Noel Gallagher believes The Beach Boys are “the most overrated group of all time”
In the modern world of media training and the direct access social media provides audiences to their favourite bands – and the subsequent censoring that then encourages – Noel Gallagher is a rarity in the music business, remaining totally unafraid of airing opinions that potentially could get him into trouble. The former Oasis man says it how he sees it, and his biggest fans wouldn’t have it any other way.
Gallagher’s vicious tongue has given him a long list of enemies throughout his career, including his own brother from time to time, but it is also a reason why so many find him appealing. Over the years, he’s unleashed hell on everyone from Ed Sheeran to Radiohead, and in the same sentiment, there’s one band he believes to be “the most overrated group of all time”.
Characters such as Noel Gallagher are becoming relics of the past as artists become more robotic and PR-trained. The days of seeing your favourite artist annihilate a group they thought represented an area of music they disagreed with are over. That may well be for the greater good, but there’s something enjoyable sharp about Gallagher. While he occasionally oversteps the mark, ignoring that he’s a true entertainer is impossible.
Gallagher frequently punches up with his barbed insults and goes for those seen as critical darlings or successful enough that his words won’t damage their encompassing careers. Seeing himself as a man of the people, Gallagher takes aim at such musicians like he’s sitting in his local boozer with a pint of lager and a few quid on the pool table, ready and waiting. It makes his decisions to take on some of the giants of the industry all the more entertaining and infuriating.
With that, one group that people unanimously tend to love is The Beach Boys. Of course, their bubblegum surf rock may not be to everybody’s taste, but it’s accepted Pet Sounds is an album that changed contemporary music as we know it. However, Gallagher is a contrarian and isn’t sold on their output.
When his album Who Built The Moon was compared to the work of Brian Wilson during an interview, Gallagher became incensed and took am at the legendary group and their maestro: “Fuckin’ hell—I hate Brian Wilson! And you know what? If there’s a more overrated person in the music business than me, it’s that guy.”
Perhaps the interviewer should have done more research beforehand because Gallagher has previously denounced The Beach Boys. In 2011, he appeared on an episode of Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus’ TV show, Hoppus On Music, and Hoppus wanted to know why he didn’t include any American acts in his list of favourite albums. Of course, his answer roughly pertained to the fact that he could never assimilate his own experience with that of US-based musicians. Oasis had been deeply entrenched in the fabric of Britain, drawing their initial songs from the streets Gallagher and his brother stepped their Adidas shoes on. Looking over to America and seeing anything that he could relate to was a step too far.
Soon enough, the conversation with Hoppus turned to Pet Sounds, which Hoppus claims to have bought over 20 times. “Why? Don’t you think they are the most overrated group of all time?” Gallagher asked. “The only reason that they are anyway successful is because they are next to The Beatles in alphabetical order and Paul McCartney likes them. That’s it. Barbershop quartet music. Fucking rubbish,” he told the Blink 182 singer.
Meanwhile, in 2005, Gallagher somewhat brutally called Wilson “a cabbage”. Speaking to The Age about Jet, he said: “Their new fucking record, man, I’m telling you, I am pretty fucking amazed by. One tune sounds like the Beach Boys. Not that I like the Beach Boys. I fucking hate the Beach Boys – I think Brian Wilson is a cabbage.”
Gallagher’s criticism of Wilson feels hyperbolic, and anyone capable of mining Pet Sounds from their brain deserves to be lauded. It’s something that the Oasis singer finally admitted to himself in 2020 when he spoke on Matt Morgan’s podcast. Gallagher changed his opinion, explaining to the host: “I’m not sure if I should say this, because I’ve spent a life, a musical life, dismissing this fucking group. In a sentence: ‘Not interested. Fucking dogshit. Not having it, not having’”.
“You know what I’ve been listening to,” he explained, “I’ve started listening to, and actually enjoying. The Beach Boys”. As Morgan claims the band to be brilliant, Gallagher continues, “I’m starting to think they might be now”. While saying he had never denied “his songwriting,” Gallagher doubled down on his barbershop quartet insult before admitting The Beach Boys have “about 12 tunes that I really fucking like”. Whether Gallagher has mellowed with age or finally ran out of other people’s opinions to disagree with, so he’s started on his own, we’ll never know. But Brian Wilson looks like he may have finally won the Oasis man over.
