Speaker 1: Rivals is a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to Rivals, the show about music beefs and
Speaker 1: feuds and long simmering resentments between musicians. I'm Steve and
Speaker 1: I'm Jordan's and I'm so excited for this episode because
Speaker 1: it's my friend Stephen Hyde in his personal super Bowl.
Speaker 1: He's been preparing for this one for twenty five years.
Speaker 1: Today we are diving into Oasis versus Blur, the battle
Speaker 1: of brit Pop. Stephen has extremely strong feelings on this,
Speaker 1: as it will soon become apparent. Yes, when I wrote
Speaker 1: my book about music rivalries, Your favorite Band is Killing
Speaker 1: Me a few years ago, I wrote the first chapter
Speaker 1: on this rivalry because it was one of the first
Speaker 1: rivalries that I personally ever cared about. It's what taught
Speaker 1: me how to hate Jordan's. I have to say that
Speaker 1: it's awfully hard to let go of how I felt
Speaker 1: when I was sixteen years old, which is that Asis
Speaker 1: is great and brilliant and one of the best bands
Speaker 1: ever and Blur sucks really really hard. I have to say,
Speaker 1: when you were sixteen, I would have been I think
Speaker 1: about six I knew nothing about the famous Oasis versus
Speaker 1: Blur chart face off that was taking place at that time.
Speaker 1: To me, the winner was abundantly clear. Oasis was the
Speaker 1: wonder wall band. You know everybody that the song was everywhere.
Speaker 1: If I'd heard of Blur at all at that time,
Speaker 1: it would have been as like a tween watching MTV
Speaker 1: two and seeing the video for song of A two
Speaker 1: or something, which to me sounded like something like Blink
Speaker 1: two or Green Day. You know. I had no idea
Speaker 1: that Blur were brit pop forefathers, probably until their best
Speaker 1: of album came out in two thousand I think, which
Speaker 1: is sort of like the Louder than Bombs for my
Speaker 1: age demo, Like that was what all the cool record
Speaker 1: stores that are in town had like posters of. But
Speaker 1: even then I had no knowledge of this blood feud
Speaker 1: with Oasis until learning more about the history of brit pop,
Speaker 1: and to me, without knowing the British cultural implications, they
Speaker 1: seemed to come from completely different musical universe. Is Oasis
Speaker 1: and Blur? Yeah, this is like one of those episodes
Speaker 1: where I feel like the old man pulling up his
Speaker 1: rocking chair and explaining to the young people would it
Speaker 1: felt like to live in a war? Because you can
Speaker 1: read about it in textbooks, Sonny, but you don't know
Speaker 1: what it was like to be in the trenches, buying
Speaker 1: imports singles for precious always B sides and taking your
Speaker 1: marching orders from Noel Gallagher about the evils of Damon Alburn.
Speaker 1: I think I have to break this down for you
Speaker 1: and all the other kiddies out there. So let's get
Speaker 1: into this mess. We have to start, unfortunately, Stephen with Blur.
Speaker 1: They were the first earlier band. They were formed while
Speaker 1: the members were attending college in London, and they initially
Speaker 1: wanted to call themselves Seymour after a J. D. Salinger novella.
Speaker 1: I feel like, right there, that's a pretty good indicator
Speaker 1: of how different Blur are than Oasis. I wonder like
Speaker 1: if the Gallagher brothers have read any J. D. Sounger.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing probably not. I mean it's starting as more
Speaker 1: of a Faulkner band, to be honest. Blur really their
Speaker 1: debut Leisure, two years later after they formed, and a
Speaker 1: two month tour of the United States in would prove
Speaker 1: to be really instrumental for the band because they were
Speaker 1: homesick and they were starting to sort of tweak their
Speaker 1: sound as a reaction against this American grunge scene that
Speaker 1: sort of helped them whenever torn across the country, and
Speaker 1: they embrace their own cultural identity and the home grown
Speaker 1: sounds of England like the Rolling Stones, who the Kinks,
Speaker 1: bands like the Clash, and more modern groups like the
Speaker 1: Specials and the Smiths and Madness and this so the
Speaker 1: seas of brit pop, which was, you know, admittedly more
Speaker 1: of like a headline hype kind of thing than a
Speaker 1: genuine musical movement, but it did have a distinctive sound
Speaker 1: with its mix of pop melodies and rock and roll swagger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like I have to say this
Speaker 1: before we get too far into this episode, that you
Speaker 1: don't have to come clean and say that I don't
Speaker 1: actually think Blur sucks. You know, I respect their career
Speaker 1: in legacy, and I think I can analyze it without
Speaker 1: litting my intense pro oasis biases get in the way.
Speaker 1: So I'll just put that out there. There's any Blur
Speaker 1: fans out there who are already turning off this episode
Speaker 1: because they feel like this will not be a fair
Speaker 1: and balanced episode of Rivals, I am promising that I
Speaker 1: can do that. I think the britishness of Blur is
Speaker 1: what really ties them to bands, like you were saying,
Speaker 1: like the Kinks and the Smiths, Like when you listen
Speaker 1: to their records, especially the ones that they made at
Speaker 1: their creative peak in the mid nineties, you get a
Speaker 1: real sense of what it was like to live in England.
Speaker 1: I think at that time, like there's a specificity to
Speaker 1: Blur lyrically that really sets them apart as cultural commentators
Speaker 1: and really like on some level, like they're like satirists.
Speaker 1: I think in a lot of ways, Oasis doesn't have
Speaker 1: that at all. Like lyrically, they're basically focused on things
Speaker 1: like cigarettes and alcohol and rock and roll and all
Speaker 1: that and cool guys stuff the culture around bands basically,
Speaker 1: so in a way I think like Blur is probably
Speaker 1: stronger when it comes to lyrics, though I think the
Speaker 1: generality of Oasis is what allowed them to transition better
Speaker 1: to the American market, And I also think it makes
Speaker 1: oasis is songs more timeless, Like you listen to Blur
Speaker 1: and it seems very nineties to me, whereas Oasis has
Speaker 1: a timelessness where if you just like good time rock
Speaker 1: and roll, Oasis delivers in spades. Blue reach peak Britishness,
Speaker 1: they have to say. When they released their third album,
Speaker 1: their masterpiece, really, park Life, and it's written from the
Speaker 1: perspective of the British working class, and the music video
Speaker 1: for the title track even had Phil Daniels, who played
Speaker 1: Jimmy the mod in the nine film Quadraphenia based on
Speaker 1: on the Who album. So I mean, you know, you
Speaker 1: don't get much more British than Jimmy the maud here.
Speaker 1: This album was an absolute smash, hitting number one for
Speaker 1: nine weeks in the UK and one an unprecedented four
Speaker 1: brit Awards, which is like the English equivalent of Grammy's
Speaker 1: basically Best Single, Best Video for Park Life, Best Album
Speaker 1: and Best British Group. And before this, you know, UK
Speaker 1: indie bands were basically like fringe acts and now they
Speaker 1: were at national figures. They basically had swept their version
Speaker 1: of the Grammy Big War really and in their acceptance
Speaker 1: speech for Best British Group, David Albert goes on stage
Speaker 1: and says that he should be sharing this award with
Speaker 1: another up and coming British group, Oasis, which Graham Cox
Speaker 1: and ads much love and respect to them. Yes, which
Speaker 1: again I think this is going to define in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways the dynamic between these two bands, because Blur,
Speaker 1: to me, we're not the instigators of this at all,
Speaker 1: like they in a way were the victims of it.
