Video: Noel Gallagher – “The Death of You and Me”

Liam Gallagher may be taking Oasis sans his brother with him for a new band under a different moniker, but I’m not so sure that Liam can avoid making a fool of himself without Noel’s songwriting chops in tow. Conversely, Noel’s vocals couldn’t hold a candle to those of his brother. Perhaps we’ve found a simple fix for that.

Pop star Leona Lewis performed Oasis’ Heathen Chemistry single “Stop Crying Your Heart Out” on BBC Radio 2’s Ken Bruce Show recently and the result provides a great testament to both Noel’s songwriting prowess and Lewis’ ability to adapt her trained voice to music from other genres in an honest, inspired way.

The other songs on Lewis’ second album don’t come close to the quality of her breakout hit “Bleeding Love,” IMO, but this cover song isn’t too far off. Watch what would’ve made a great first single from Lewis’ Echo here or embedded below:

I don’t normally pay attention to the Twitter musings of actors, but we need to keep a keen eye on The Office’s Rainn Wilson because the guy’s attempting to meddle in music for the second time in recent memory and last time Weezer ended up with a quite unfortunate album title. As we all know by now, Noel Gallagher has quit Oasis following a last straw row with his brother, Liam, and the band has split. Here’s what Wilson had to tweet on the subject:

“Liam. You should grab Ryan Adams. He does y’alls songs better.” He then posted a link to Adams’ Grammy-nominated cover of “Wonderwall,” by Oasis.

I’m sure he’s joking, but nerdy rockers are sometimes powerless against Wilson’s charms. Here’s what Rivers Cuomo said just the other day on how Weezer named their 7th LP (via Pitchfork): [Rainn Wilson] has a super-rock persona. When it came time to find a title for the Weezer album, I asked him what he thought the ultimate album title would be, and he said ‘Raditude.’”

A collaboration between Ryan Adams and one of the Gallagher brothers wouldn’t be that random actually, as Adams did join Oasis for a successful (read: drama-free) tour last year, but he seems like more of a Noel man to me. I’ll spare you my opinion, but once I’m on a hit show, I’ll be tweeting all about it.

After months (or years) of Oasis split rumors, it has finally happened. For now, at least. In a post on the official Oasis site, Noel Gallagher made a statement to fans regarding the sudden cancellation of their concert in Paris after a row with his brother, Liam:

It’s with some sadness and great relief to tell you that I quit Oasis tonight. People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer.

Apologies to all the people who bought tickets for the shows in Paris, Konstanz and Milan.

This statement confirms what a spokesman for the band told an anxious crowd in Saint-Cloud, France tonight: The Gallagher brothers “had a fight backstage,” the spokesman said, adding, “The group no longer exists. They will not play tonight and they are cancelling the rest of their European tour.”

Wow, and there I was thinking today would be a slow news day.

**Update**

No, they haven’t reunited yet. Noel Gallagher has posted a much longer statement, saying he was “forced to leave” Oasis, as “verbal and violent intimidation towards me, my family, friends and comrades has become intolerable.” Check out Noel’s full Oasis sign-off over at Consequence of Sound.

The Gallagher brothers sure have excelled over the years at getting their name printed alongside some of the biggest names in rock history—especially the Beatles—and now, with a little help from their former label’s co-founder, the self-canonization of Oasis is almost complete. In a glowing review of Dig Out Your Soul, the group’s seventh studio album, Creation Records’ Alan McGee compared Liam Gallagher to Elvis and Oasis to the Beatles, the Sex Pistols, and the Rolling Stones.

“Oasis have captured the pop zeitgeist (and my personal zeitgeist) as a band that combine the best elements of the Beatles and Sex Pistols to emerge as this generation’s Rolling Stones,” McGee wrote in his review on ZANI. He goes on to contend that Dig Out Your Soul is on par with two other famous seventh albums from the Beatles (Revolver) and the Rolling Stones (Beggar’s Banquet).

Liam Gallagher, or the “psychedelic Elvis” as McGee calls him, concurs with at least one of these statements; in an interview while on tour in Brazil recently, he said of Dig Out Your Soul: “I think it’s better than Revolver, anyway.”

McGee and the Gallagher brothers have a bit more lobbying to do, however, as Rolling Stone magazine’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” ranks Revolver at #3, but you won’t hear McGee apologizing for his Oasis fandom anytime soon: “Being an Oasis fan is never having to say I’m sorry,” he concluded.

On any given day, I have a handful of “shocking” quotes from one or both of the Gallagher brothers that I could post, but most of them are just the good ol’ Oasis boys winding people up. Today, for example, Noel’s making the rounds for admitting that he “spent £1m on drugs” as of 1998, adding, “I look at [Coldplay’s] Chris Martin who says he has never taken drugs in his life and I think he is an idiot.” But since music piracy will be the topic du jour for the next year at least, you may find Noel’s recent comments to MTV Brazil’s Mari Moon a bit more interesting than your everyday Gallagher echo chamber.

Though Gallagher admitted he’s “the only person in England who doesn’t own a computer,” he could relate to the younger generation that can’t buy records from stores any longer, thus forcing them to go online. “You have to be legally, you know, money in the bank, credit cards, and all that kind of stuff,” he said. “But it also means that it’s just taking music away from poor people. And that’s why people download music for free, where they can really get it from.”

Then things get more interesting: “If I was 16 and I’d left school and I didn’t have a job, but I had a computer and I could get an Oasis album for free somewhere, you’re gonna do it aren’t you? I mean lucky for me I’m not in that situation, but if I was I know I wouldn’t be paying for it. But it’s the record company’s fault. They made music too expensive in the first place. [A] CD costs £2 to make and £15 to buy.”

To come full circle, I guess you could say that Noel thinks your money would be better spent on drugs than music, but now I’m just feeding The Sun their next headline.

Oasis singer and fashion designer Liam Gallagher is so reliably negative that it’s really no surprise to hear he revels in concert mishaps and audience chaos. What’s kind of amazing, however, is that he’s willing to admit that Oasis shows are boring without conflict.

“I like it when s**t happens at Oasis gigs otherwise it’s the same gig really,” Gallagher told fansite Stopcryingyourheartout.com. Referring to a 2005 concert in which there was a 25 minute delay after a barrier was broken, Gallagher added, “I like s**t like that, as long as no one dies or gets hurt or gets the f**king fever cause they’re too cold. I like it when s**t happens like that because I think once you have seen Oasis once, you have sort of seen we don’t really do that much, know what I mean.”

Also, I could’ve predicted Liam isn’t a fan of Duffy, but I didn’t expect the AT&T commercial singer to accuse her of being a sell-out: “Duffy, she was alright ‘til she opened her mouth, the music’s alright, know what I mean, ‘til she done that f**king stupid advert and things like that… It’s f**king ridiculous.”