Oasis didn’t invent the concept of the gobby, tabloid-baiting British rock’n’roll star, but they did perfect it. Combining the Beatles’ irreverent cheek, Sex Pistols’ raucous hedonism and Morrissey’s dour Mancunian wit, the Gallagher brothers arrived in 1994 with their comedy act – built around acerbic sibling banter and knowingly ludicrous levels of braggadocio – down pat. For the music press, they really were God’s gift: in one their earliest interviews, Liam informed Melody Maker that he pitied “anyone who doesn’t buy our records,” while Noel insisted they were planning to win the Eurovision song contest with a new number called All Around the World. “It’ll sail it by at least, ooh, 30 points. This is the track to end all tracks.”
Oasis split in 2009, but the bon mots that buoyed Britpop and Cool Britannia kept flowing – three decades on from their debut, the brothers’ rivalry, egotism and brutal putdowns still power a significant subsection of our news cycle. You couldn’t claim it overshadowed their music – the majesty of Oasis’s biggest hits drowns out any petty squabbling – but since the band’s heyday ended the Gallaghers have been dealing primarily in persona. When the 1975’s Matty Healy claimed that “the difference between me and Noel is that I do a series of interviews to promote an album, whereas he does an album to promote a series of interviews”, he wasn’t far off.