Speaker 1: Like I don't think that they really saw Oasis as
Speaker 1: like competitors, as you can see from that speech. In
Speaker 1: a way, I think they looked at them as like compatriots,
Speaker 1: like we're these young British bands, We're bringing England back
Speaker 1: to rock and roll at a time where grunge was
Speaker 1: very dominant. And like you said before, you know, part
Speaker 1: of what the inspiration was for Blur at the time
Speaker 1: is that they wanted to assert that England matter too,
Speaker 1: Like they didn't want to emulate what the Americans were doing,
Speaker 1: so they did something that was very much kind of
Speaker 1: based in their own culture. And I think they looked
Speaker 1: at Oasis with pride in a way, like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is another great British rock band coming along. And of
Speaker 1: course Oways says they put out their debut definitely maybe
Speaker 1: earlier on in And if you want more background on
Speaker 1: the Oasis story, I recommend that you check out our
Speaker 1: earlier episode on the rivalry between Noel and Liam Gallagher.
Speaker 1: We get pretty deep into it, uh you know their
Speaker 1: background in that episode. But I think in terms of
Speaker 1: the dynamic with Blur, it's important to just say quick
Speaker 1: that Oasis I think could be pretty broadly defined as
Speaker 1: like the blue collar band. You know, they came from
Speaker 1: more of a working class background, and I think musically
Speaker 1: they were just much more of like a meat and
Speaker 1: potatoes type band really, like kind of like a pub
Speaker 1: rock band, which is a crazy thing to say about
Speaker 1: a band that would like pretty quickly go on to
Speaker 1: play stadiums. But I think that even when they were
Speaker 1: playing on the biggest stages, the appeal of Oasis was
Speaker 1: that these were simple songs that you could pretty much
Speaker 1: memorize after the first time you heard them, and by
Speaker 1: like the second or third time, you would have your
Speaker 1: arms around the other lads in your group, hoisting points
Speaker 1: and thinking about how you wanted to live forever. Like
Speaker 1: that was the appeal of Oasis, much less cerebral than Blur.
Speaker 1: Like Blur was the kind of band again, this was
Speaker 1: a band that almost named themselves after a J. D.
Speaker 1: Sunder story. You know, they were much more literary band,
Speaker 1: and they were much more I think concerned with the
Speaker 1: culture of Britain and and commenting on what was going
Speaker 1: on in England at the time, and yeah, it just
Speaker 1: comes from two different worlds and I think because of
Speaker 1: those different aesthetics it just really lined up well. Even
Speaker 1: though Blur I don't think wanted to have a conflict,
Speaker 1: I think it made it like really attractive for Oasis
Speaker 1: in the beginning anyway, to be this underdog band that
Speaker 1: could kind of just like throw darts at this like
Speaker 1: very popular but kind of snooty and posh band called Blur. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean this really from the jump, these two bands
Speaker 1: had really distinct lanes, as you were saying, and it
Speaker 1: kind of sets the groundwork for this Beetle Stones comparison
Speaker 1: thing to come. I mean Oasis were the brash, swaggering
Speaker 1: working class heroes and Blur were like the tweetie are
Speaker 1: at school kids and they had a more refined and
Speaker 1: introverted approach to their music. Oasis are cocky and arrogant.
Speaker 1: Blur has Alex James, who's this like winky, cuddling dude
Speaker 1: who bounces around like he's in the Monkeys. I mean
Speaker 1: it's you couldn't get more distinct from him than like
Speaker 1: Liam Gallagher who just goes on stage and scowls with
Speaker 1: his hands behind his back the whole time. In terms
Speaker 1: of their music, obviously, Oasis, as you said, made the
Speaker 1: totally opposite of Blur's kinksish character studies and all the
Speaker 1: sort of satires found on Park Life. Instead of making
Speaker 1: an album about the British every man, which is what
Speaker 1: Blur did with Park Life, they made an album for
Speaker 1: the British every man, like a celebration of the ordinary person.
Speaker 1: I always felt like you could, actually you feel like
Speaker 1: you could be an Oasis too, where I don't think
Speaker 1: that's something that you feel with Blur. You know, no
Speaker 1: one knows what the hell supersonic man. It just sounded cool,
Speaker 1: and you mentioned cigarettes and alcohol. The song on the
Speaker 1: Oasis track. It doesn't condone it's use, but it's about,
Speaker 1: in Nole's words, someone who's on the doll who might
Speaker 1: not have any other pleasures but these, so you know,
Speaker 1: he's sort of unders dance where these people are coming from,
Speaker 1: whereas Blur are just kind of like sketching them um style.
Speaker 1: Over Stubstance is a bit too reductive for the Oasis
Speaker 1: versus Blur discussion, but I think it's not far off
Speaker 1: to describing what what they have going on. Yeah, to
Speaker 1: me like a handy way to break down the differing
Speaker 1: world views of Blur and Oasis is I think Blur
Speaker 1: essentially wrote songs from like an insider's point of view
Speaker 1: of British society, particularly like the country's like trendy and
Speaker 1: like most posh people, you know. I think of that
Speaker 1: song country House Like, which is like one of the
Speaker 1: defining Blur songs of this era, which was about their
Speaker 1: manager buying this like lavish mansion in the country, and
Speaker 1: the tone of that song is very much reminiscent of
Speaker 1: like those ray Baby songs from the Kinks, where it's
Speaker 1: taking this like knowing comic view of privilege, whereas Oasis
Speaker 1: had an outsider's perspective, like they actually aspired to fame
Speaker 1: and wealth when they put out their first record, they
Speaker 1: didn't know anyone that had a country house like they
Speaker 1: wanted to have a country house. I always think of
Speaker 1: the first song, I definitely maybe rock and Rolls are
Speaker 1: as being like their mission statement, like for Oasis, being
Speaker 1: in a band was an escape in the idea of
Speaker 1: owning a house in the country. At least at first,
Speaker 1: it was like this incredible luxury that you could only
Speaker 1: dream about, you know, Like for Blur it was something
Speaker 1: you could that you would make fun of almost but
Speaker 1: for Oasis it was like this romantic thing, you know,
Speaker 1: like we want to be rich so we can be
Speaker 1: one of those people. So like to me, like dead
Speaker 1: is the core difference between those two groups. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the thing that I love about them is
Speaker 1: that it's it's the case of the underdog succeeding. I mean,
Speaker 1: they brought themselves out of this horrible poverty and in
Speaker 1: Northern England and be cam and it's it's rare that
Speaker 1: somebody from the Jump sings about wanting to be a
Speaker 1: rock and roll star on track one of their first
Speaker 1: album and then does it almost instantly. Man, that's part
Speaker 1: of the magic of the Oasis story. I feel like,
Speaker 1: oh absolutely, it's like the greatest called shot in rock history.
Speaker 1: Like some of the fiercest feuds, Oasis and Blur started
Speaker 1: out actually sharing a healthy mutual respect for one another.
Speaker 1: When we talked about the brit Awards earlier, when Blur
Speaker 1: get up and and actually praise Oasis when they're accepting
Speaker 1: the award for Best British Artist, and I think only
Speaker 1: five of the enemy awards. Liam Gallagher was actually really
Speaker 1: humble when Blur walked away with five awards to Oasis
Speaker 1: is three. He said, you know, I don't think we
Speaker 1: Oasis should have gotten more awards than Blur. Blur are
Speaker 1: a top band. I mean from from Liam Gallagher, that's
Speaker 1: like incredibly high praise. But their respects started to turn
Speaker 1: towards resentment after they were lumped together with Blur won
Speaker 1: too many times in the press under the whole brit
Speaker 1: pop flag banner, which which they really were kind of
Speaker 1: keen to avoid. They kind of thought it was just
Speaker 1: twee and like like you said, I mean, they were
Speaker 1: doing more just rock and roll. They weren't really specifically
Speaker 1: trying to take a stand for British culture in the
Speaker 1: world or anything. And their label boss Alan McGee later
Speaker 1: said that the track A Digsie's Dinner on Definitely Maybe
Speaker 1: was actually a piss take to use his words of Blur,
Speaker 1: uh and it was just like to show Noel basically
Speaker 1: mocking the whole brit pop sound and showing that he
Speaker 1: could do it in his sleep. It was easy to
Speaker 1: do and but I just choose not to do it.
