Noel Gallagher is the greatest quote machine in the history of British rock and roll. This is not simply a matter of wit, though the wit is real and consistent. It is a matter of philosophical commitment — Gallagher has decided, as a foundational operating principle, that honesty about other people’s music is a form of respect for music itself, and that the alternative, the polite industry diplomacy of mutual compliment and strategic vagueness, is a betrayal of the whole enterprise. Whether you agree with his assessments or not, the assessments are never cautious, which in an industry of caution is itself a form of integrity.
1. Radiohead Gallagher’s comments about Radiohead are the most consistently quoted of his musical opinions and the ones that have generated the most sustained public debate. He has said their music is miserable, that listening to Kid A is like being trapped in a lift with someone having a nervous breakdown, that Thom Yorke’s relationship with joy is professionally nonexistent. He has delivered these assessments with the cheerful directness of a man who considers Radiohead’s influence on British music to be, on balance, detrimental. Thom Yorke has occasionally responded. The conversation has been ongoing for twenty years and shows no signs of resolution.
2. Blur The Oasis-Blur rivalry of 1995 — the chart battle between Roll With It and Country House, the Britpop moment that the music press turned into a national event — is the most documented musical competition in 1990s Britain. Gallagher’s private comments about Damon Albarn during this period were reported widely and were not kind. His public comments were more carefully worded but communicated the same essential assessment: that Blur were art school music for people who went to art school, and that Oasis were music for people who lived in the world. This is a simplification of a complicated musical argument, but it is a very effective simplification.
3. Jay-Z Gallagher’s comments about hip hop generally and Jay-Z specifically represent his most culturally contentious position — a genuine musical conservatism that places guitars above almost everything else in the hierarchy of importance and that has led him to make assessments of hip hop and rap that his critics have described as tone-deaf and that his defenders have described as honest. He has said that a man rapping over a DJ is not a musician in the same sense that someone playing an instrument is a musician. This is a philosophical position. It is also, by the standards of most serious musical thought, incorrect.
4. U2 Gallagher’s feelings about U2 are complicated by the fact that he has acknowledged Bono’s songwriting ability in some interviews while dismissing the band’s presentation in others. He has specifically targeted the earnestness — the world-saving ambition, the arena-filling sincerity — as something that makes him uncomfortable in a way he finds difficult to fully articulate. He has also said that Achtung Baby is a great album and that The Edge is a better guitarist than people give him credit for. This nuance is less frequently quoted than the dismissals, which tells you something about how quotes travel.
5. The Verve The Gallagher-Ashcroft relationship is personal as well as musical — the two men were close during Britpop and fell out over a combination of professional and personal factors that neither has fully described publicly. What Gallagher has said about Bitter Sweet Symphony — specifically about the sample clearance situation that meant the Rolling Stones’ publishing received the song’s royalties — is the combination of sympathy for Ashcroft’s predicament and pointed commentary on Ashcroft’s judgment that characterizes Gallagher’s most complicated assessments.
The One He Genuinely Respects: Paul McCartney Gallagher’s admiration for McCartney is unqualified and has been consistent since before Oasis were formed. He has said McCartney is the greatest songwriter in the history of popular music, that Abbey Road is the greatest album ever made, and that any musician who does not acknowledge McCartney’s influence is either lying or has not listened carefully enough. He and McCartney have met. McCartney has said kind things about Oasis. Gallagher’s response to McCartney’s approval was, unusually and revealingly, not witty. It was simply grateful.