Cool Britannia is over and Britpop is over, lads. In hindsight, the Oasis v Blur battle was never a fair fight. Blur’s mid-’90s albums stand the test of time – Oasis’ releases are stasis, stuck in amber like a mammoth’s turd.
Blur v Oasis on the cover of NMECredit: NME
And look what Blur’s twin pillars have gone on to produce. Lead singer Damon Albarn’s bands (The Good, the Bad and the Queen, and Gorillaz) and guitarist Graham Coxon’s solo work (Happiness in Magazines, A+E), and with Rose Elinor Dougall in The WAEVE, puts anything the Gallagher bros have produced in the shade.
And then the Oasis concerts. Four are scheduled for Wembley Stadium, where Taylor Swift recently played to 90,000 fans.
Ninety-thousand lagered-up punters singing along out-of-tune to Wonderwall and spilling plastic pint cups of Carling on their Puma polo shirts – I would rather stick pins in my ears and eyes.
Between now and the concerts in July next year, get ready for a steady diet of soap opera “Oasis reunion tour under threat” stories as Noel and Liam threaten to quit over who gets to play tambourine, or more likely, a disagreement over who Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola should select to play up front against United.
So why are they really doing it? As recently as 2022, Noel told podcast Pub Talk: “If we got back together there would be a circus – and there’s no point. Just leave it as it is.”
Possibly, a clue can be found in the cash register. Take it with a grain of salt, but The Sun reported: “Music industry expert Professor Jonathan Shalit OBE, chairman of talent agency InterTalent, told The Sun the reunion could easily rake in more than £400 million ($780,000,000).”
At least when the original line-up of the Sex Pistols reunited in 1996 they had the honesty to call it the Filthy Lucre Tour.
If you really want to hear Oasis tunes live, get out to one of their tribute bands – their songs aren’t hard to master and Liam’s vocal style is easy to replicate as it’s just the snotty attitude of a moody teenager. There are plenty of them: Noasis, Definitely Oasis, Some Might Say, Shakerfaker, Live Forever, Fauxasis, Oas-ish, SuperSonic, Sally Can Wait etc and my favourite name, Mad Ferrett.
Just say no to the original.
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You want some decent rock and roll to listen to? Bang on Fontaines DC’s latest album, Romance, and you’ll soon forget about the brothers grim.
Ben Coady is The Sydney Morning Herald’s sports editor.