Speaker 1: You know, this is gonna be something that we speculated
Speaker 1: this episode about about like the legitimacy of this view,
Speaker 1: like whether there was genuine animus there or if it
Speaker 1: was just about basically creating a hype to sell records.
Speaker 1: And I think there's ample evidence that it was overblown,
Speaker 1: that there really wasn't that much of a conflict. I
Speaker 1: do think, however, that like Oasis, their main problem with
Speaker 1: Blur is that at this time, Blur was the bigger band,
Speaker 1: and Oasis had a lot of ambition and they wanted
Speaker 1: to be the biggest band. I think they wanted to
Speaker 1: be the biggest band in the world. But before you
Speaker 1: could be the biggest band in the world, you had
Speaker 1: to be the biggest band in England. And this just
Speaker 1: strikes me as like a classic case of like, well,
Speaker 1: if you want to be the boss, you have to
Speaker 1: take out the boss. And it seems like, you know,
Speaker 1: more than anything, that was what was motivating the trash
Speaker 1: talking that was going on, like we can lower these
Speaker 1: guys a peg. Also, if you talk about the most
Speaker 1: famous band in the country, that's gonna get you a
Speaker 1: lot of press attention. It's gonna basically be a double
Speaker 1: win because not only are you making them, you know
Speaker 1: Blur look bad but also elevating yourself, and it seems
Speaker 1: like that is the strategy like from this point on
Speaker 1: with Oasis, like in relation to Blur, that like they're
Speaker 1: basically just gonna like mess with these guys heads as
Speaker 1: much as they can until they can overtake them. And
Speaker 1: it's funny to me and it maybe like a little
Speaker 1: sad too that like Blur did not know how to
Speaker 1: deal with this. I mean they really I think we're
Speaker 1: like mystified by like the attacks that Oasis we're gonna
Speaker 1: be launching on them like from here on out. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: They took it personally. Instead of like being able to
Speaker 1: trash talk back, they took it very personally. Damon was
Speaker 1: in a Blurred documentary No Distance Left to Run In
Speaker 1: and he says, Noel Gallaghy used to take the piss
Speaker 1: out of me constantly and it really really hurt at
Speaker 1: the time. Oasis were like the bullies I had to
Speaker 1: put up with in the school, which is you know said,
Speaker 1: I mean, the Gallagher brothers came from Manchester and they
Speaker 1: had this this difficult upbringing and very violent adolescence and
Speaker 1: they can't resist. You know, it's it's fight or flight
Speaker 1: at all times for them, and they can't resist the
Speaker 1: chance to to just take shots at the leading band,
Speaker 1: and you know, Blur coming from you know, good London
Speaker 1: families is just the perfect target. Yeah, And that's the
Speaker 1: thing about this is that you know, you can look
Speaker 1: at this scenario and you can go like, yeah, oh,
Speaker 1: way's there were bullies. Their treatment of Blur was unfair.
Speaker 1: But I think the reason why, like the trash talking
Speaker 1: landed is that what they were saying how to bring
Speaker 1: a truth to it. There's this great documentary about britpop
Speaker 1: that came out in two thousand three called of Course,
Speaker 1: Live Forever, where Noel Gallagher he's filmed sitting in this
Speaker 1: like huge opulent house. I assume it's like one of
Speaker 1: his like twenty seven houses, and he's like in this
Speaker 1: like high backed chair that looks like a throne. You know,
Speaker 1: it looks like he's like King Noel sitting in this
Speaker 1: huge house and he's talking in this interview about how
Speaker 1: he used to work on building sites, and which is
Speaker 1: kind of like a weird image because again he's like
Speaker 1: in the midst of this huge house and he's talking
Speaker 1: about his working class background. But he basically says about
Speaker 1: Blur that like, you know, when before I was famous,
Speaker 1: like I used to you know, work abs where I
Speaker 1: would get dirt underneath my fingernails. And I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that's a badge of honor, it's just the fact, like
Speaker 1: that's where I come from. And then like in the
Speaker 1: same interview, I think it's like in the DVD extras,
Speaker 1: actually he calls Damon Auburn a condescending cock. That's a
Speaker 1: quote for writing songs about the encroachment of American culture
Speaker 1: on England, which was like again one of the big
Speaker 1: themes of those like classic Blur records and those quote
Speaker 1: is if you've got the time to worry about American
Speaker 1: culture creeping into a British society, then I would get
Speaker 1: a proper fucking job. And then he of course calls
Speaker 1: Damon Auburn a fucking student, which I think he like,
Speaker 1: that's also like what he said about Radiohead and probably
Speaker 1: like every other like prominent British band of that time.
Speaker 1: As an oaysis fan, I think this is beautiful, of course,
Speaker 1: and I am someone who is more apt to sort
Speaker 1: of like sympathize with the blue collar underdog band. So
Speaker 1: you know, I of course eat all this stuff up.
Speaker 1: I will say, like, on some level, I will concede
Speaker 1: that like this is no Gallagher again being a bit
Speaker 1: of a bully and maybe even being a hypocrite, you know,
Speaker 1: talking about having dirt under his figure and nails, like
Speaker 1: when he was a much richer rock star, probably at
Speaker 1: that point than Damon Alburn was. But again, he's puncturing
Speaker 1: the pretensions of like smart culture and I put smart
Speaker 1: in quotes, and he's doing it a way that I
Speaker 1: think resonates with people. And as an American fan, that
Speaker 1: was one of the things I connected with. Like I
Speaker 1: liked the no bullshit attitude of Oasis and it really
Speaker 1: connected with me after all those years of like grunge
Speaker 1: bands basically being miserable about being famous. It's like, here
Speaker 1: was an unpretentious guy from like a really hard rocking
Speaker 1: band that embraced being famous and made fun of people
Speaker 1: that like took rock start him too seriously. I mean
Speaker 1: that I think was the appeal of Oasis. I think
Speaker 1: it was the same interview where he said, yeah, I
Speaker 1: used to work on building sites that fundamentally makes my
Speaker 1: soul more pure than blurs, right, you know. I mean
Speaker 1: he's kidding and it's funny, but on some level, Oh
Speaker 1: you wonder how much he's actually kidding, Yeah exactly. I
Speaker 1: mean he says it with a wink, but he also
Speaker 1: used that as a cudgel against Blur, you know, and
Speaker 1: it really worked. Yeah, it's pretty brutal shanking. Uh. Taking
Speaker 1: it back, things start to really get weird between the
Speaker 1: two bands. Backstage at the Enemy Awards, Liam starts taking
Speaker 1: shots at Alex James, who I always thought was kind
Speaker 1: of like the cute one, sort of like the Davy
Speaker 1: Jones of Blur, like always sort of like always winking
Speaker 1: at the camera. He's like, he's the one that just
Speaker 1: seems to be so impressed with his own adorability. And
Speaker 1: I can see how Liam will get really piste off
Speaker 1: by that, So he starts shouting various uh not nice
Speaker 1: things at Alex James and Graham Coxon is very drunk
Speaker 1: and walks up and kisses Liam on the cheek and
Speaker 1: tries to like smooth things over. This doesn't completely boil
Speaker 1: over into a full out rumble, but you can definitely
Speaker 1: tell that something is about to happen between these two bands. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it goes to another level when Always puts out
Speaker 1: the singles I might say uh, which is one of
Speaker 1: the great Oasis songs and also an example of something
Speaker 1: I was talking about earlier, where lyrically, Oasis songs are
Speaker 1: like nonsensical, Like that is one of the most famous
Speaker 1: nonsensical Oasis songs of all time, talking about there's fishes
Speaker 1: in the dishes and like that whole thing at the
Speaker 1: end makes no sense, just terrible lyrics, but just a
Speaker 1: brilliant rock song and incredible sort of like t Rex
Speaker 1: inspired guitar riff and Owasis through a party when that
Speaker 1: song went to number one and Damon Alburn decides to
Speaker 1: show up, I guess it's like a sign of goodwill,
Speaker 1: like he's trying to support again this other you know
Speaker 1: band in the British rock scene. And apparently at the party,
Speaker 1: you know, Damon Alburn's hanging out and Liam Gallagher comes
Speaker 1: up to him and goes right in his face and
Speaker 1: he goes numble fucking one, which is amazing. That was
Speaker 1: me trying to do a Liam Gallagher impression. Was pretty good,
Speaker 1: and from then it just you know, pretty much like deteriorated.
