FEUD: Blur vs Oasis with Miranda Sawyer

We’re unpacking the battle of Britpop as well as the war of words between Blur and Oasis. Did the art school icons or the working class heroes ultimately prevail? Who won over the critics? Who laughed all the way to the bank? Which band’s legacy is stronger today? In this episode, we’re going to answer those questions and more as we rehash the great feud between two Britpop giants: Oasis and Blur. Join us as Yasi and Miranda Sawyer, journalist and author of Uncommon People: Britpop and Beyond in 20 Songs (2024), declare a winner through a five-category contest: public insults, commercial success, critical acclaim, American or British audiences, and legacy. Plus, Miranda dishes exclusive goss about her infamous interview with Noel Gallagher, and she shares her boots-on-the-ground POV about the musical and political scenes surrounding the bands’ respective reigns. CREDITS: Host: Yasi Salek @yasisalek Guest: Miranda Sawyer @msmirandasawyer Producer: Liz Sánchez Audio Editor: Adrian Bridges Additional Production Supervision: Justin Sayles Theme Song: Bethany Cosentino Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hey, what's up? This is Chris Ryan. On Mondays and Thursdays, you can find me co-hosting The Watch with Andy Greenwald. We are still cranking it out. We talk about a lot of things in pop culture, music, movies, but most of all, our ever-changing TV landscape. So check out The Watch for recaps of your favorite TV shows, updates on the streaming wars, and recommendations on what to watch, because there's a lot to watch on Mondays and Thursdays on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:27Speaker 01

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• 0:57Speaker 02

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• 1:23Speaker 02

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• 1:28Speaker 03

  What's with this band anyway? I don't get it. Can you please explain? Wait, like, "Band Splain"?

• 1:40Speaker 03

  Never heard this band in my life. Oh, you haven't? I'd love that. Really? Why? Yeah, I love this song. Oh, I don't know that one. Band Splain, Band Splain, Band Splain. I really hate this band! Whatever, I'm their biggest fan. Band Splain, Band Splain, Band Splain, Band Splain. Band Splain!

• 2:07Yasi Salek?

  Hello and welcome to Bandsplain. I am your host Yasi Salek. Usually, this is a show where I invite an expert guest on to help me explain a cult band or iconic artist. Today's episode is a little different. Today's episode is about an iconic feud, one of the most iconic feuds even, between two of the most iconic Britpop bands, Blur and Oasis. You guys, my guest today is an absolute icon herself, Miranda Sawyer. She's an English culture journalist and author. She's written for Select, Time Out, The Guardian, and The Observer. She's been on the telly, you guys, big deal. And her new book, Uncommon People: Britpop and Beyond in 20 Songs, relives the mad exhilaration

• 2:50Yasi Salek?

  of what it was like to hear these songs for the very first time, and what it was like to make them. It came out in October in the UK, but we here in America are gonna have to wait till February, but you can go to your local bookseller and smash that preorder whenever you want. Miranda, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you.

• 3:07Speaker 05

  I'm so excited to be here. It's really nice of you to ask me. Thank you very much.

• 3:12Yasi Salek?

  Oh, no, I'm so happy. I've been, I've really been desperate to get some real flesh and blood British people to come here to talk to me. I got two Scottish people, so we're get, you know, we're like in the ballpark, but like, you know.

• 3:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, you had John Niven, right?

• 3:26Yasi Salek?

  I had John Niven and Chloe Walsh. Yeah, I didn't realize he was so famous in the UK.

• 3:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's well known within the music industry.

• 3:34Yasi Salek?

  He's very funny. We had a, we had a grand old time. But now I'm getting closer to the heart of it with a real life Englishwoman. And I'm very, you are a real life Englishwoman, right?

• 3:44Speaker 05

  I am.

• 3:45Yasi Salek?

  I get in a lot of trouble for not getting the terminology right of British English, because I am simply a dumb American, but I am.

• 3:53Speaker 05

  It's hard, though. I mean, I actually think that's like part of the reason, that's part of the problem with Britpop, actually, because if you're an English person, then to say you're British kind of helps you a bit, because being English is seen within the UK as the kind of colonizer, you know what I mean?

• 4:11Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 4:11Speaker 05

  So you're the baddies, the English are the baddies. So if you claim to be British...

• 4:15Yasi Salek?

  I don't know why that would be, but yeah.

• 4:16Speaker 05

  I wonder, huh? So then, like, if you say you're British, it kind of like makes you feel a bit better. But nobody from Scotland or Wales or Ireland are gonna say, hey, I'm British. And let's learn, people in Northern Ireland will do. But mostly people will just go, I am Scottish, I am Welsh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's part of the problem with Britpop.

• 4:37Yasi Salek?

  There's a lot of problems with Britpop and we're gonna get into that.

• 4:42Yasi Salek?

  Okay, so I wanted to have you on because this whole season, we're deep diving into British bands. Almost, I accidentally let one Irish band slip in and I'm really sorry and I will caveat that before we do that one.

• 4:57Yasi Salek?

  And we've been focusing on Britpop, you know, we did Blur last week and we're gonna do Oasis next week. And of course, one of the funnest parts of Britpop is this feud, to me anyways, to, to an American. And so we thought we'd have like a little contest, like would do a couple of, you know, categories. We'd get into it, see who came out the victor in each of the categories. And then in the end, we can like finally put this fucking shit to bed and be like, who won?

• 5:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, good idea. I'm all for this.

• 5:30Yasi Salek?

  Right? I mean, it's like, let's do it.

• 5:32Speaker 05

  Let's see if they come up to scratch.

• 5:34Yasi Salek?

  Should be up to me and you in the end. I think we're the most qualified.

• 5:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, of course.

• 5:38Yasi Salek?

  Okay, can you actually, since you were like, you know, boots on the ground, I don't know, Doc Martens, I'm not sure what you were wearing. Perhaps you had a beautiful Adidas trainer, I don't know, but you were, you were in the trenches, you were on the ground. What was kind of happening pre-Britpop explosion? Like, what was, what was the vibes? What was the music scene? Who was on the cover of the NME, like, before all this kind of stormed the, the, the world? Or, well, the UK anyways.

• 6:07Speaker 05

  So in terms of the important bands for like the NME, the indie scene, actually you kind of covered them. So it was the Stone Roses. The Stone Roses were just incredibly important and they happened kind of eighty-nine, ninety. And they were incredibly loved. By the indie press and by northerners like by people from Manch- I'm from originally from Manchester eh in particular, right? And everybody just thought they were amazing. They managed to bridge the gap between indie music and dance music, which was incredibly important. Happy Mondays did this as well and New Order before them, all Mancunian bands. And when they went, there was, you know, everyone was waiting for their second album.

• 6:52Speaker 05

  There was a kind of a big gap in indie music. So there was a few little scenes that bubbled up. There was kind of eh shoegazing, which is, I think you're probably familiar with, like kind of Mazzy Star type, Ride type bands.

• 7:14Speaker 05

  There was also a thing called Grebo, which was a bit like the roadies.

• 7:18Yasi Salek?

  I don't know about this Grebo. Please go on.

• 7:23Speaker 05

  I'm gonna educate you in Grebo. Okay, so this was a lot of bands from the Midlands, from a place called Stourbridge and kind of round that area, which is in the middle of the UK. They were bands like Pop Willie itself and The Wonder Stuff.

• 7:47Speaker 05

  Maybe you could include Carter, The Unstoppable Sex Machine, and they were like.

