly, any plagiarism would be much more difficult to spot than if you were to rip off, say, The Beatles.
“I’ve got a load of them records at my house, and I’m sampling them all up,” the Oasis songwriter shared. “Let’s do it, you and me. A fucking triple album. Call it something bizarre, and we’ll be away.” Just how many of the songs from Nuggets ended up forming the basis of Oasis or High Flying Birds records is unknown, which probably supports Gallagher’s claims that nobody would notice if he used them for ‘inspiration’.
