Nobody hates a Gallagher quite like another Gallagher — but that doesn't mean other musicians can't get in on the action. From pop sensations to The Beatles themselves, these are the stars who just can't stand Oasis.
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00:00Nobody hates a Gallagher quite like another Gallagher, but that doesn't mean other musicians
00:06can't get in on the action.
00:08From pop sensations to the Beatles themselves, these are the stars who just can't stand Oasis.
00:14Radiohead frontman Tom York has never been shy about expressing himself, and in a 1995
00:21interview with London Calling, he didn't hesitate to offer his opinion when asked about Oasis,
00:26who at the time were relative newcomers on the music scene.
00:29York said,
00:30"'They're a joke, aren't they?
00:32It's just lots of middle-class people applauding a bunch of guys who act stupid and write really
00:37primitive music and people say, oh, it's so honest.
00:41It's a freak show.'"
00:42Of course, the Gallaghers have voiced their own thoughts on Radiohead in a number of subsequent
00:47interviews.
00:48Most notably, Noel Gallagher absolutely trashed the band during a 2015 Esquire interview.
00:54He said,
00:55Ironically, there's better songwriters than I am.
00:58Have other people's songs ever really touched a generation, though?
01:03Radiohead?
01:04When do people listen to them?
01:05He went on to say that he had given the band one more chance by checking out their Coachella
01:09set a few years prior, deciding once and for all that they were not for him as soon as
01:14York started singing.
01:16Somewhat ironically, York had long ago used the vocal skills so maligned by Gallagher
01:21to offer his definitive statement on Oasis.
01:24During a 1996 session for the CBC, Radiohead and members of the Posies broke out into an
01:31impromptu version of Wonderwall that saw York doing his best, most mockingly nasal Liam
01:37Gallagher impression.
01:38Afterwards, he joked,
01:40It's always good to make fun of Oasis.
01:43Keith Richards has been making music long enough to have earned the right to his opinion
01:46on any band in existence, and his opinion of Oasis is, well, unfavorable.
01:52In 1997, Richards famously and bluntly opined that the band was crap, and in the 2003 book
01:59The Rolling Stones Off the Record, he was moved to elaborate.
02:03Speaking about the Gallagher brothers, he said,
02:05These guys are just obnoxious.
02:07Grow up and then come back and see if you can hang.
02:10I don't hear anything there.
02:12It's all just retro to me.
02:14That same book quoted a belligerent response from Liam Gallagher, who seemed a little tired
02:19of his idols trashing his band.
02:21He said,
02:22All these snakes coming out the closets, all these old farts, I will beat the f----- living
02:27daylight s---- out of them.
02:29That goes for Richards.
02:31I'll hold you up with a good right hook.
02:34During a more recent conversation with Absolute Radio, Gallagher recalled an encounter with
02:39Richards at a bar in the Bahamas that was slightly less antagonistic.
02:42I don't know, he was like, yeah, you're Ben, you're quite interesting there for a while.
02:47And I was like, I could actually say the same to you.
02:50It's no secret that Oasis is musically indebted to the Beatles, to an even greater extent
02:55than any other rock band on Earth.
02:57There are Beatles references aplenty to be found in their tunes, references that tend
03:02toward the overt, with some consisting of simply dropping the titles of Beatles songs
03:07into their lyrics.
03:08They've also commented on the similarity directly, with Knoll famously telling MTV in 1996 that
03:14Oasis were, in fact, bigger than the Beatles, a remark that he has since walked back, claiming
03:20he was high at the time.
03:21Then again, Liam told Little White Lies in 2016,
03:25"...what we did in three years took the Beatles eight."
03:28It may not surprise you to learn that Sir Paul McCartney was never much for these comparisons.
03:33In 1997, at the height of Oasis' success, McCartney flatly stated that they were derivative
03:39and think too much of themselves.
03:41He added,
03:42"...they mean nothing to me."
03:44McCartney revisited the subject in a 2016 interview with Q. He said,
03:48"...I thought the biggest mistake they made was when they said, we're going to be bigger
03:52than the Beatles.
03:53So many people have said that, and it's the kiss of death.
03:56The minute you say it, everything you do from then on is going to be looked at in the light
04:00of that statement."
04:02George Harrison also made his distaste for Oasis known on several occasions, and his
04:07criticisms may well have hurt the Gallagher brothers the most.
04:10Technically, the first solo album by a Beatle was a rather avant-garde 1968 LP by Harrison
04:17called Wonderwall Music, the soundtrack to a little-seen art film from that same year.
04:22That album title inspired Noel Gallagher to come up with a far more interesting title
04:26for Oasis' biggest hit, which he had written as Wishing Stone.
04:30Throughout the late 90s, however, Harrison slagged off the band in various interviews.