• 7:52Yasi Salek?

  Sure, of course, who is not familiar with Carter, The Unstoppable Sex Machine?

• 7:58Speaker 05

  They were like, they were guys, white guys, who wore big, they looked like roadies, man. They looked, they wore big shorts and they wore t-shirts and they had kind of longish hair and they were incredibly cheerful, right? Okay, so that that was also happening. Um, that wasn't for me. And then there was a guy, there was a kind of bubbling up of quite interesting little indie bands, but then what happened was Grunge happened and everybody just started looking right across over towards Seattle. And that kind of stopped, it took attention away from quite a lot of the UK bands. Maybe had just started out like kind of bands like Blur and and people like that.

• 8:40Speaker 05

  And uh everybody thought, okay, I mean, everybody started looking to America, honestly, they really did. It's like Kurt and Courtney were like incredibly important, but all these other bands, I can, I mean, I know this is the kind of place where you can say if you like a band or not. I like Nirvana, I like Hole, I didn't really like many other grunge bands, right?

• 8:59Yasi Salek?

  Here's the thing, I don't think those ones, you know, it's like a lost in translation thing, like they're so fun, like Pearl Jam is so fundamentally American. In a way that I can see it like not really translating, you know?

• 9:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, people loved them. I just didn't happen to like them. I think that America's really good at rock, like proper rock. And I kind of put them over there, whereas I think that Britain is better at pop. And I'm just a more instinctive kind of dance or pop person, really. And so I wasn't that bothered about grunge, but then what happened was really that the indie bands of Britain fought back.

• 9:34Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, they were, they were like, shut up bitch. Also, Margaret Thatcher was Ding Dong, the fucking witch is dead. She's out, she's out of there. So that was kind of a big deal, right? And like lifting the mood.

• 9:46Speaker 05

  It definitely did. I mean, everybody can kind, everyone, my generation can kind of remember where they were when she left. Like I can literally remember that, but then there was still a conservative government. So, so the person after her was still there, so we still had something to fight against. It just wasn't as terrifying as Thatcher. And we had had a few little kind of green shoots of excitement. So dance music was incredibly important in the UK and to have acid house and rave just take over the UK, which it did in the late eighties and early nineties. That gave a huge kind of boost to the idea of youth culture doing something, you know? And I remember at the beginning of nineteen ninety, you know, the charts were really important in those days in a way I don't think they are now.

• 10:28Speaker 05

  But at the beginning of nineteen ninety, at the top of the UK charts, you had Sinead O'Connor's Nothing Compared to You, you had Madonna's Vogue, you had Snap the Power. You had the Damsky's Killer, you had all these interesting kind of dancey type things coming through and you felt like, oh, we're winning, do you know what I mean? And then that slightly, it just slightly dissipated for a while, until I think you could say maybe we were winning again with Britpop when Britpop came along.

• 10:55Yasi Salek?

  Right, for a brief shimmering moment. Okay, well, that's very helpful. So we get really into the details and weeds. Some might say too much, but to them I say, you know what, go listen to the podcast. About the formations of these bands and their histories, but it seems like, from my research, in the beginning, The Feud was almost like a joke, or like, very lighthearted, and maybe almost like a little one-sided, right? Because Blur, Blur predates Oasis by quite a bit, and they were, for a moment, by around the time this feud starts, they were the biggest band in England, is that correct? Or in the UK?

• 11:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, they were in terms of indie bands, yeah, definitely.

• 11:39Yasi Salek?

  In terms of indie bands, right?

• 11:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:41Yasi Salek?

  No one's knocking Michael Jackson off those charts then.

• 11:44Speaker 05

  No.

• 11:47Speaker 05

  You know, sometimes when people say, hey, there was a scene, and you feel like, was there? There really was a kind of scene of indie bands in London. And that was for various reasons, which, you know, are kind of almost like circumstantial reasons. So really basic things like the music industry had a bit of money that came in from CDs, and then there were lots of independent record labels. So like Creation, who signed Oasis, they got a bit of money from the major record labels. So there's a little bit of money going around, right, to independent labels. So that was quite important. There were a lot of places for bands to play, and where we lived was cheap, right? So you could live in the middle of London for like fifty quid a week. And where you lived was horrible.

• 12:29Speaker 05

  So like, it was, you know, we just all lived in terrible flats with obviously no internet. So there's nothing to do at home. It was cold and it was grim, so you went out all the time. So there was a scene of people just going out and going to little gigs and going to funny little clubs. And there was a kind of scene, and Blur was in that scene, and Suede was in that scene, and Pulp was in that scene. They were all there. And other bands also, of course, were all in that scene. And then Oasis arrived from Manchester, almost like fully formed. So the other bands, like Blur and Suede and Oasis, you kind of watched them develop. All these other bands, you were kind of watching them get better in front of your eyes. And then Oasis arrived and they were like, perfect.

• 13:09Speaker 05

  They were just great. They'd just arrived, because they'd developed in Manchester away from the attention of the London press, do you know what I mean?

• 13:17Yasi Salek?

  Totally and also like almost even not, I mean, they're like God's chosen band. Like through the, through the like, through the research, I'm like, you just like Noel was like, yeah, like the fourth song I wrote was Live Forever. I don't know. Anyways, we're let's, let's give it a go. We played four shows. We're signed. That we, we did definitely maybe. And it's like, okay. Just really hit the ground running, those, those lads.

• 13:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, they really did. And then when they arrived, like I remember somebody saying to me, there's this band, I think, honestly, they're really good. I think you're gonna like them. And so I turned up like slightly cynical like people do. At a gig at the Astoria, I think in London and there and I just thought, oh, wow. Like, like they didn't do very much on stage. So we were used to people throwing themselves off. Like speaker stacks and being quite drunk.

• 14:01Yasi Salek?

  Because that's what Blur did, right? Blur was very like active on stage and vomiting and all the things.

• 14:08Speaker 05

  Yeah. So there was a lot of drink involved and Damon always did that jump. Do you remember that jump where you jumped quite high and you'd lift your, he would lift his knees up by his ears.

• 14:17Yasi Salek?

  Like a, like a hardcore jump almost. Yeah.

• 14:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, hardcore jump. And like Graham would throw himself on the floor because he didn't want all the attention to be on Damon. And like, you know, there was quite a lot going on. And with Oasis, they just seemed to stand still. Like Noel's just stood and looked at his hands. It's almost like he'd only just learned the chords. And then Liam had that amazing stance where he would stand with his hands behind his back and his chin jutted forwards towards the microphone and just sing like that. And they were like, they were really good. Like they were really good. And like, if you, you might not like their music, but you could see, okay, they've really got something. And you come away and you knew the songs, like you felt like the songs had been somewhere inside you all the time. And you could argue that, that's because they sounded like the Beatles and Suede.

• 15:01Speaker 05

  Or you could argue that some bands have just got that knack, that when you hear them, you feel like, oh, they've, they were somehow inside me already.

• 15:10Yasi Salek?

  They've been here forever.

• 15:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. They've been forever. So they were like a huge shock to the system when they arrived to Oasis. They kind of shook. Everything up and put everything out of whack. They had in a funny little scene, which was kind of an art school scene, really. You know, like quite an arty kind of vibey band. And they were just not art school and they arrived and you were like, oh, right, okay. Things have changed. You could feel it like as soon as they arrived, like, oh, okay.

• 15:36Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I mean, I want to talk about that art school.

• 15:39Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 15:39Yasi Salek?

