The Oasis song Liam Gallagher compared to trip-hop
Towards the end of 1994, Oasis was on the verge of superstardom. Although they may have been a part of one of the biggest independent labels in England, Noel Gallagher’s songwriting was matched only by the band’s hubris as the best band in the world, talking themselves up like they were the second coming of The Beatles. The band had the tunes to back them up, but Liam Gallagher wasn’t sure about one of their signature anthems.
When working on the first handful of tunes in Rockfield Studios, Noel had been refining his strengths as a songwriter. Since he had been known as one of the most prolific songwriters in the indie scene at the time, Noel was spitting out classic tracks faster than the band could record them, with many classics going onto B-sides.
By the time they made What’s the Story Morning Glory, it felt like the band had grown up by five years within the span of one album. After playing to their punk rock strengths on the previous album, Noel refined his songwriting in the mould of his classic rock heroes, leading to songs like ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ becoming anthems worldwide.
When laying out the songs to his bandmates, though, Noel had given Liam an ultimatum about which song he would sing. According to Noel, Liam could either sing ‘Wonderwall’ or ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’, both of which would become massive staples of the group’s catalogue.
Even though Liam’s signature accent was made for ‘Wonderwall’, Noel remembers his brother not liking it at first, telling NME, “I was so fucked off with him walking off stage and me having to take over and do the gig. I remember thinking, if I’m going to do this, I want a big fucking song to sing. I said, ‘You’re singing one or the other, but not both.’ He hated ‘Wonderwall’. He said it was trip-hop. There speaks a man who’s never heard trip-hop.”
While it’s easy to get caught up in the sounds of trip-hop based on the circling drumbeat of the song, ‘Wonderwall’ is a pure rock and roll bombast from beginning to end. Despite being a sappy ballad from Noel, Liam’s authority when singing it brings a level of rock and roll credibility that it never had before, being openly honest about not being able to verbalise how he feels towards his lover.
After a handful of takes, it became apparent that Liam wasn’t going to let a song with that big a hook slip away; Noel remembers, “He wanted to sing ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’, but it became apparent during the recording that Wonderwall was going to be *the* tune. If I’m being honest, I shouldn’t have sung either of them because I wasn’t really a singer then.”
By sharing vocal duties on both songs, though, fans got two anthems that depicted both faces of what Oasis stood for. On the one hand, there was the sheepish songwriter who could make knockout singles, and on the other was the snarling rock and roller that would bring a punk flair to any song he touched, ballad or otherwise.