04:35He claimed that they were both uninteresting and outdated, but saved his harshest comments
04:40for Liam.
04:42Speaking with Independent Radio News in 1996, Harrison said,
04:45"'I mean, he is just excess baggage, I think.
04:49All he does is make people think what a bunch of prannies they are.'"
04:52Liam, of course, was none too happy about this.
04:56Speaking with MTV News that same year, he said that while he still loved Harrison as
05:00a songwriter, he was less enamored with him as a person.
05:04Gallagher said,
05:05"'It goes to show.
05:06All that time in the Beatles and all that f----- stuff that he's still f----- stupid.'"
05:12The relationship between Oasis and their mid-'90s Britpop peers Take That has always been a
05:17little complicated.
05:18Robbie Williams was buddies with Liam Gallagher for years, but the relationship turned sour
05:23when Noel, as is his wont, saw fit to publicly trash Williams by calling him the fat dancer
05:28from Take That.
05:29A not-so-friendly rivalry between the two bands ensued, with Williams taunting the Gallaghers
05:35over his band's success and publicly offering to fight Liam at the 2000 Brit Awards.
05:40In 2022, during a conversation with Apple Music, Williams went into detail about his
05:46distaste for Oasis.
05:47"'It's like they were gigantic bullies, too, to like the whole industry, everybody in it.
05:54And I didn't like that.'"
05:57While acknowledging that the brothers may have grown as people in the intervening years,
06:02Williams admitted that he found it hard to put his feelings about the pair behind them.
06:06"'They're probably different people now, but there's a lot of me that's like, they're f-----
06:12bullies, then.
06:13I don't like bullies.'"
06:15To his credit, and perhaps due to the fact that they were once friends, Liam Gallagher
06:19responded with a surprisingly thoughtful post on X, formerly Twitter.
06:23He wrote,
06:24"'I've never bullied anyone in my life.
06:26I am a massive f----- faker for sure and probably gone a little too far sometimes, but if I've
06:32ever hurt anyone's feelings, I apologize.'"
06:35The British band Elastica only made a minor splash in the United States, but in the U.K.,
06:41they burned brightly, if only for a short time.
06:43Their self-titled 1995 debut album shot to number one on the U.K. charts, and frontwoman
06:49Justine Frischmann managed to also become a staple of the tabloids by way of her romance
06:54with Damon Albarn, the frontman for Blur.
06:57Frischmann's problem with the Gallagher brothers was due to an unsurprising circumstance, a
07:02crude remark made about her in the press by Liam.
07:06It seems that the singer made a comment to the British mag Smash Hits along the lines
07:10of how he would not kick Frischmann out of bed for eating crackers, which perked her
07:14ears right up.
07:15In a subsequent interview, she said,
07:17"'Next time I see Liam Gallagher, he's for it.
07:20I mean, I'd think he was being ironic if he wasn't so f----- thick.'"
07:25Decades later, Frischmann demonstrated that her feelings about the Gallaghers had not
07:29changed.
07:30In response to a since-deleted 2016 tweet from Liam Gallagher that was widely considered
07:35to be homophobic, she responded simply,
07:37"'Oasis' and homophobia are both outdated.'"
07:41Scottish singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi burst onto the scene in 2018 with his single,
07:46"'Someone You Loved,' which scored him a number one U.S. hit and a Grammy nomination.
07:51And he's done pretty well for himself in the intervening years.
07:54His second single, "'Before You Go,' also cracked the top ten, pushing his debut album
07:58Divinely Uninspired to a hellish extent to double-platinum status."
08:03His 2023 release, broken by a desire to be heavenly sent, also yielded a Hot 100 single
08:09in "'Forget Me.'"
08:10These achievements, however, have failed to impress Noel Gallagher.
08:13In a 2019 interview with Radio X, the young singer was offered as an example of a talented
08:19modern artist from the U.K.
08:21In response, Gallagher curtly dismissed Capaldi as an idiot.
08:25Soon after, Capaldi took to social media with a few comments of his own.
08:29"'It's Father's Day, and I'm being slagged off by a man who's old enough to be my dad.
08:36And I've never been more happy.'"
08:38A few days later, Capaldi wore a T-shirt emblazoned with Gallagher's face framed by a heart during
08:44a performance at Glastonbury, and later posed for a photo with Liam, with whom Noel was
08:48still bitterly feuding at the time.
08:51Noel shot back with a profane rant in which he inexplicably referred to Capaldi as Chewbacca,
08:57prompting Capaldi to make the famous Wookiee his profile picture on social media.
09:01"'I'm a slag ass, but Noel Gallagher, what a f----- day.'"
09:08Kaiser Chiefs released their first album in 2005, and while they never made a huge splash
09:13stateside, they quickly became icons on the U.K. music scene.
09:17Noel Gallagher made enemies out of the band when he trashed them in the press in 2008.
