Noel Gallagher mid 90s

-
 1995 - the year Oasis released Morning Glory, and the year before the band really started losing it musically and characteristically: 96 was the Union Jack guitars, and Liam's voice beginning to sound weary and cabbaged at Knebworth, and endless infighting as a product of endless touring and musical friction within the group.

At this point, in these interviews, Gallagher appears bewildered by the sheer absurdity of the position he finds himself in - the voice of a working-class band quickly gaining international fame, and simultaneously a convenient hero of elites in the media, entertainment industry and even in government (Gallagher famously visited Downing Street to meet Tony Blair in 97). Some of the questions fired at him surrounding other bands (namely Blur) and the state of British music are so obviously picked from a media agenda he hadn't signed up for, and his black-faced responses point to a man who is trying to work out just what the hell is happening around him.

A few good quotes from the interviews:

"The media can take its Britpop, and shove it, as far up the back entry, of the country house as they can take it...we're not Britpop, we're universal rock...and we're Irish for a start"

"None of these awards are important to me...none of them...the ones voted for by the fans, yeah, that's special, but anything voted for by idiots, corporate pigs in ponytails, means nothing to us"

"[Q: how important is it to you to break America?] Making good music's what's important mate...it don't matter if we make it in America...if it's people buying our records in America or Israel, it don't matter man, it's just fans of the group"

"[Q: what do you think you can teach America about Britpop?] We're not Britpop..."







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Miliband the sycophant, yet again

-
Image
Yawn. That's all it induces, as your eyes doggedly scan the text, procuring the scarce semantics conveyed by the tiresome punchlines and lifeless descriptions. The text, exactly? Ed Miliband's latest interview in the New Statesman, of course. If, in some hypothetical, fitting theatrical realm, the Conservative Party was to secure the role of King Claudius, appointing from its considerable array of ministerial actors, the cursed Polonius would no doubt be assumed by Ed Miliband. The Labour leader as ever, offers little in the way of ingenuity, contradicts himself occasionally and intellectually, turns in speechless. Yet it seems as if Miliband cannot even summon the political fight to defend his own party. Labour's legacy in power remains under perpetual Conservative attack; verbal artillery decrying that ghastly, murderous, torturous, massacring, horrible, contemptible, foul  budget deficit remains live, the offensive driven forward by battle cries of irresponsibility and
Read more

How Do You Sleep - Stone Roses (1994)

-
Image
This is a true gem of a tune. It’s probably the most poppy song on Second Coming , and I much prefer it to it’s sister song on the album, Ten Storey Love Song. Ten Storey is a good song in its own right, but lacks the lyrical anger and bitterness of the first album’s snake-fanged bite. Ten Storey is also the showcase of the new Ian Brown vocal: a voice which no longer slips and bleeds through the instrumental fabric but, ala Gallagher, tries to roar over and even fight against it. John Squire’s meatier, bold guitar lines demanded a louder, more potent vocal than the soft whispers of Fools Gold, and the smothered wail heard on This Is The One. Instrumentally, The Second Coming songs lacked the loose, almost improvised roll of the first album. There are fewer empty spaces, fewer moments of pure bass and drum and therefore, fewer moments for Brown to intone gently without competing against the lead guitar.  The lyrics on Second Coming were written entirely
Read more

History repeats itself; first as tragedy, second as farce

-
They just never learn. " The swiftly changing paradigms of the political world pose a vital question for the future of the Labour Party ; evolve to incorporate new, radical ideas and provide a visionary, specific future for the British electorate with which the public may engage and participate within, or simply wither away to political insignificance, fighting the Conservatives over tiny fractions of ideological battleground. Whether or not Labour as a political party has the capacity and internal will to evolve in such a way however, is an entirely different question altogether. "
Read more