Speaker 1: Apparently there were some unkind things said about Damon Auburn's
Speaker 1: girlfriend at the time, which was Justine Frishman from the
Speaker 1: band Alastica, and uh damon. I think at this point
Speaker 1: he felt like, Okay, we're gonna have this sort of
Speaker 1: confrontational relationship I guess between our bands. But it seems
Speaker 1: like from his perspective he still kind of thought of
Speaker 1: it as like, well, this is just for fun, Like
Speaker 1: I'm not taking it personally. This is a show business.
Speaker 1: But like from then on, like Oasis like did take
Speaker 1: it seriously, like they like legitimately like hated Blur, or
Speaker 1: at least that was the story anyway, that like, you know,
Speaker 1: Blur might have looked at it as a game, but
Speaker 1: Oasis was gonna basically take it forward as a blood sport.
Speaker 1: And for years this incident was put forward as the
Speaker 1: moment when Blurred decided to launch their famous chart battle
Speaker 1: with Oasis. They were going to release their single country House,
Speaker 1: and they were checking the release schedules and Oasis is
Speaker 1: uh single role with It was going to be out
Speaker 1: I think the week before, so they moved their song
Speaker 1: backs they'll be released on exactly the same day, so
Speaker 1: they could duke it out in the charts and see
Speaker 1: who would be you know, the pre eminent British rock
Speaker 1: band of the moment, and so for years this whole
Speaker 1: number fucking one thing was cited as like why that happened.
Speaker 1: In later years, many have suspected that there was actually
Speaker 1: a deeper reason for this feud, and you can kind
Speaker 1: of get a sense of it in the Live Forever
Speaker 1: documentary when Damon's asked about the feud with Oasis and
Speaker 1: he gets really like awkward and quiet, and he says,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell you the real reason why,
Speaker 1: because you know there are other people involved in the
Speaker 1: real reason why we fell out so publicly, and it
Speaker 1: was kind of this like ominous thing to say. He
Speaker 1: got very like, you know, you didn't really want to
Speaker 1: go there, and and it kind of seemed like, okay,
Speaker 1: maybe he just thinks he's too grown up to you know,
Speaker 1: engage in this kind of like feuding now. But then
Speaker 1: in the Daniel Rachel's two thousand nineteen oral history of
Speaker 1: brit Pop called Don't Look Back at Anger, Nol speaks
Speaker 1: of a love triangle between Liam Gallagher and Damon and
Speaker 1: you know, as one might expect, he was less than
Speaker 1: delicate and his phrasing he said, Liam and Damon were
Speaker 1: shagging the same bird and there was a lot of
Speaker 1: cocaine involved and that's where the germ of the feud grew. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so it hasn't been proven, but it's some other
Speaker 1: people in the in the Oasis and Blurred Camp have
Speaker 1: basically backed that up, that there was there was a
Speaker 1: love triangle situation going on. Yeah, like Ellen McGhee, who
Speaker 1: was the head of Creation Records, he backed up that
Speaker 1: version of events, but like Liam Gallagher himself has denied it.
Speaker 1: He went on Twitter and he vehemently said that this
Speaker 1: was not true. I love that he referred to Damon
Speaker 1: Auburn as Dermott Oblong, which is an incredible this of
Speaker 1: Damon Alburn. But yeah, he basically said like that that
Speaker 1: that's not true. And he said and as for you McGee,
Speaker 1: you fucking wasp, keep your fucking mouth shut about me.
Speaker 1: Oh yo, get slapped as you were lg x um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't know, I mean, does that is
Speaker 1: that actually an admission of guilt there? I don't know,
Speaker 1: is this like a non denial denial. I mean he's
Speaker 1: sort of like vehminly I said, attacking them. He's not
Speaker 1: like I think he protests a little too much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like he doth protest too much. I'd say, we're gonna
Speaker 1: take a quick break to get a word from our
Speaker 1: sponsor before we get to more rivals. So who knows
Speaker 1: the real reason for why this food is taken off.
Speaker 1: But it's August four, that's the release date for Blour's
Speaker 1: next single, country House, the same day that Oasis was
Speaker 1: due to release Roll with It Showdown in the charts.
Speaker 1: The British rock community have not seen anything like this
Speaker 1: since the Beatles versus the Stones. I feel like it
Speaker 1: should be noted here that like none of this stuff
Speaker 1: like really mattered in America. I mean, it's kind of
Speaker 1: amazing to me that like I cared about it at
Speaker 1: all like ninety six, because you know, Oasis was building
Speaker 1: an audience in the United States, but like it didn't
Speaker 1: really like flourish here until like the spring of ninety six.
Speaker 1: That that's when wonder All like really blew up and
Speaker 1: it became a top ten hit in America. And like
Speaker 1: Blur still like wasn't like that big of a deal
Speaker 1: in America that they were a cult band, but like
Speaker 1: you mentioned song too, you know, that didn't come out
Speaker 1: until like ninety seven. Or so, so like all the
Speaker 1: stuff that we're talking about, it was really kind of focused,
Speaker 1: you know, in England and you know maybe some other
Speaker 1: places in Europe. You know, the only Americans really who
Speaker 1: cared about the Oasis versus Blur rivalry in America were
Speaker 1: like basically just nerds like me who were into British bands,
Speaker 1: who were you know, like buying Supergrass records and Verve
Speaker 1: records and you know maybe even like getting into Gay
Speaker 1: Dad and you know, bands like that. We're the only
Speaker 1: ones that cared. But yeah, this was definitely you know,
Speaker 1: an outside of America phenomenon at this point, and it
Speaker 1: is just crazy to reflect on how huge a cultural
Speaker 1: moment this was. In England. It was like a serious
Speaker 1: cultural event. They were on the cover of the Enemy,
Speaker 1: which is like the British version of Rolling Stone, basically
Speaker 1: a big banner headline British heavyweight Channe being Chip with
Speaker 1: this mock boxing poster featuring the two bands, and they're
Speaker 1: even like spots on the national ten o'clock news. I mean,
Speaker 1: in the eyes of the British public, this was an
Speaker 1: all out cultural wharves industrial North versus you know, cultured South.
Speaker 1: It was rich versus poor educated versus uneducated, middle class
Speaker 1: versus working class. As we said earlier, Blur took on
Speaker 1: the role of the sort of elitist middle class Londoners,
Speaker 1: and Oasis appeared to personify the roughnecked working class Northern
Speaker 1: English folk. And Oasis dubbed Blur art school wankers and
Speaker 1: Mott Damon for singing with this like faux Cockney accent
Speaker 1: that you know he had he had no right to
Speaker 1: sing in because of his posh upbringing. And you know,
Speaker 1: Oasis hadn't gone to college. And you know, as we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, they spent time before they were banned as
Speaker 1: construction workers. And you said said it perfectly earlier. They
Speaker 1: were trying to reject this pretense that they felt that
Speaker 1: Blur was all about the sort of art school, slightly
Speaker 1: bohemian thing that Blur put forward. They wanted to make
Speaker 1: rock and roll real again. And you know, Blur they
Speaker 1: dismissed them as preening public school boys, and the inference
Speaker 1: being that like a life of privilege had left them
Speaker 1: with no real emotions to call on it, and Oasis
Speaker 1: were like really had their heart on their sleeve and
Speaker 1: they could be I'll behaved and laddish, but they were
Speaker 1: real and you know, it's it's important to mention that
Speaker 1: at the upstart of this whole feud, Blur were a
Speaker 1: much much, much much bigger, better established bands, so it
Speaker 1: did have that underdog thing and it really added to
Speaker 1: their whole every man charm. But then on the flip side,
Speaker 1: Blur came across as like the kind of nerdy kid
Speaker 1: who got bullied, and Oasis were absolutely the buoys in
Speaker 1: the scenario. Yeah, and I think you really see like
Speaker 1: Blur having second thoughts almost immediately that they engaged with
Speaker 1: this because I think they they knew that they were
Speaker 1: in over their heads, not only because I think Oasis
Speaker 1: was just better at insulting them, Like Oasis, you know,
Speaker 1: Noel and Liam they are among the greatest insult comics
Speaker 1: in rock history. So like, if you're gonna go toe
Speaker 1: to toe with them with you know, insults, you're gonna lose.
