Why do Oasis and Radiohead hate each other?
Few bands are as cantankerous as Oasis. The Mancunian legends made their name as a bristling Britpop band filled to the brim with high-class rock anthems and a bravado that would make the Fonz blush. Their particular brand of music was built on powerhouse choruses and riffs designed to drive a night of credit card powder and spilt lager over the gap of any intellectual bascule bridge.
That’s not to discredit the group. One need only experience such a night out to feel the warmth of camaraderie it provides. Few people have ever walked through an empty town at 3am singing Bob Dylan’s ‘Hurricane’ as they sway arm in arm towards the local kebab shop. The same can be said for another behemoth of the 1990s, Radiohead.
Thom Yorke and his group have rightly dominated a particular side of music for decades. Fuelled by an intense desire to create and evolve, the band have gained a spot as perhaps the most widely renowned yet polarising artists Britain has ever produced. Despite their more pop-focused beginnings, Radiohead have quickly become the favourite band of musos across the globe. Their often impenetrable sonic structures have meant that they are the go-to group for anyone hoping to play a record with the accompanying words: “You just don’t get it.”
If you were expecting the two bands to enjoy their respective ends of the musical spectrum and appreciate the other for its worth, then you’d be wrong. Noel Gallagher and his brother Liam have continually fired shots at Yorke and his Oxford band. While the two brothers revelled in the art of being a rock and roll star, they resented Radiohead for rejecting the same ideals.
After watching their documentary Meeting People Is Easy, Noel noted: “They’re stuck in the back of limousines telling you how bored they are being in a group. If you don’t enjoy it, retire. Do us all a favour. Or move to a mansion in Oxford so we don’t have to listen to you bleeding on about how shit your life is.”
There is also likely a large degree of jealousy connected to Noel’s summation of Radiohead, sharing in 2015 with Esquire: “I’m aware that Radiohead have never had a fucking bad review. I reckon if Thom Yorke fucking shit into a light bulb and started blowing it like an empty beer bottle, it’d probably get 9 out of 10 in fucking Mojo. I’m aware of that.”
It’s a refrain that has often come from the mouth of Noel Gallagher, who has routinely lambasted rock stars who regret their time in the limelight. For Oasis, music was always about having fun and living large, and that’s what their fans still want from the group to this day. While Noel was largely concerned with the band, Liam Gallagher would take things too far and attack Radiohead’s fans.
Liam told MusicRadar when talking about his notoriously vitriolic music opinions: “I’ve mellowed, but not in the sense of liking Radiohead or Coldplay. I don’t hate them. I don’t wish they had accidents. I think their fans are boring and ugly and they don’t look like they’re having a good time.”
Things continued during a 2011 conversation with The Quietus when Gallagher took on the group\s 2011 LP The King of Limbs: “I heard that fucking Radiohead record, and I just go, ‘What?!’ I like to think that what we do, we do fucking well. Them writing a song about a fucking tree? Give me a fucking break! A thousand-year-old tree? Go fuck yourself! You’d have thought he’d have written a song about a modern tree or one that was planted last week. You know what I mean?”
When you also take into account Liam’s consistent angry tweeting about the group, it’s clear to see the bitterness he and Oasis harbour towards the group. But Thom Yorke and the band have rarely swiped back. In 2007, Noel Gallagher took a shot at Radiohead: “No matter how much you sit there twiddling, going, ‘We’re all doomed,’ at the end of the day people will always want to hear you play ‘Creep’; get over it,” he shared in relation to the band’s refusal to play their most popular song. “I never went to fucking university. I don’t know what a paintbrush is; I never went to art school,” he concluded.
After so many years of embittered beef, Yorke responded with a trusted quick wit: “I did. It taught me to respect other artists.” However, that’s not entirely true either.
Yorke isn’t quite the angel he is portraying himself to be. During a 1996 radio session for CBC, Yorke covered Oasis tune ‘Wonderwall’ with his tongue firmly in his cheek. Towards the end of the rare recording, a member of the band can be heard saying: “Is this abysmal or what?” to which Yorke replies: “Yep,” before promptly adding: “It’s always good to make fun of Oasis, though.”
This somewhat churlish sentiment was in Yorke’s mind the year prior too, as he noted London Calling in 1995: “They’re a joke, aren’t they? It’s just lots of middle-class people applauding a bunch of guys who act stupid and write really primitive music. Then people say, ‘Oh, it’s so honest.’”
The truth is, Oasis and Radiohead are proverbial chalk and cheese incarnate. No two bands have ever operated in similar circles with such wildly different outlooks on their process and product. Oasis are there for a good time, destined to soundtrack the dingiest moments of the weekend. Radiohead provide the Sunday Times crossword of musicality, delighting and entertaining only those willing to give them the concentration they deserve. In fact, it’d be more shocking if they actually liked each other.