  Aspect because I think one of the most fascinating things to me about this feud is the focus on class, right? That's the, that's at the heart of the feud. It sort of got down to like that for people like.

• 15:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:55Yasi Salek?

  Oasis is like the pure working class, you know? They're scrappy. They deserve their success because they've earned it. And.

• 16:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:06Yasi Salek?

  Whereas like Blur are students, which Noel Gallagher uses student as like a slur.

• 16:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:11Yasi Salek?

  And they're artsy and they came from more privileged backgrounds. And also even the like, the subject matter of what they're dealing with, right? You really see it where like Blur is voyeuristic about British culture, but early, I mean, when they kind of broke through about working class culture, which is such a, was such an interesting place to make art from, which I could see would rub some people the wrong way. Being like, oh, we're zoo animals to you bitch, you know, like, whereas Oasis was like, we want to be rich. Like, we don't, we don't want to write songs. We're not making Mike Lee movies over here. Like, we don't want, we, we, we are on the dole.

• 16:51Yasi Salek?

  We lit, you know, like, we worked at building sites. I didn't graduate high school. What's an O level? You know, like, whereas like, it's a whole different thing over here and it, and you can speak to it more, obviously, because we, we have it a very differently here in America, although it did become a thing during grunge. Also the class thing, but not ever to the extent that it was, I think with Britpop.

• 17:13Speaker 05

  You know, Britain is an incredibly class ridden society. I mean, it just, it really, really, really is. And that you, we could talk about that until we're blue in the faces to do with having a royal family. It's to do with having an aristocracy. It's like, I mean, it's really bad. So I think, you know, you're definitely right. Oasis. Were working class and they were from Manchester, so they were northern. And they were seen in inverted commas as more authentic because of that. And they sang from the heart. Or they sang about things like cigarettes and alcohol. I mean, literally cigarettes and alcohol, you know what I mean?

• 17:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 17:44Speaker 05

  And tonight I'm a rock and roll star. Like it's like.

• 17:47Yasi Salek?

  Universal, universal themes that anyone can belt. Yeah.

• 17:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:52Yasi Salek?

  Whereas Damon Albarn is like in a Cockney accent, talking about like Vitmo or whatever. I don't even know, like biscuits and.

• 18:01Speaker 05

  They're quite interesting, but because they're kind of complicated when it comes to class. So Damon is his dad. And he is definitely art school. Like his dad literally taught at an art school and was an artist himself.

• 18:14Yasi Salek?

  And his mother was also an artist and he really came from that background.

• 18:18Speaker 05

  So he, he came from that background. Um, but then Alex was very solidly, solidly middle class, right?

• 18:25Yasi Salek?

  Yes.

• 18:25Speaker 05

  But Dave and Graham were a little bit more complicated. Dave's background was unhappy and difficult. And you know, there were problems at home, right? And then Graham was an army kid. And that means his dad, who was a musician in the army, moved between different army bases. So his class was not artsy and was not so middle class really at all. But they just got labelled as middle class because they were clever. And they, yeah, they went to university. Alex and Graham met at Goldsmith. So they went to university. And also Damon, I think because he was brought up in a kind of art school environment, had an analytical brain.

• 19:07Speaker 05

  Do you know what I mean? So like, he was in his head a lot of the time. Like if you think about Oasis songs, they're from the, the. I used, I always think of them as like working class men's soul music. Like you, like you see, you see people and their arms around each other and they are like singing the songs at each other. It's like being at a football match. It's a really similar vibe. And it's the same thing that they're tapping into.

• 19:30Yasi Salek?

  It's very visceral. It's very visceral, whereas like you're saying, it's more cerebral blur.

• 19:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah. And they change. They definitely do change. Cause if you think about kind of thirteen and. Even Blur, like they, they get more out of their heads. But in the early stages and in the kind of Britpop stages, they're like Damon is in his head. He's, he's all, he's self-conscious. You know, and he he's turning to particular types of music writing, so like the kinks, which were important in the sixties and that kind of style of observational, you know, kind of style was telling little stories was what's he what he kind of wanted to do, but he wasn't unselfconscious enough to tell those stories about himself until a bit later, I don't think.

• 20:21Speaker 05

  And even now, like, if you look at his most, the recent album, Blur, The Ballad of Darren, I'm like, Nate, that's The Ballad of Damon. Why don't you just call it The Ballad of Damon?

• 20:31Yasi Salek?

  It's kind of incredible that, we talked about on the last, like, that he, like, that that's the final, I don't know if it'll be the last one, but how far the evolution of Damon being like, I'm only talking about guys I see on the bus, and now I'm talking so personally about my own, you know, obviously, it's a divorce album, about my own emotions and stuff. It's it's pretty amazing.

• 20:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's great.

• 20:55Yasi Salek?

  I do think, like, at the very least, Blur can be credited for ushering in Britpop, because in my estimation, you tell me, I, you know, I wasn't there, but like, making an album like Parklife and and focusing on purpose, like strategically, lasering back in on the UK as like a, like, you know, fuck you, America, and your grunge, get out of my fucking face. It made this genre almost like, I know Pulp was also doing some similar things.

• 21:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 21:31Yasi Salek?

  But maybe not as overtly as Damon's, like, artistic statement of we need to bring it home.

• 21:38Speaker 05

  No, I completely agree. And if you think like, so before that, obviously, there was Modern Life is Rubbish, and that was almost for them even more of a statement, because they made it after they'd been touring in America and li- literally, you know, arrived in America when grunge was taking off. So nobody was interested in them. And then they had kind of debts to pay. It was all really grim. And they came back and they made Modern Life is Rubbish. And it was. A statement, that was an absolute statement and they were, they they launched it with these two looks. They're so they were like photo, like they do did a photo session, there are these two looks and the first look was called British Image One. And that was where they were dressed like they were drinking tea and they had their hair all slick to the side and they look like they're in a stately home.

• 22:23Speaker 05

  So it's that kind of class. So they've got this British image number one and that is like we are sipping tea, we are in Downton Abbey. Right?

• 22:32Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 22:32Speaker 05

  So that's one image, right? And then they've got British image number two and that's them in Fred Perry's and suit jackets and jeans.

• 22:40Yasi Salek?

  I told this to my producer, like, if this was not an audio based podcast, I would get so much de- I'm so fascinated by the fashion lens of it because.

• 22:49Speaker 05

  Beautiful.

• 22:51Yasi Salek?

  But because it's also like the fashion is political, like in and it is, you know, it has so much more meaning than just what they chose to wear. Anyways, I don't want to cut you off, but so this is not casual.

• 23:03Speaker 05

  This is not casual. No, it's not Perry's. Casuals and Perry's are the same, right? So casuals and Perry's are essentially working class boys who like football and music, right? And so they turned it, casuals and Perry's kind of ended up, they they liked all sorts of music. But they ended up like in the Stone Roses really, that's where they ended up, right? Britpop was something different. So the British image number two that Blur came up with for Modern Life is Rubbish. Has got its roots much more in almost like the specials or like kind of that kind of culture. And slightly skin eddy, right?

• 23:42Speaker 05

  And so they look, the the jeans are slimmer, they've got uh Dr. Martin boots on, they've got a dog on a chain, right? So what they're referencing is kind of working class, but it's also more to do with the specials and rude boys. And that kind of look and skinheads look than casuals, which were much more, like my haircut. Tradically is stilly, still quite casual. That's quite the Perry boy.

• 24:09Speaker 05

  Like one sided.