Speaker 1: Was like, there's really no one that can keep up
Speaker 1: with them. But also you had this wave that was
Speaker 1: starting to happen with Oasis where they were really starting
Speaker 1: to take over the country. So you know, they had
Speaker 1: this I think appeal as underdogs, but they were like
Speaker 1: really becoming the dominant ones like pretty quickly, so it
Speaker 1: just seemed like an every opportunity like Oasis would be
Speaker 1: the ones kind of like seizing control of this rivalry.
Speaker 1: And like again, like just their ability to put Blur down,
Speaker 1: it's just consistently hilarious. Like one of my favorite putdowns
Speaker 1: of Blur at this time that came from I think
Speaker 1: I think it came from Nol. He referred to them
Speaker 1: as Chimney sweet music, you know, like think you know,
Speaker 1: like Dick Van Van and Mary Poppins like that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, which is hilarious, you know, I think again
Speaker 1: of this. Yeah, like this like very sort of like
Speaker 1: I don't want to say affected britishness of their music
Speaker 1: because they were actually British, but like it just seemed
Speaker 1: adgerated to the point of at least an Oasis asize
Speaker 1: as being like comic, it's like give it a rest,
Speaker 1: Like we know you're from England, you don't have to
Speaker 1: like lay on this accent. That just seems phony at
Speaker 1: some level. And uh, as Oasis was rising in popularity,
Speaker 1: it just seemed like these hits that they could take
Speaker 1: against Blur, it just seemed to be landing more and
Speaker 1: more and having more of a devastating effect on their popularity,
Speaker 1: and the more of the Blur would kind of go
Speaker 1: on on the news and sort of like backpedal a
Speaker 1: little bit, you know, earn even more wrath from the Gallaghers,
Speaker 1: because there's nothing that they hate more than somebody. You know,
Speaker 1: if if they sense fear in you, they're gonna go
Speaker 1: that much harder, I feel like, so that really earned
Speaker 1: even more disrespect from Oasis. And the funny thing to
Speaker 1: me about this whole chart battle thing is that all
Speaker 1: this fuss is over too. Not that great songs. I
Speaker 1: don't think either of these songs are, like you know,
Speaker 1: in any way really notable aside from this feud in
Speaker 1: either of their cannons. I mean, the Blur song country
Speaker 1: House sounds like a parody to me of park Life,
Speaker 1: And as you said, it's about a man in the
Speaker 1: city who makes his millions and then retires to the
Speaker 1: country for this rural life of anti depression meds and
Speaker 1: weight watchers. And it was poking fun at their former manager,
Speaker 1: and it boasted this really high concept video directed by
Speaker 1: Damien Hirst, the world famous artist, and it co starred
Speaker 1: pretty big English stars at the time. Keith Allen is
Speaker 1: Lily Allen's dad, and Little Britain star Matt Lucas, who
Speaker 1: are big comediy so it had these, like you know,
Speaker 1: celebrity driven music videos, and Oasis, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: didn't bother with things like that. Well yeah, and you
Speaker 1: know the thing is, though, I I think you're right
Speaker 1: about in terms of these two songs. I'll even say,
Speaker 1: and this is again to prove how unbiased I'm going
Speaker 1: to be in this episode. In spite of my pro
Speaker 1: wassis bias, I actually think country Houses maybe a better
Speaker 1: song than Roll with It, Like Roll with It is
Speaker 1: like one of the weaker tracks for sure. I wants
Speaker 1: a story Morning Glory. I mean, even Noel Gallagher himself said,
Speaker 1: and this is another great quote, he said, it's about
Speaker 1: funk all That's what he said about Roll with It,
Speaker 1: basically just like a meaningless song that he just knocked out.
Speaker 1: He also called country House fucking dogshit, so he thought
Speaker 1: both songs sucked, and like, I don't think always has
Speaker 1: ever played role with It live. It's like one of
Speaker 1: the few songs off that record, and what story Morning
Speaker 1: Glories just like a blockbuster album. Most of the songs
Speaker 1: on that record have become live staples. But like Roll
Speaker 1: with It, in spite of being a single, you know,
Speaker 1: they've never really played it, and I think that pretty
Speaker 1: much says it all about how they feel about that song.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's funny that this ended up being like
Speaker 1: the flashpoint really between these two bands, and again it
Speaker 1: is still some mind blowing I think of how big
Speaker 1: a cultural event this was. The final results were the
Speaker 1: lead story on the ten o'clock news in England. I
Speaker 1: mean that that was what they lead with, so huge
Speaker 1: cultural event. Oasis were the band that were favored to win.
Speaker 1: I think it was a bookmaker gave him the odds
Speaker 1: at six and four in their favor, but ultimately Blur
Speaker 1: were victorious. Country House sold I think two hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy four thousand copies to Roll with Its two hundred
Speaker 1: and sixteen thousand, and they charted number one and number
Speaker 1: two respectively. Uh. Some cynics, I have to say, pointed
Speaker 1: out the fact that Blur released two CD singles, one
Speaker 1: of them had live tracks from their mile end show
Speaker 1: in June. Uh. In other words, some Oasis fans believed
Speaker 1: that the election was stolen. Yes, but they were still
Speaker 1: number one and William. William's response was took him five
Speaker 1: years ago to number one, took us twelve months fair point.
Speaker 1: And you know, again, when you look at the response
Speaker 1: to this election that took place, you see where these
Speaker 1: two groups diverge because I think, you like, when Blur
Speaker 1: found out that they won, you know this thing, they
Speaker 1: kind of had this attitude of like, Okay, now we
Speaker 1: can maybe go back to just being normal here. Like
Speaker 1: Alex James had this quote where he said, the thing
Speaker 1: that most people don't understand when they read the papers
Speaker 1: is that this revelry is all made up. I know
Speaker 1: that when I want to hear a good song, I
Speaker 1: can write one, and when I want to go for
Speaker 1: a drink, I can call up Liam. There's few peple
Speaker 1: would rather drink with than Oasis. So you know, he's
Speaker 1: trying to put a good face on it that like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this this is just for publicity, we're actually friends in
Speaker 1: real life. And it seems like, you know, Blur has
Speaker 1: felt this way consistently over the years, like when they've
Speaker 1: been asked about it. There was a quote from Graham
Speaker 1: Coxon where he looked back on this, you know role
Speaker 1: with it versus Country House competition and he he really
Speaker 1: felt that it was like quote a hollow, pointless victory,
Speaker 1: you know, that this was just basically just like a
Speaker 1: lot of nonsense that was that was ginned up to
Speaker 1: sell records. And yeah they won, but he you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter that we won this thing. But
Speaker 1: Oasis did not feel that way. They felt much different.
