The Noel Gallagher vocals Liam called “one of the best ever”
For a long time, brotherly love was far from the first thing that came to mind when looking at Noel and Liam Gallagher. Sure, they could make beautiful music together in Oasis, but the idea of them patting each other on the back for making a fantastic song was usually few and far between in the press. Despite all of the verbal jabs that they could throw at each other and the clever turns of phrase, Liam always had a great deal of respect for what his brother brought to the table every night.
Even when things could get heated with them during the 1990s, Liam’s devotion to his craft was never about trying to one-up his brother every time he was onstage. He knew that ‘The Chief’ had written some legendary songs, and the only way to do them justice was to get all the power he could out of him to spit back at the audience. That worked in small doses but started to show signs of wear and tear once the 2000s began.
But still, Noel was always the one by his brother’s side. He may have had moments where he’d quit the band now and again, but the Standing on the Shoulder of Giants is what kept them together, and that was through Noel and Liam always having each other’s backs. They might not have delivered on every promise they set out to make for themselves, but they did keep their word to give their all to the fans wherever possible.
In the context of their past hits, though, Heathen Chemistry can’t help but feel like a step down. Liam had already tried to write some more and got a halfway decent tune out of the deal, but when the band started incorporating everyone else’s lines into the mix, it felt like they were trying to run before they could walk. The hits were the hits for a reason, but if the band were becoming more of a democracy, that meant getting Noel more time behind the microphone.
Despite not being the frontman, he was still a great shouter alongside Liam, and when his brother heard the original version of the song ‘Force of Nature’, he knew better than to try to put his spin on it, with Noel saying, “I only sung it once. Liam went in there and sung it (then listened to my demo) and said, ‘That’s one of the best fooking vocals I’ve ever heard’. And I was like, ‘Cool. Well, that scuppers the plan for the first single then’”.
If they had gone through and made it a single, though, this could have been Noel’s first proper introduction to the mainstream as a rock and roll vocalist. His voice always seemed catered to the slower songs and the occasional B-side rocker like ‘Step Out’, but if you listen to what he was doing on their covers of ‘Heroes’ or ‘Helter Skelter’, that would have been enough to give him a co-lead vocal alongside Liam half the time.
It’s not like Liam couldn’t return the favour, either. Andy Bell and Gem Archer could understandably be a bit wet behind the ears when writing proper Oasis tunes, but Liam’s ‘Songbird’ was everything that Noel strived to do with acoustic tunes, to the point where he wished that he had found that melody before Liam had got hold of it.
There might be a lot of Beatles comparisons facing the Gallagher brothers, but both of them have managed to influence each other along the way as well. Liam’s solo career is stuffed to the brim with great downtempo material, and while Noel did eventually go experimental, songs like ‘Ballad of the Mighty I’ showed everyone what he could do if he made something a little bit more feral than usual.
And since the brothers have since laid down their arms and started playing together again, who’s to say they can’t bounce ideas off each other again for some new music? It could be an album or even a decent single to commemorate their comeback, but looking at how far they’ve come, they might have the potential to make something even stronger than what they accomplished in the 2000s.
