The albums Noel Gallagher said were out of his league
There aren’t many accomplishments in rock history that Noel Gallagher was convinced he couldn’t tackle.
Countless artists have only dreamed of reaching the same heights that he did while he was in Oasis, and despite everyone calling them a flash in the pan at the time, the reason why we’re still talking about them today is because of the craftsmanship Noel put into every single song. He wanted to make songs that would resonate a century later, but the true rock and roll classics were the ones that left Noel dumbfounded as to how anyone could have created them.
Granted, it’s not like Noel was ever trying to rewrite Beethoven or Bach when he played. It’s clear that he was wearing his influences on his sleeve whenever he made tracks like ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’, but his main focus was taking a handful of chords and putting as much emotion behind them as he could. Not all of them managed to work the same way, but from the minute that he starts strumming away on ‘Half the World Away’ or ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’, it already conjures up some emotion.
It wasn’t the most original music in the world, but the reason why it worked so well was that you could feel the person underneath it all. Whereas most people would spend time making everything sound perfect, the reason why Noel is a legend is because of his ear, leading him to certain notes. They might not have been the most pleasant thing to hear all the time, but from the moment you heard him sing, you couldn’t question his conviction.
That kind of mentality can’t really be taught, though. Noel certainly could apply himself whenever he needed to, but his raw honesty was something that all of his greatest inspirations had as well. Lennon and McCartney never tried to pull the wool over people’s eyes when making their greatest hits, nor did The Stones cynically try to sell something back to the audience. They were genuine, but the emotion on albums like Raw Power by The Stooges was almost otherworldly.
The word punk may not have meant anything yet, but when listening to Iggy Pop scream over tunes like ‘Search and Destroy’, he was willing to do anything for his art. That may have manifested in him cutting himself up and being a musical animal every time he got up onstage, but compared to the first real wave of punk, Noel felt that nothing could get in the way of what The Stooges originally did.
The Beatles had their own place in Noel’s heart, but Raw Power managed to be as out of reach as a Pink Floyd record in his mind, saying, “I’m not technically proficient enough to attempt all kinds of music. I wish I could write a fucking record like Raw Power or Wish You Were Here, or have the ability of a musical chameleon. But fuck it, I’m not. I just write these songs because they’re real to me and they’re coming from a place of truth.”
But Wish You Were Here was way out of reach in a different respect. Noel wasn’t going to have the patience to make songs that went on for 17 minutes at a time, but when listening to how Floyd created a mood, their way of paying tribute to their fallen friend, Syd Barrett, was almost too close to the bone for anyone else to make, let alone a kid from Manchester with a couple of chords to work with.
Then again, reaching that level wasn’t something that Noel needed to concern himself with all that much. He could quote his own heart better than anybody else, and when listening to his own personal tunes like ‘Talk Tonight’, he was willing to lay his heart out on the line in the same way that Pop and Floyd did.