Speaker 1: And I think what's interesting about this is that like, yeah, Blur, like,
Speaker 1: you know, they won this competition between these two singles,
Speaker 1: but it was kind of the beginning of the end
Speaker 1: of them being the big expand in England. I mean,
Speaker 1: because I think pretty quickly this is where they're kind
Speaker 1: of crossing like their trajectories and like Blurs going down
Speaker 1: a little bit, and you really see Oays again shooting
Speaker 1: up into the stratosphere. If Blur and interviews were saying like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, we didn't really care, we're all friends always
Speaker 1: just a the total opposite approach. Uh. Liam gives an
Speaker 1: interview the Enemy soon after the chart battle, and he says,
Speaker 1: I cared because I want number ones. I think roll
Speaker 1: with It is a great song, and he goes he
Speaker 1: talks about how he met up with Alex James in
Speaker 1: a pub soon after all this, and he said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: congratulations on your number one. You know, it's about sucking time,
Speaker 1: and Alex is trying to be all nice and friendly, says,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, well you know both of our songs were
Speaker 1: shipped anyway, and William turns on and says, no, this
Speaker 1: is where you're wrong, and this is why I fucking
Speaker 1: hate you and your band. I thought our song was top.
Speaker 1: So again this really gets back to the whole like
Speaker 1: they're not here to play, you know, like like this
Speaker 1: faux humility, bashful thing like, no, we want to be
Speaker 1: the best fucking band in the world, and if you're
Speaker 1: in front of us and get out of the fucking way,
Speaker 1: which you know I I appreciate on some level. No,
Speaker 1: actually was even more blunt about his hatred of Blur.
Speaker 1: He was giving an interview, I think to the Observer
Speaker 1: and he said I hate that Alex and Damon. I
Speaker 1: hope they catch aids and die for which which he
Speaker 1: later apologized and downgraded the wish to a bad coal
Speaker 1: but but still not not a not a nice thing
Speaker 1: to say. Yeah, this is the most infamous incident I
Speaker 1: think in this rivalry, and I have to say, you know,
Speaker 1: I love Oasis, but this is an instance where I
Speaker 1: feel a little embarrassed to be backing the band that
Speaker 1: wished aids on the other band. I feel like that's
Speaker 1: not a great look for my boys here, and I
Speaker 1: wish that wouldn't have happened. Again, showing my lack of
Speaker 1: bias in this episode, I will call out Oasis for
Speaker 1: doing that. They shouldn't have done that. Blur, you were
Speaker 1: in the right. I'm sorry that happened. But this all
Speaker 1: goes back to something I brought up earlier, which is,
Speaker 1: you know how genuine really? Like was this ravelry? And
Speaker 1: I I'm just flashing back to that quote that we
Speaker 1: were talking about, like where Alex James was saying, you know,
Speaker 1: I can go to a bar and I can call
Speaker 1: it William Gallagher and I know I can drink with
Speaker 1: him and it's going to be a good time. And
Speaker 1: then we have that quote from Liam Gallagher like where
Speaker 1: they are actually drinking together and he's talking about how
Speaker 1: much he hates Alex James and it's like his face
Speaker 1: like what's right? Like are they actually pals or do
Speaker 1: they actually hate each other? Again, I I just go
Speaker 1: back to this idea that like I think Oasis felt
Speaker 1: genuine competition with them. I think they you know, they
Speaker 1: wanted to be the biggest ban in the world, and
Speaker 1: they knew that in order to do that, they had
Speaker 1: to take out Blur first. So it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: almost like a sporting competition, like you have to hate
Speaker 1: your opponent, and I think that is where the hate
Speaker 1: was rooted. And maybe like if that wasn't in the
Speaker 1: way or like once you know, Blur was vanquished, you know,
Speaker 1: there wasn't going to be that motivation to hate them anymore.
Speaker 1: So I think that's genuine. But also at the same time,
Speaker 1: I think there was an acknowledgement on Oasis part that
Speaker 1: this was going to be good for their career. It
Speaker 1: was like a win win, like, we hate these guys,
Speaker 1: It's going to motivate us to propel our career forward,
Speaker 1: and it's also going to give us publicity, you know,
Speaker 1: the pro wrestling side of Oasis, which I've always loved,
Speaker 1: and that's another reason why I like them more than Blur.
Speaker 1: I like their outrageousness, but it just seemed like it
Speaker 1: had a double thing of like kind of fueling their
Speaker 1: fire and also you know, helping them out on the
Speaker 1: pr n you get the impression that Oasis all they
Speaker 1: ever really knew how to do was fight, like just
Speaker 1: in their interactions with the world. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: look at their upbringing and just just sort of the
Speaker 1: violence of the Arato lessons, it makes total sense. I mean,
Speaker 1: fight is like sort of the first thing that comes
Speaker 1: to their mind in any kind of human response. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it almost seems like they would lead with that in
Speaker 1: any in any interaction. And you noticed that once uh,
Speaker 1: they clearly begin to eclipse Blur as Britain's biggest band
Speaker 1: and eventually the bigger band in the world, the feud
Speaker 1: between them kind of dissipates. I think that the real
Speaker 1: sort of defining moment when they overtook Blur was at
Speaker 1: the brit Awards, in which was I believe a year
Speaker 1: after Blur had come out ahead and they went up
Speaker 1: on stage and they thanked Oasis and said, you know,
Speaker 1: they should be up here with us as best British Band,
Speaker 1: and they shared the moment with them. Oasis kind of
Speaker 1: flipped that on its head. They when they won I
Speaker 1: think it was Best British Band. They get up on
Speaker 1: stage and they mock Blur by singing from the Podium
Speaker 1: a version of Blurs Park Life that was now titled
Speaker 1: Shite Life. So very different response to UH to getting
Speaker 1: the Glory and becoming the number one band. And I
Speaker 1: feel like this was right when Blur and Oasis released
Speaker 1: their long players in the fall of Blur came first
Speaker 1: with The Great Escape, and What's the Story Morning Glory
Speaker 1: came in October. The Great Escape came out, hit number one,
Speaker 1: but it didn't hit the highs that Park Life had.
Speaker 1: It was generally seen as kind of more of a
Speaker 1: disappointment from the previous album one triple platinum and got
Speaker 1: good reviews, but it just completely pales in comparison to
Speaker 1: the cultural juggernaut that was What's the Story Morning Glory?
Speaker 1: I mean, if Blur won the commercial battle with the
Speaker 1: song chart battle, Oasis won the war. I mean they
Speaker 1: rebounded from role with it to score of this global
Speaker 1: success that just, you know, almost immediately afterwards, with the
Speaker 1: release of Wonder Wall, it just crushed any subsequent single
Speaker 1: releases from Blurry's The Great Escape, and it bolted them
Speaker 1: to fame not only in England but in the United States,
Speaker 1: which had alluded Blur up to this point. I think
Speaker 1: that's the crucial difference here is that Oasis was able
Speaker 1: to become genuine rock stars in America in a way
Speaker 1: that Blur never was. And you know, we're an American
Speaker 1: podcast that we have an American centric view of this
Speaker 1: whole thing, of course, but I think for you know, historically,
Speaker 1: for British bands to make it in America, that's a
Speaker 1: whole other level of success, you know, going back to
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, like if you could come across the
Speaker 1: pond and have hits in America, that meant that you
Speaker 1: were really going to be one of the greats, and
Speaker 1: you know, Blur never was really able to do that.
Speaker 1: You know, they had song to which is like one
Speaker 1: of the like cooler Jack jams I guess of like
Speaker 1: the last twenty five years, but like in terms of
Speaker 1: a song like wonder Wall or even like you know,
Speaker 1: songs like don't Look Back in Anger and Champions Supernova,
Speaker 1: which you know aren't as big as wonder Wall, but
Speaker 1: like we're still like substantial hits and like we're playing
Speaker 1: on MTV all the time always. It's just achieved like
Speaker 1: a level of cultural ubiquity in the States and then
Speaker 1: of course elsewhere in the world that Blur could not
Speaker 1: compete with which is why I think, you know you
Speaker 1: were saying earlier, like for a lot of Americans, they
Speaker 1: don't even think of this as a ravalry. You know.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of the irony of it for you know,
Speaker 1: as much as like I've talked about it in my book,
Speaker 1: and you know, as intensive as it was in England,
Speaker 1: really like in terms of like the greater world, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not on the level certainly of like the Beatles
Speaker 1: and Stones, like two bands that you know had equally
Speaker 1: great careers outside of England. This was really like a
Speaker 1: British phenomenon, you know, these two bands going at it,
Speaker 1: and then Oasis of course they go to America and
Speaker 1: then they end up just kind of going off on
Speaker 1: their own and being much bigger where it becomes more
Speaker 1: about the ravelry within the band than it does with
Speaker 1: this other band. Of course, like with Oasis, you know
Speaker 1: what's the story, Morning Glory like really ends up being
Speaker 1: their peak in America because after that they're gonna put
Speaker 1: up be here now and look, I love be here now.