• 24:10Yasi Salek?

  And you're and you're wearing an Adidas jumper on top of it.

• 24:12Speaker 05

  Of course.

• 24:13Yasi Salek?

  It's really giving.

• 24:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, you can't, I can't help it. And so that's, that's almost, Casillas and Perry's were more working class football guys. So they would eventually end up like Oasis.

• 24:25Yasi Salek?

  Right, okay, okay, that's so interesting. Yeah, because I know, I do know that Damon was super into the special, Damon and Graham were very into the special.

• 24:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, very much so.

• 24:34Yasi Salek?

  Children. Were the specials working class though?

• 24:37Speaker 05

  Not entirely. So not Jerry, but all the others were.

• 24:40Yasi Salek?

  Got it, got it, Jerry Dammers.

• 24:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, all the others definitely were.

• 24:42Yasi Salek?

  So interesting.

• 24:43Speaker 05

  And I didn't actually answer your question, so I feel really bad. Your question was, was there a kind of feud before the big feud? And I would say there wasn't really. There was an idea that Oasis were different. They did seem really different. And the press officer, Johnny Hopkins, he very deliberately kept them separate so that he said, like, there's two ways of marketing a band. You put them in with a kind of new wave of whatever it is, you know.

• 25:14Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 25:14Speaker 05

  Oh, there's lots of Britpop bands, here's another one. Or you keep them separate. And he very carefully kept them, he wanted them slightly different, which is quite weird because obviously in the end they become like the epitome of Britpop now supposedly. But at the time he kept them separate because obviously they're also of Irish heritage, which, you know, it is important, I think. And so that kept them a little bit separate. And there was a kind of little bit of nippy rivalry, but it was more not loads. Do you know what I mean? It was a bit like, no, no, you know, there were interviews where Noel would be saying things like, you know, it's great that all these guitar bands are coming back. Blur are good, Rider good. Do you know what I mean?

• 25:50Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 25:51Speaker 05

  He, he definitely was okay about it. It's just like certain people and certain, you know, certain people in life are really competitive. And Damon is really competitive and Noel is really competitive.

• 26:04Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 26:04Speaker 05

  They just are. And like other people are vaguely competitive. Like I think Brett Anderson is pretty competitive. Everybody, I mean, if you're in a band, you know, you probably are, you're a bit of a show off, you're a bit, you know, you're competitive. But honestly, they're just really competitive. And there's something about those two of them and the circumstances and everything. That ended up becoming a rivalry.

• 26:27Speaker 06

  Both bands have really upped the stakes and someone's gonna come out on top and someone's gonna come out second. And by the very nature of being in a band, you're always quite competitive.

• 26:36Yasi Salek?

  Do you think that the journalists had a hand to play in it before they started to make news out of the rivalry? Just, just in the beginning by lumping them together, because I feel like I read something where like Alan McGee brought the NME cover that was like Britpop is popping or whatever. That's not what it said, but it had, and it had Blur. It had a picture of Blur, but it also had like listed Oasis in this like little list of things. And Alan was like, why is there, well, okay, well, if we're in this, and then why is their picture on the thing? And Noel was like, yeah, what the fuck? Why is, why is their picture on the thing? And kind of like by lumping them in, even as hard as Johnny Hopkins tried to like keep them out.

• 27:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:14Yasi Salek?

  Perhaps like help stoke that rivalry or that competitiveness. Cause maybe they didn't think they were even competing before, although Blur was the biggest band in the country. So I guess if Oasis was competitive, that's the first person to knock out.

• 27:25Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean, the whole, weirdly, the whole scene was a little bit competitive. We were young. And, you know, I always think with any artistic scene, and this is like Britpop, it could be like the surrealists or I don't know, whatever. Is that it's a group of people who've got similar ideas about things. So they stand against something that exists, but within that group, there are rivalries, like obvious rivalries. And that's kind of what happened. And that happened even in the music journalism. So I worked for a magazine called Select and that was like a magazine that covered indie music, but it was only out monthly. And we wrote from the point of view, almost like of the magazine, there weren't individual writers. We were individual writers, but it wasn't really like that. And then there was the NME and Melody Maker and they came out every week.

• 28:10Speaker 05

  In there, they were, the writers were encouraged to be individuals. And also there were huge rivals, the NME and the Melody Maker, and they were also huge rivals of, of Select. So there's all these rivalries, but even within, within the actual newspapers, there'd be somebody who said the Manchester Street creatures are really great. And then somebody else would go, mm, I'm sorry, I prefer Nirvana, you know what I mean? And they would like argue even within it, even within this. So there was a kind of nippiness, a kind of rivalry-ness all the time. Plus, I think when there's a hint of an ability to maybe have success. Like I think that people didn't really believe that they could go to number one or whatever, because

• 28:49Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 28:50Speaker 05

  The era before that in indie music. Indie music, like bands like the Happy Mondays and the Stone, and the Stone Age, less so, but maybe Happy Mondays. And New Order and the Smiths, all those bands, everybody loved them, everybody liked music, loved them, but they didn't get to number one.

• 29:05Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 29:06Speaker 05

  Do you know what I mean? They would like be going at number seven and they drop out. And then suddenly it became like maybe a chance that you might. You could, you know, like this could happen and the midweeks would be really high and suddenly it became a big deal. It was like something that was. It's something that could happen. It really, really, really could happen.

• 29:25Yasi Salek?

  Right, like the golden ring was within reach.

• 29:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. And Blur slightly showed that way. So Suede were really, really important in setting the scene. So they were like on the front cover of Melody Maker before they'd even got a single out. And then they had seventeen front covers before they had an album out. I mean, man, it was mad. So nuts. And so they were like incredibly hyped and were really, really loved. But there were other bands, but then when Blur came out with Part Life, as soon as you heard the first, the first single was Girls and Boys. And as soon as I heard that, I thought, okay, like, this is really different. It's really, really good. It's proper good.

• 30:11Speaker 05

  And then the rest of the album, you're like, this is a really great album. And then the whole country suddenly agreed. And that was the surprise. Like, that was the thing that felt different. It was like, oh, my god. We've been to see them in all funny little. Like gigs, you know, you just wander into a Blur gig, it would be a great gig or not, or whatever, it would be, you just get in. And then suddenly they were playing at like Ali Pally or they were playing, they were playing at Mile End and it was a big gig. Like full of people, full of girls screaming at them. And you were like, oh, it was just shifted up a gear. And once they shifted up a gear. There was a sense that that everyone could shift up a gear, you know what I mean?

• 30:51Speaker 05

  And they, and they kind of happened. And then Oasis were kind of waiting with this album that was just there to kind of knock everybody out.

• 30:57Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 30:58Speaker 05

  And they took over, do you know what I mean? Yeah, Blur had a year and then it was Oasis's year, really.

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• 32:07Yasi Salek?

  Okay, I love this. I'm so excited to get into it. Here's what we're gonna do, Miranda. We're gonna get into the actual judging. We're gonna go into five categories, okay? You and I will discuss them and then at the end we'll agree or disagree on who won. Producer Liz can help. The first one is public insults.

• 32:29Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 32:30Yasi Salek?

  I hesitate to even get into this one because babe, we already know who won this one.

• 32:34Speaker 05

  Like, yeah.

• 32:35Yasi Salek?

  We can argue all the live long day about who's better musicians or who's music is better, but like insult comics? Nobody can touch Nolan Wiegand.

• 32:44Speaker 05

  No, absolutely not. Even now, they always wipe the floor with everybody.