09:22However, coming with an admittedly pretty sick burn during a conversation with the BBC,
09:27he said,
09:28"'The monkeys haven't split up.
09:29They're just going under the name of the Kaiser Chiefs.
09:32I did drugs for 18 years and I never got that bad as to say, you know what?
09:37I think the Kaiser Chiefs are brilliant.'"
09:39It didn't take long for a response from Chiefs drummer Nick Hodgson, who shrugged it off,
09:44calling the remarks a bit of sport, before noting that Oasis seemed to single out another
09:48band to insult every time they're about to put out a new album.
09:51He added,
09:52"'When I was 17 and Noel was going on about Blur, I was watching it.
09:56And now I'm 30 and he's 50 and he's talking about us.
09:59It's brilliant.'"
10:01The following year, Chiefs guitarist Andrew White was not quite so gentle when asked about
10:05the previous exchange of disses.
10:07White said of Noel,
10:08"'We have no time for him.
10:10Music is an art, but he doesn't appreciate music for what it is.
10:13It shows what a bitter old man he has become.'"
10:17Formed in the 1980s, the Stone Roses were a towering influence on the Britpop scene,
10:22and perhaps particularly on Oasis, as both bands hailed from Manchester.
10:26The Gallagher brothers have spoken openly about their admiration for the older band,
10:31and Liam Gallagher even formed a supergroup with the Roses' John Squire, a partnership
10:35which produced the well-received album Just Another Rainbow in 2024.
10:39When it comes to Roses' frontman Ian Brown, though, the admiration is decidedly not reciprocated,
10:45and for a pretty understandable reason.
10:47The Stone Roses broke up in 1996 when Squire, whom Brown said had gotten heavily into cocaine,
10:53abruptly departed the band with nothing more than a phone call.
10:56"'Would you ever get back together with the Stone Roses?'
10:58"'No, not in this lifetime, I wouldn't have thought so.'"
11:01In a 1998 interview with the Daily Record, Brown said that he had warned Oasis about
11:06their cocaine use, which was quickly becoming legendary, and that they had ignored the advice.
11:11He went on to claim that, perhaps as a result of this, the band were failing to challenge
11:16themselves artistically.
11:18Brown said,
11:19"'It's 1998.
11:21What's the sense in trying to be the Beatles?
11:23Liam is a young kid who has looked up to me, but Oasis are nowhere near the greatest band
11:27in the world.
11:28They are boring now.
11:29They don't have anything to say.'"
11:31Brown, having stuck the knife in, then proceeded to twist it, saying,
11:36"'Musically, they do nothing for me.
11:38The Stone Roses, at their height, were capable of reaching places that Oasis can only dream
11:43about.'"
11:45The feud between Oasis and indie rockers Block Party began in familiar fashion in 2005, when
11:50someone asked Liam Gallagher what he thought of them, and he responded rudely, which was
11:54pretty par for the course.
11:56Speaking with Uncut in 2007, Block Party frontman Kelly Okereke trashed the Gallagher brothers
12:02in response.
12:03He said,
12:04"'I think Oasis are the most overrated and pernicious band of all time.
12:08They have made stupidity hip.
12:10They claim to be inspired by the Beatles.
12:13They have failed to grasp that the Beatles were about constant change and evolution.
12:17Oasis are repetitive Luddites.'"
12:19As fate would have it, Block Party were performing at the Rock N' Sen festival in 2009, which
12:24Oasis was to have headlined before pulling the plug on their band, and Okereke was happy
12:29to make the announcement.
12:30He told the crowd,
12:31"'Oasis have cancelled.
12:33So I'd like to take this moment to say, that's a shame, isn't it, guys?
12:37So I guess by default, we are headlining.'"
12:39Then as guitarist Russell Lissak began to strum the opening chords to Oasis' Super
12:44Sonic, Okereke moved in for the death blow.
12:47He said,
12:48"'I'd like to dedicate this next song to anyone who really, really wanted to see those inbred
12:53twins.'"
12:54He added,
12:55"'I'd like to dedicate this next song to anyone who really, really wanted to see those
12:56inbred twins.'"
12:57He added,
12:58"'I'd like to dedicate this next song to anyone who really, really wanted to see those
12:59inbred twins.'"
13:00He added,
13:01"'I'd like to dedicate this next song to anyone who really, really wanted to see those
13:02inbred twins.'"
13:03He added,
13:04"'I'd like to dedicate this next song to anyone who really, really wanted to see those
13:05inbred twins.'"
13:06He added,
13:07"'I'd like to dedicate this next song to anyone who really, really wanted to see those
13:08inbred twins.'"
13:09He added,
13:10"'I'd like to dedicate this next song to anyone who really, really wanted to see those
13:11inbred twins.'"
13:12He added,