Speaker 1: I had a great time talking about that in our
Speaker 1: Leam versus Noel episode. I'll direct you to that if
Speaker 1: you want to hear more conversations about that Coked Out debacle,
Speaker 1: which is again I think, kind of a brilliant debacle.
Speaker 1: But as we look ahead, like to the two thousands
Speaker 1: and beyonds it is interesting to compare the trajectories of
Speaker 1: these bands, and especially like Damon Alburn as he becomes
Speaker 1: a solo artist and really like this like musical renaissance man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, Blur kind of collapsed after two thousand threes
Speaker 1: think Tank uh, and they didn't make music together for
Speaker 1: I think almost a decade. But Damon saves his best
Speaker 1: ideas for his animated at the time side project Guerrillas,
Speaker 1: which is actually one of my favorite bands. And he
Speaker 1: scored an international smash with Delva Funky Homo Sapien on
Speaker 1: the song Clint Eastwood And you know it's funny. I mean,
Speaker 1: no at the time when Oasis, his fortunes as a
Speaker 1: band are really on the downturn, he couldn't resist twist
Speaker 1: the knife a little bit. Noel said that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's fitting that Damon has ended up in a cartoon band,
Speaker 1: but you know, I think that it's really it's incredible
Speaker 1: how he's able to reinvent himself creatively. I mean you
Speaker 1: could be cynical and say he does this by having
Speaker 1: the sort of revolving door of all these different artists
Speaker 1: that he brings in from you know, Snoop Dogg to
Speaker 1: think Elton John most recently. It kind of is sort
Speaker 1: of almost like you could view Ms almost a musical vampire,
Speaker 1: just taking from other people. But I think it's an
Speaker 1: incredibly creative and innovative approach to to make in music
Speaker 1: and deep in Days in two thousand and five, another
Speaker 1: international hit Plastic Beach in ten. Really, I think he's
Speaker 1: had a creative high and he definitely hit a bigger
Speaker 1: commercial peak in the States than he ever did with Blur.
Speaker 1: And this is at a time and again Oasis is
Speaker 1: really on the downturn. Yeah, I mean I think you know,
Speaker 1: you look at Oasis in comparison to alburn in the
Speaker 1: auds and beyond, and you know, it's very easy to
Speaker 1: look at alburna is again like this musical renaissance man,
Speaker 1: that he's someone who I think really proved that like
Speaker 1: he wasn't just a one trick pony with Blur, that
Speaker 1: he could move beyond brit pop and really kind of
Speaker 1: going to all these different musical arenas that I think
Speaker 1: felt much more contemporary with the time, like he felt
Speaker 1: like he was evolving with like the music scenes of
Speaker 1: you know, the century in a way that Oasis really wasn't.
Speaker 1: Like Oasis by the odds became essentially like a legacy act.
Speaker 1: Although I will say again as an Oasis fanboy, two
Speaker 1: thousand Fives Don't Believe the Truth one of their great records,
Speaker 1: and I'll say that, like, I think that album really
Speaker 1: is like an instance of them being a band in
Speaker 1: a way that they weren't in the nineties, because you
Speaker 1: had at that time people like Andy Bell and gam
Speaker 1: Archer in the band who were writing songs. Liam actually
Speaker 1: was writing songs at this time. Actually, on the previous
Speaker 1: Oasis record, Heathen Chemistry, he wrote like a really nice
Speaker 1: ballad called Songbird, which ended up being one of the
Speaker 1: breakout tracks from that record. And it seemed like Oasis
Speaker 1: might be the kind of band that, like, for all
Speaker 1: of their struggles and in her personal conflicts, that you know,
Speaker 1: maybe they could be like the Rolling Stones and just
Speaker 1: continue on for decades and decades. But of course that
Speaker 1: was not to be the case. They ended up inmploating
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine after a fight between Liam and
Speaker 1: Nol backstage in Paris. As we discussed in a Liam
Speaker 1: in No episode that was thrown fruit involved. It was
Speaker 1: very crazy. Again, please listen to that episode to get
Speaker 1: into the nitty gritty of that. What is kind of
Speaker 1: amazing to me and maybe like a little bit sad,
Speaker 1: is that, like, you know, a ways this is done,
Speaker 1: Blur actually ends up coming back and having a resurgence
Speaker 1: in the two thousand tens, and of course Damon Alburn
Speaker 1: is doing all this stuff with Gorillas as well as
Speaker 1: like various other side projects that he was involved in.
Speaker 1: You also see like Damon Alburn and Noel Gallagher actually
Speaker 1: start to be friends publicly, you know, which is like,
Speaker 1: oh this, this is a sign of maturity for these guys,
Speaker 1: but also for a fan like me, I didn't know
Speaker 1: how to take that, and I guess I still don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: No one gives an interner you inn when he's talking
Speaker 1: about we just bumped into Damon at a bar and
Speaker 1: he said, oh, yeah, I haven't seen this guy in
Speaker 1: like fifteen years. Hey, how you been. Remember all that
Speaker 1: ship in the nineties and we were like fighting and
Speaker 1: slacking each other off on the predect that was really weird.
Speaker 1: Do you want to want to have a bar? I
Speaker 1: want to have a beer, And just like that, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, beer is a hell of a diplomat, I
Speaker 1: should say. But uh, it kind of made it apparent
Speaker 1: that like time had healed any of these bruised egos.
Speaker 1: And Noel said, you know you can I'll paraphrase slightly
Speaker 1: what he said, but he said, you know, you can
Speaker 1: say you respect someone as an artist a thousand times
Speaker 1: and will never get reported, but you call someone a
Speaker 1: dick my words once, you know, So it kind of
Speaker 1: didn't seem like ins that it was all water under
Speaker 1: the bridge. And um. Noel actually shared the stage with
Speaker 1: Damon and Graham Coxon in at a at the Royal
Speaker 1: Albert Hall for a Cancer Trust benefit show and they
Speaker 1: played Blurs Tender together and then he went even on
Speaker 1: record for the song we Got the Power of two
Speaker 1: thousands seventeen, Guerrilla's song, and uh, Dannon said in an
Speaker 1: interview later that year, he said, you know, we don't
Speaker 1: talk about our past. We talked about our present. I
Speaker 1: value my friendship with Noel because he's one of the
Speaker 1: only people who went through what I did in the nineties.
Speaker 1: And again I can look at this and you know,
Speaker 1: as an adult, I can say, well, this is great.
Speaker 1: These are people that have like reached middle age and
Speaker 1: they have achieved a certain I guess zen serenity, and
Speaker 1: they can put aside any kind of conflicts in the past.