• 32:48Yasi Salek?

  The amount of times I've been in bed reading my Little Britpop books, crying, laughing, crying. Because I just read some tossed off comment in an interview where I'm like, how are you this funny? Just naturally. But let's get into it anyways. So the first thing that I sort of found was kind of even pre, this is like October 94. It's a Vox magazine interview. And I think they were asking Liam Gallagher about what it means to be a lad, which is another deep obsession of mine, lad, lads and lad cultures. And Liam says, being a lad is what I'm all about. Define lad? I'm not going to do the accent because I can't do it. I don't define anything. I'm just me and I know I'm a lad.

• 33:31Yasi Salek?

  I can tell you who isn't a lad. Anyone from fucking Blur.

• 33:36Yasi Salek?

  Nobody asked about Blur. Blur was not even brought up.

• 33:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:40Yasi Salek?

  Catching a stray here.

• 33:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, but also he's right. They're not lads.

• 33:44Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 33:46Speaker 05

  They're not lads at all. But what's interesting is that Damon kind of flirts with it.

• 33:51Yasi Salek?

  Just because Damon put on a Fila jumpsuit or tracksuit and stuck a gold tooth in honey, that you can't just put on a. The culture is not your costume.

• 34:01Speaker 05

  No, not at all. No, it isn't. But also, I think that he, yeah, he's not a natural lad, but there is something ladish about him. It's funny, it's that competitiveness. He's quite masculine. He wants to win. He's got a kind of confrontational nor nature.

• 34:17Yasi Salek?

  He got really into football.

• 34:19Speaker 05

  He is into football now. So what happened with him as well, I think, is once he got famous and it completely messed with his head, he started to go to see Chelsea football with Phil Daniels, who's obviously on Part Life. And that really helped him because the thing about football is there's a result. And it's relentless. Like football is just relentless. It's on every weekend. There is a result. And also he started playing football as well. And I think that took him out of his head. And so I do think that that that did help him, but it was also difficult for other members of Blur because Graham was a bit like, what, why have you turned into a lad?

• 34:58Yasi Salek?

  That's one of the other interesting things to me is like Graham from day one was like a manic pixie dream boy. Like he was, he was like.

• 35:06Yasi Salek?

  Truly like, he was so ahead of his time, like, he like walked so like all of indie sleaze could run, like with his like little Converse and his little cardigans, you know, like his glasses, and like, he never changes that, and the whole time you see like all these shifts within Blur, not Davey, they're poor, God bless Davey, it was just in the back playing drums, being older and married and not really having anything to do with them, but it's just very funny, you see him and being like, what are we doing here? We like sports?

• 35:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly, and he always seemed at least fifteen years younger than he actually was, I mean, even now, he's exactly the same.

• 35:44Yasi Salek?

  And Loki, he was just as hot as Damon, but you wouldn't have known it because he was hiding in the background like that.

• 35:50Speaker 05

  Very much so, and also weirdly, Alex incredibly naturally hot, he can't dress, Alex, but like incredibly hot, like in terms of cheekbones and jawline and tiny little bum, amazing.

• 36:03Yasi Salek?

  Almost the kind of face that you do want to punch, though, because it's so cheekbone-y and beautiful, you know?

• 36:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, he was like a model.

• 36:10Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 36:11Speaker 05

  He really, honestly, he was like a model, he was unbelievable, Alex.

• 36:14Yasi Salek?

  The other thing about Britpop, man, like they got, whoever did this, God above, got, really went for it with the faces of these people, Liam Gallagher, who looks like that? That's crazy, who looks like that? He was gorgeous enough that it didn't matter that the other four people were like, not a whole lot to look at, you know, like, he carried the whole thing on his beautiful shoulders, we're not going to talk about their looks as a category, because that's not, that's not nice, but we already know what we think over here. Okay, and then Damon, well, Damon called them five pretty boys from Manchester, which is not really a diss, when he presented the Top of the Pops that they were on.

• 36:56Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 36:57Speaker 00

  And here are another five pretty boys from Manchester, it's an exclusive, they're aces and they're wonderful.

• 37:02Speaker 05

  It's kind of a joke, but it's a joke with a joke in it.

• 37:06Yasi Salek?

  I don't think Damon saw them coming for him, is what I feel, you know, like, it seems like he was like, what? What's this happening? The Brit Awards, though, okay, can you, were you there? Can you talk to me about, did you watch it on TV? It's a big deal, right? The 1995 Brit Awards where Blur like swept one of the four categories, and then they said they should share the best British band with Oasis.

• 37:31Speaker 00

  I think this should have been shared with Oasis.

• 37:35Speaker 07

  Yeah, much love and respect to them.

• 37:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, so they're trying to be generous. They are really, yeah, it was a big deal them winning and they're trying to be generous. And I think they won like four or five awards and Oasis won one. I think they won best new band. And actually Liam was completely ungracious. Liam was always really ungracious. So like when Noel was trying to be nice about things, Liam was always just like when part like he accepted the award and he would try to put up his bum and he'd sing Shite Life instead of Park Life. And like, he was just ungracious, you know?

• 38:13Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 38:13Speaker 07

  I like the funk, Kim. All people, so many people. And they walk your country house and it ends through their Shite Life.

• 38:30Speaker 05

  I've interviewed Liam and I've met Liam a few times and the thing that he absolutely is himself at all times. Like he's not different. He's not different now than he, I mean, he's mellowed a bit, but he's the same in essence.

• 38:42Yasi Salek?

  Pure authentic thing, you know, like it really is so authentic.

• 38:47Speaker 05

  Yeah. And also when he's younger, it's, and this is a really unusual quality and I've only seen it in about three or four people. But he would walk into a room and you wouldn't know what was gonna happen. Like there was no boundaries. Like he had no boundaries. He, you just didn't, like all bets were off. And it wasn't scary. I mean, it could be scary, but it was like exhilarating. You think, okay. Like, I don't know, is the table gonna be turned over? Is he gonna chuck something at someone? Is he, what's he gonna say? There were no rules in his head. Do you know what I mean? And it's so, it's so unusual, man. Like that is really unusual. Most of us have got some kind of societal mores, holding us in, restricting us, and he just doesn't have it.

• 39:31Yasi Salek?

  There's actually a really great quote from him that I couldn't stop laughing at where he was like comparing himself to Noel and he's like, yeah, Noel like thinks about things. I don't do that. Like, I'm just like, yeah, let's fucking go. Let's go into fucking Tuesday. Let's get up in this bitch Tuesday. Let's fucking do Tuesday so hard that Wednesday doesn't fucking see what's coming at Wednesday. I was like, what are you even talking about? It's almost like spiritual, where it's like you're one of those where they say like, you know, live in the moment Buddhism, like that person is in the moment at all moments.

• 40:04Speaker 05

  He really is.

• 40:04Yasi Salek?

  It's quite inspiring, honestly, in a way.

• 40:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, I love him. I think he's great. He's an amazing frontman as well. Absolutely brilliant.

• 40:12Yasi Salek?

  At that same awards, he, I think, went up to Blur and was like, you tell me, tell me to my face that you deserve that award. They were like, what?

• 40:23Speaker 05

  They were like, we're just happy drinking here. Sorry. We're like, we want some awards. Go away.

• 40:27Yasi Salek?

  I guess we, yeah. Okay. So when Oasis released Some Might Say, had Blur had a number one single yet? No, right?

• 40:35Speaker 05

  No, I don't think they've had a number one single.