Speaker 1: Damon can get over feeling bullied and you know, whatever
Speaker 1: fall out he felt over Noel wishing that he had
Speaker 1: AIDS and Noel can, uh, you know, put aside the
Speaker 1: competition that he had as a younger man and just
Speaker 1: respect Damon Alburn as an artist. I should think that
Speaker 1: this is beautiful, and on some level I do, but
Speaker 1: there's also the part of me that hosts a Rivals
Speaker 1: podcast and I like the pettiness and I have to
Speaker 1: say that I appreciate that Liam Gallagher continues to waive
Speaker 1: the petty flag in the Oasis versus Blur Rivelry, and
Speaker 1: he was talking about this in and of course he
Speaker 1: was on Twitter and he says now that dick out
Speaker 1: of Blur and the creepy one out of Oasis need
Speaker 1: to hang their heads in shame, as it's no dancing
Speaker 1: in the streets. As you were talking about that Gorilla song,
Speaker 1: I guess, and of course also making a reference to
Speaker 1: the Mick Jagger David Bowie duet dancing in the streets,
Speaker 1: which I thought was a pretty funny joke. And then
Speaker 1: he had another tweet where he said that gob shite
Speaker 1: out of Blur might have turned Noel Gallagher into a
Speaker 1: massive girl, but believe you me, next time I see him,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be war. And you know, and Liam went
Speaker 1: on to say that he felt that like this uh
Speaker 1: datant basically between Damon and Noel killed brit pop and
Speaker 1: like just took all of the fun and drama and
Speaker 1: conflict that we all loved back in the nineties and
Speaker 1: you know, put it away. And you know, as we
Speaker 1: covered in our Liam versus Nol episode, I think Liam,
Speaker 1: he continues to I guess, keep that pro wrestling aspect
Speaker 1: of Oasis alive. I think Noel has reached a point
Speaker 1: in his career in life where maybe he's a little
Speaker 1: embarrassed by that he doesn't want to do it anymore.
Speaker 1: But thank God for Liam Gallagher. He keeps the pro
Speaker 1: wrestling part of Oasis going, and he feeds the petty
Speaker 1: souls of Oasis fans like me who don't really think
Speaker 1: that Blur suck, but like we love to say that
Speaker 1: they suck because it's a lot of fun. We're gonna
Speaker 1: take a quick break to get a word from our
Speaker 1: sponsor before we get to more rivals. All right, so
Speaker 1: we've reached the part of our episode where we give
Speaker 1: the pro side of each part of the rivalry, and
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about Oasis first. As I've said, I
Speaker 1: love Oasis absolutely one of my favorite bands of the nineties,
Speaker 1: and there's no question that in relation to Blur, Oasis
Speaker 1: has had a much bigger impact on the world. I mean,
Speaker 1: their most popular song, wonder Wall, is among the only
Speaker 1: songs to have been streamed more than one billion times
Speaker 1: on Spotify. You know, there's just something timelessly rock and
Speaker 1: roll about their music, whereas Blurred, to me, is much
Speaker 1: more of a nineties band. You know, they're specific to
Speaker 1: their era. Plus there's all the stuff around Oasis that
Speaker 1: is just so outrageous and fun. I never get sick
Speaker 1: of reading about it or hearing about it. Oasis forever.
Speaker 1: You're right, how can you not love these guys? I mean,
Speaker 1: their personalities are are just as big as their commercial success.
Speaker 1: It's just they're They're incredible. They're the best insult comics ever.
Speaker 1: Maybe Blur were smarter, and maybe they were better received
Speaker 1: by the critics, but Oasis are just so much more fun.
Speaker 1: And you know, when you want to rock out, what
Speaker 1: do you reach for, like you know, End of a Century,
Speaker 1: Like no you put on fucking like you know, rock
Speaker 1: and roll Star, or like even like roll with It.
Speaker 1: You know, I think people connect to Oasis in a
Speaker 1: way that emotionally that they never could with Blur. I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, Oasis, like I'm saying earlier, they
Speaker 1: every man. They made you believe that we could all
Speaker 1: be rock and roll stars if we all just had
Speaker 1: enough swagger and self belief. And I think they make
Speaker 1: people feel better. I feel like, So if you go
Speaker 1: over to the probe Blur side, look, I've bent over
Speaker 1: backwards to be magnanimous in this episode, and you know,
Speaker 1: to set aside all my prejudices, you know, in favor
Speaker 1: of Oasis. So in the spirit of that, I will
Speaker 1: say that, you know, Blur, they were not the instigators
Speaker 1: really of this ravelry. They were I think, in many respects,
Speaker 1: the victims of it. You know, they were targeted because
Speaker 1: they had the misfortunate being the more popular band when
Speaker 1: Oasis came out, and that made them a target. It
Speaker 1: made them this topic of scorn that Oasis was going
Speaker 1: to shoot on basically until Blur got out of the way,
Speaker 1: and that happened to work. But you know, again, I
Speaker 1: can say as an Oasis fan that they definitely bullied
Speaker 1: Blur and that maybe wasn't a cool thing to do.
Speaker 1: I also think that, you know, you could make a
Speaker 1: case that Blur was maybe more consistent over their career
Speaker 1: and they were undoubtedly more musically diverse. Also, I think
Speaker 1: Damon Alburn, you know, his career outside of Blur has
Speaker 1: been very distinguished and he's done things as an artist,
Speaker 1: whether it's with Gorilla Is or one of his many
Speaker 1: other bands that you know, it's overshadowed really anything that
Speaker 1: like Liam or Noel have done on their own. So
Speaker 1: he deserves credit for that. That said, Blur will never
Speaker 1: matter as much as Oasis, and I'm sorry I have
Speaker 1: to say that in the pro Blur part of this episode,
Speaker 1: but I said a lot of nice things about Blur
Speaker 1: without you, so I feel like I needed to put
Speaker 1: something at the end and say it once more. Oasis Forever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have to agree it. Just as an American, I
Speaker 1: always felt like Blur's music wasn't for me, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I appreciate their eclectic, arty nature and when
Speaker 1: they're at their most kinksie, but yeah, it just was
Speaker 1: something that it never really resonated with me in an
Speaker 1: emotional way. But I appreciate that just how eclectic Damon's
Speaker 1: career was later on. Just from an artistic standpoint, I
Speaker 1: think his music keeps me interested longer than Oasis is sound,
Speaker 1: which is generally static. Like if I hear a new
Speaker 1: Gorillas albums coming out, I'm really excited to hear it,
Speaker 1: But if there's a new Liam or Old solo project,
Speaker 1: I kind of feel like I know what I mean
Speaker 1: for and the excitement is not totally the same. But again,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to echo what you said Oasis forever.
Speaker 1: I agree. So if you look at these two bands together,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I think it was a really funny
Speaker 1: and like fun rivalry that made me care about rivalries
Speaker 1: as a teenager, and it was more fun to love
Speaker 1: Oasis if I could also hate Blur at the same time,
Speaker 1: Like it just enhanced my appreciation of something that already
Speaker 1: gave me a lot of joy. So you know, again,
Speaker 1: I am Oasis all the way, but I appreciate Blur
Speaker 1: for being a supporting player, really like in this conflict
Speaker 1: and being you know, a great topic for some just
Speaker 1: hilarious Oasis insults. Yeah, somebody who lived the majority of
Speaker 1: their life listening to both bands independently without realizing that
Speaker 1: they were direct competition with one another. I could say
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy to enjoy them both separately. I mean,
Speaker 1: the things that I like and admire about each band
Speaker 1: sort of stands in contrast on one another. I like
Speaker 1: Oasis is swagger and their pro wrestling level insults, and
Speaker 1: I like there's weird, quirky art school sensibilities. You know,
Speaker 1: you can like them both. So I think at this
Speaker 1: point the only thing that's left to be said is
Speaker 1: don't look back in anger the most perfect one, or
Speaker 1: maybe roll with it. I guess we could say we're
Speaker 1: rolling with it here at the end of our episode,
Speaker 1: thank you again for rolling with us. I guess in
Speaker 1: this episode of Rivals, we've had a great time talking
Speaker 1: about this beef and feud and long swimming resentment. We'll
Speaker 1: be back with more in our next episode. Next week
Speaker 1: Rivals is a production of My Heart Radio. The executive
Speaker 1: producers are Shawn ty Toone and Noel Brown. Supervising producers
Speaker 1: are Taylor Chicoyn and Tristan McNeil. The producers Joel hat Stat,
Speaker 1: I'm Jordan's Run Tug, I'm Stephen Hyden. If you like
Speaker 1: what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review.
Speaker 1: For more podcast for My heart Radio, visit the I
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Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.