• 40:37Yasi Salek?

  They haven't had one. And so this is where I love. There's a lot of like differing information, but Damon and Alex, I think, end up at the party for celebrating, some might say, I think of Mars Bar. I did read a couple of different times that Alan McGee is the one that invited him because Alan McGee is absolutely a goddamn puppet master. God bless him. He knew what he was doing. He was like, what if we have, we know, he knows Liam, he knows what Liam's gonna do. He already knows you're gonna throw those guys. And they just, they just go like, oh, find a party. Our, our mates got number one. Gorgeous. We're gonna go say good on you. No, that's not what happened. That was not what happened. No.

• 41:20Speaker 05

  Liam goes up to Damon and goes, number fucking one.

• 41:24Yasi Salek?

  I wasn't gonna do it again to the accent, but it's so good.

• 41:27Speaker 05

  But also, I'm just gonna tell you that the Mars Bar is really small. Like, it's a small venue. You're not talking like a big bar. It's small, right? And like, so it's like, it's in your face. Like, yeah, you couldn't, you couldn't get away very easily.

• 41:41Yasi Salek?

  Well, then the goss appeared later in different places. So Damon is with Justine Pritchard at this time, but they had an open relationship. And apparently Damon had had a little thing with a girl that Liam was also having a thing with. And this was confirmed by Noel in the book, Don't Look Back in Anger by Daniel Rachel, where he said Liam and Damon were shagging the same bird. There was a lot of cocaine involved. And Damon also corroborated this, but he was like, well, I don't, but I don't think that's why there was a feud. He's like, it was very Bohemian time. Why would they care about that?

• 42:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's true. And I know the woman involved.

• 42:24Yasi Salek?

  Oh my god, the tea and the goth.

• 42:26Speaker 05

  Well, I'm not gonna say who it is, but like.

• 42:28Yasi Salek?

  She's the Helen of Troy of this feud.

• 42:31Speaker 05

  She's really great. I really like, she's a really brilliant person. And I think that it might have been partly to do with that, but I just don't think it was. It was more about the band stuff, really.

• 42:42Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 42:42Speaker 05

  But yeah, they were.

• 42:43Yasi Salek?

  But.

• 42:44Speaker 05

  Hmm. Yeah, I don't think it helped. But um, I don't think that was the reason. I don't really don't actually.

• 42:49Yasi Salek?

  I'd like to shake this woman's hand, to be honest. Truly. What a legend. That's, that's a real legend.

• 42:58Yasi Salek?

  Okay, can we talk a little bit about then the chart battle?

• 43:02Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 43:03Yasi Salek?

  Did you cover this when you were, when you were at SOT?

• 43:06Speaker 05

  So I was working for The Observer after a bit. And The Observer is like the Guardian's, the Sunday paper of The Guardian, right?

• 43:15Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 43:15Speaker 05

  And it just so happened that I was interviewing Noel before that battle. And then because of the nature of the article I was doing, I ended up interviewing him after the battle as well. So basically what happened was I was meant to do a piece on Oasis. I interviewed them. They played Irving Beach in Scotland, and that was before the single battle. And I got Noel and I didn't get Liam. And it was like impossible. And then it became very clear that Liam wasn't gonna talk to me. So they said, okay, you can talk to Noel again on the phone.

• 43:46Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 43:46Speaker 05

  And that happened after the chart battle, just sort of me.

• 43:49Yasi Salek?

  Got it. Yeah, so they had, they had lost, obviously. Everyone knows what happened.

• 43:53Speaker 05

  So there was definitely a change in atmosphere. But what happened with the chart battle was, I think you're right. I do think that there was a kind of bit of a trigger point, and that was Liam going up to Damon going number four K one. And Damon just is competitive. And he knew they've had this massive success with Part Life. They've got another album coming out. And people wanna sell records, so and they want number ones and all those kind of things. So actually what had happened was there was a kind of agreement or a gentleman's agreement between creation of food that.

• 44:27Speaker 05

  Oasis would release one on one week and Blur would release on another week. They wouldn't go head to head about anything.

• 44:33Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, that was like industry standard. No one ever did that. Like you, you, you knew that you were just like, oh, we don't do that.

• 44:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. And so what happened was that Oasis had, um, Roll With It coming out, right? Blur had Country House the week after. And basically, Food were a bit worried that with the momentum that Oasis had, that their single would stay number one.

• 44:59Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 44:59Speaker 05

  And Blur wouldn't be able to knock them off that perch. So it would be all right if it was the other way around. Because if they would have a number one and then Oasis would have a number one, that's fine. Do you see what I mean?

• 45:09Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, totally.

• 45:10Speaker 05

  But it, but they're not idiots and they could see that Oasis had this huge kind of momentum behind them. And so they probably wouldn't get a number one. So then I think they just had a bit of a discussion. They thought, you know what? Why don't we just make it into a proper battle? We'll just see what we can do. Right? Well, let's do that.

• 45:24Yasi Salek?

  From my research, it did become clear that might have been a lot to do with Damon. Cause I think everyone else was kind of like, yeah, we'll, we'll just move it. And like, I know there was, there was some speculation. They were like, if we move it before, it'll look like we're scared of them. Which is true, it would have looked like they were scared of them. And I think like, there was a little bit of like, Damon was like, let's just fucking.

• 45:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, let's just do it. Yeah, let's have it go. Yeah. What's interesting about that is that, yeah, he was like, okay, if you wanna fight, I'm here for a fight. Right? So let's have the fight. And then what happened is so that became a kind of thing, I suppose, really. But the main thing that that changed was not kind of the people who like indie music. People who like indie music were kind of fine about it. But it brought it to kind of mainstream attention. And that was because if you think about the tabloid press in the UK, which obviously still, it was still really important in that then, like the Mirror and the Sun were really important.

• 46:19Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 46:20Speaker 05

  And they are not interested in the progression of Blur from, you know.

• 46:27Speaker 05

  From baggy.

• 46:28Yasi Salek?

  The preoccupation with with the British society.

• 46:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, they don't care. They don't care about that. What they want is an event. And that is an event. Like, that's, that is a fight. And it's a fight where someone is gonna win, right?

• 46:42Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 46:43Speaker 05

  And I remember the mirror in particular, they were on Oasis's side. They thought Oasis were gonna win because that was absolutely their audience, northern working class.

• 46:52Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 46:53Speaker 05

  Country, funny, fun. Yeah, exactly. Football supporters, lads. They thought they were gonna win. They were very shocked when Blur won, actually.

• 47:00Yasi Salek?

  Who were you rooting for, if I might ask?

• 47:03Speaker 05

  So Blur were my friends, so I would naturally root for Blur.

• 47:07Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 47:07Speaker 05

  But I really loved Oasis as well. And both those singles are kinda crap. So.

• 47:12Yasi Salek?

  Honestly amazing that this whole fucking to do was about two absolutely mid songs. Like, they're just not good. In the catalog of these great bands, like, these are the two songs.

• 47:23Speaker 07

  The whole shame about the thing is the two songs are shit. You know, if it was like cigarettes and alcohol and girls and boys, fair enough. Country house is fucking dog shit. Roll with it is like, has never been played by anybody since the band split up, so that tells its own story.

• 47:39Yasi Salek?

  But it also is really funny. I will say, after deep research, it feels like Blur rigged it a bit. They rigged it a bit.

• 47:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, no, I think what happened was Creation were a bit rubbish.

• 47:52Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, Creation was a bit chaotic and they did not think to game the system as much as, but Blur sold their CDs for a pound cheaper, which is Creation did not have the bandwidth to do that. Their margins were razor thin. And they released, they did a cassette where, which was kind of a thing, whereas Creation did not do a cassette. They did a vinyl. And so in the end, I think it kind of boiled down to format, from my estimation.

• 48:22Speaker 05

  A little bit, yeah. And also Oasis were, like, they were definitely really important, but they were just turning, do you know what I mean? So Blur was still quite imperial, do you know what I mean?

• 48:32Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 48:32Speaker 05

  So it was just at that point where it changed. And the general thesis is that, you know, Blur won the battle, Oasis won the war. But really. You know, and this sounds incredibly hippy and I don't mean it to sound it, but what it, I feel like it was, it was more like indie music versus the world rather than two indie bands. So then it completely exploded these bands into the public consciousness. It was like on the news at ten, which was such a big deal. People were talking about it and knew nothing about those bands.

• 49:02Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 49:03Speaker 05

  It was a really big deal. So, yeah, exactly. And they were like, okay, like, maybe I should listen to this. May- maybe this is important. This is now a national discussion. Do you know what I mean? And that, I think, did make a difference. So I think the very battle of it changed indie music. Without a doubt, that definitely changed things.

• 49:22Yasi Salek?

  Let me ask you a very specific question. What is Chaz and Dave chimney sweep music?

• 49:28Yasi Salek?

  Which is what Liam called Blur.

• 49:31Speaker 05

  Okay, so Chaz and Dave are like two working class, uh, southern guys. I think they're from Essex or maybe East London, right? And they had like a beard and they would play, the music they played was the kind of music that used to be played in pubs with a piano. So they had, they had like, that, so, you know, be- before, you know, when people just went to the pub and they would drink and they would sing around an old Joanna, like, and they would play the piano. And that, and they would have, they had literally had a song called Rabbit. They went rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, and gush.

• 50:12Speaker 05

  So the reason why Liam is having a go a blur about that, cause it's that kind of slight umpa element. You know that umpa, they've got like slight umpa kind of.

• 50:21Yasi Salek?

  They have a bit of an umpa element. Also Damon's um fake Cockney accent.

• 50:35Speaker 05

  Although he did grow up in East London and then he moved out to Colchester.

• 50:39Yasi Salek?

  Okay, but until he was like s- eight.

• 50:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, till he was like eight or nine. So I think he was like, yeah, you could.

• 50:45Yasi Salek?

  I listen, I defend it because by the end of this, I'm gonna be talking like Madonna. I'm already incorporating in it and all the slang into my daily language. People like, what did you just say? Quid? We don't have quid here. And I'm like, no, yeah, can I borrow 50 quid?

• 50:58Speaker 05

  I'm gonna teach you how to talk like a Mancunian.

• 51:01Yasi Salek?

  Please, I really love it. I do find the Mancunian or the northern accent more pleasant to my ear. Like, I just find it funnier. Yeah. And I like our kid. I really like your kid, our kid. Ariasi, I'm really into it.

• 51:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's fine. You'd be Ariasi.

• 51:21Speaker 05

  You're the hell of it. Don't worry.

• 51:23Yasi Salek?

  Okay, now we need to get into the part that is really you know better than anyone. From your observer interview. That is, I know, but this is, this is one of, this one's not funny, to be honest. It's really more insane. Let's talk about the, I hope they, the pair of them catch AIDS.

• 51:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:47Yasi Salek?

  I'll say that the exact quote was, "The guitarist I've got a lot of time for." Because they always loved Graham, which I thought was really cute.

• 51:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:55Yasi Salek?

  They had no problem with Graham. "The drummer I've never met," that also checks out, Dave was not around, he was not parting. "I hear he's a nice guy. The bass player and the singer, I hope the pair of them catch fucking AIDS and die." Because I fucking hate them too. I'm not laughing because it's not funny. Because it's actually like a psychotic thing to say, even for a Gallagher brother. Because usually what they say is like really hilarious, but this was just like strangely insane. Especially given the 90s, it's like the AIDS crisis, like it's so wild. Okay, and was this in person, Miranda? I need to know everything. Were you, did your jaw just drop on the floor? Were you like, and what?

• 52:33Speaker 05

  No, like I I I have to tell you, no, it did not, right? So what happened was, so I met them at Irving Beach, they played an amazing gig, I interviewed Noel. It was a like a normal interview, it was in a porter cabin, I remember. Just after the gig, which is really unusual, that's the main thing that's most unusual about it, because most people won't talk to you after a gig because they're so high on adrenaline. And he was just really, he just liked talking to the press, he was great. So we did an interview, we went back to the hotel. There were lots of other journalists, everyone was sitting around having a bit of a laugh. Liam came in with his strange Liam energy.

• 53:10Yasi Salek?

  Right, you were like, oh god, what's gonna happen?

• 53:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly that. And I was like, okay. And he, I just remember he sat down and then he chipped a bottle of beer at the ceiling and left.

• 53:19Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 53:19Speaker 05

  And I was like.

• 53:20Yasi Salek?

  Why not?

• 53:21Speaker 05

  I was like, when am I gonna get my Liam interview? I don't know if it's going to happen. And I kept asking and it didn't happen. And I'm like, right, okay, doesn't look like I'm gonna get an interview. He's a bit intimidating to kind of go and approach. And the next day, Oasis get up and they go and they leave and they go down to Phoenix Festival. And then there is the Battle of the Singles, Blur wins. And I'm a bit like, I need something else for this interview, it's meant to be with both Liam and Noel. And they're a bit like, right, you're not gonna get Liam. So I was like, oh fine, we'll just get Noel. And I did, I interviewed Noel on the phone. And he was in Japan, so ahead of me, if you see what I mean in time. And so I imagine he was a bit trashed. He also said during that interview.

• 54:05Yasi Salek?

  Not Noel Gallagher, he trashed?

• 54:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, slightly trashed. But he he he always kept himself together, I have to say, but like, you know, a bit. And he, in that interview, he did also say to me that he's on the line of coke every forty minutes.

• 54:18Yasi Salek?

  Okay, it seems like, it seems like too much. Really, it's only, you only need one every like seventy five minutes. So I feel like he was really doubling up, yeah.

• 54:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, he was. So take that into account. We're having a nice conversation. And obviously I have to ask him about Blur. Because of the, that situation. And he's probably feeling a bit. Roar about it. So he says that, he says ano- another couple of things, actually. He says that he thought that creation were drug addicts. That's completely libelous, right?

• 54:48Yasi Salek?

  I mean.

• 54:48Speaker 05

  Fair off.

• 54:49Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 54:50Speaker 05

  Um.

• 54:51Yasi Salek?

  Not that Alan McGee would have cared, but yeah.

• 54:53Speaker 05

  No, exactly. And he also said that he thought Alex was gay, right?

• 54:57Yasi Salek?

  Oh, yes, that was printed, right?

• 55:00Speaker 05

  No, it wasn't printed. It wasn't printed.

• 55:02Yasi Salek?

  You said it later, maybe in an interview. Yeah.

• 55:05Speaker 05

  I've said it, but it wasn't printed.

• 55:07Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 55:07Speaker 05

  But the quote that you said was all was printed, right? So when, when I handed in the feature, I put it all in. And when he said that quote, I just laughed. And I know that sounds really terrible. But it was funny. Liam and Noel are funny and how they talk is funny. And the part of their humor is aggression, right?

• 55:25Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 55:25Speaker 05

  And so when he said it, I just laughed. I didn't even think about it. I just thought it was funny.

• 55:31Yasi Salek?

  Well, I was gonna ask you, and you've kind of answered it, is like what you felt the spirit of it was, like the energy when it was delivered. And it sounds like you, you felt it to be very like jokey.

• 55:43Speaker 05

  It's jokey, but he did mean it. Like he meant it. He was pissed off with, he, he was pissed off with blurb, like no doubt.

• 55:50Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 55:50Speaker 05

  But it's also funny. Like, it's so, it's like a, it's exactly what Noel is like. He's got anger in there. But he's also funny. And also, that's just how people talk, right?

• 56:02Yasi Salek?

  It did used to be before you got cancelled for, um.

• 56:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. It's just how people talk.

• 56:07Yasi Salek?

  Because he didn't, I mean, he meant it in the sen- you mean, when you say he meant it, you, he meant it in the sense that, yes, he hated them. He didn't actually, in his heart of hearts, want them to catch AIDS and die, but he did hate them.

• 56:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. It's a bit like, he could have said, he could have said, I want them to be knocked down by a bus and die. Right? That would have been the same thing, right?

• 56:27Yasi Salek?

  And that wouldn't have even, no one would have batted an eyelash. They would have been like, oh, that's like a, that's almost like a slang term. That's a shorthand for I just fucking hate them. But I think because this is such a charged AIDS, it's such a charged topic.

• 56:40Speaker 05

  Yeah. And the observer looked at it and the lawyer was like, right, we have to take out the creation of drug addicts because that's libelous. So far, right, okay. And we have to take out that Noel thinks that Alex is gay because that's also libelous, weirdly.

• 56:55Yasi Salek?

  Sure, yeah.

• 56:56Speaker 05

  And that's libelous because Jason Donovan, who was a kind of pop star of the late eighties sued The Face, which is another magazine that I worked for. And he sued The Face for saying that he was gay when he wasn't gay. And he won. So it's libelous. I don't know if it is still now, but at the time it was libelous to say that somebody straight was gay, which is just, I mean, please, ridiculous. But anyway, and I argued about that because I said Alex wouldn't give a shit.

• 57:21Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 57:22Speaker 05

  And they were like, no, no, no.

• 57:24Yasi Salek?

  Also, the implication is that being gay is bad, right?

• 57:27Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 57:28Yasi Salek?

  If, if you're saying they could sue, that that like automatically implies that it's a bad thing to say, which is like, why, that's not a bad.

• 57:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly.

• 57:37Yasi Salek?

  It's just one way of being, you know.

• 57:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. Completely. Obviously. And Alex really wouldn't have given a shit.

• 57:44Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 57:44Speaker 05

  But they were like, okay.

• 57:46Yasi Salek?

  Alex was like, I'm balls deep in supermodels, babe. You can say whatever you would love to say about me. I'm busy, so have a gorgeous day.

• 57:53Speaker 05

  I don't care. And so, uh, so they, the observer made us take those bits out, right?

• 57:59Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 57:59Speaker 05

  But didn't even think about the quote about AIDS. Just honestly, we just didn't even think about it. We didn't pull it out as a big pull quote. And then it came out on the Sunday and honestly, all hell broke loose. And I remember talking to Johnny Hopkins about it. Johnny just like, Johnny likes a crisis, man. And he was like, this is like.

• 58:17Yasi Salek?

  All press is good press.

• 58:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. This is fun. And also what he said, like how he battered it back to people was like saying, okay, you're saying to me that Noel is homophobic, which implies that you think AIDS is an inverted commas gay disease. So what is your problem?

• 58:35Yasi Salek?

  Right. Like you're showing your own ass actually by saying that, yeah.

• 58:41Speaker 05

  To me, it was very much an American-driven scandal. Like, in Britain, I think we were so used to the slagging of the Gallaghers, like how they spoke. And we didn't really think about it. And I think in America, where maybe where language was more politically correct and policed, it caused a huge, huge sensation. And I felt very bad about it, actually. I don't know why, because obviously I didn't say it. Like, he said it. And I didn't kind of like make him say it, but I felt bad about it.

• 59:15Yasi Salek?

  Well, it was very interesting. In retrospect, the story has been so twisted in every direction, right? Because Alan McGee wrote that you hated Oasis.

• 59:27Speaker 05

  Which I didn't.

• 59:27Yasi Salek?

  I know. And he was like, well, she famously hated Oasis, which is why she printed that. And it's like, that's not what happened.

• 59:33Speaker 05

  No.

• 59:33Yasi Salek?

  And then also, didn't they try to say that Noel in the interview was like, actually, take that out? And then you had to come back and be like, well, here's the tape, babe. Does he say it? Here's the whole tape. He didn't say it there. And then it's like, you can't say that and not, it's recorded. There's going to be a record of it.

• 59:50Speaker 05

  I mean, the weird thing was, is it went in inverted commas viral before we knew what viral was. And so it just went everywhere. And I think that what I felt like was, even though I was writing for The Observer, in my head, I was still writing for indie music fans. So I just didn't think that anybody would be that interested. That sounds so weird. And so I was really surprised about it. I was slightly naive about it, I think, because everybody in Oasis's camp thought I'd gone in with an agenda. I just haven't, like, I really like the band.

• 1:00:27Yasi Salek?

  You didn't, you didn't say, Noel, just, just a quick question. Do you hope that anyone from Blur dies of AIDS? Yes or no?

• 1:00:35Speaker 05

  I heard you did.

• 1:00:36Yasi Salek?

  Just curious.

• 1:00:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. It was a completely, it was, it's so nothing within the, within the interview. I mean, I just laughed. I just laughed. And obviously, they kind of turned on me. And that was a bit weird. And I saw Noel at a Kew Award, I think. And I went up to him and said, look, I'm really sorry about all that first. And he just went, uh, like that. And like, obviously, I think after that, he thought I was a twat.

• 1:01:00Yasi Salek?

  Sure. It's not really your fault that he said what he said.

• 1:01:04Speaker 05

  Of course not, like, you know, like, if you say it, you say it.

• 1:01:09Yasi Salek?

  He issued an apology.

• 1:01:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, you had to, you really had to.

• 1:01:12Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:13Speaker 06

  Well, I was doing an interview for a British paper and this, this woman just kept on and on and on about a quote about the band and I was a bit drunk, so I mean, I just said what I said and I took it back straight away, but she printed it anyway, so.

• 1:01:26Yasi Salek?

  Maybe the first and last time that any Gallagher brother ever apologized for anything else.

• 1:01:31Speaker 05

  Weirdly, quite soon after that, I saw Blur out and Alex was really hurt.

• 1:01:37Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I was gonna ask you, because Damon also said that he felt he was very hurt by it, so they actually were. Was, do you think the hurt, let me ask you, was the hurt more based on the comment or like the, the, the content of the comment or of realizing, oh, wow, they actually hate us?

• 1:01:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was that. It's nothing to do with the age thing. No, not at all to do with that. It's to do with the fact that they thought it was kind of jokey and a kind of jokey rivalry and actually, and they thought they were friends and then they weren't. And they were upset, they were hurt, you know, and also it was a bit like that thing where it's like a dividing blur. It's like, Graham's all right, Dave's all right, but you two I don't like.

• 1:02:19Yasi Salek?

  You two suck, yeah.

• 1:02:21Speaker 05

  It was just so much more complicated and bigger and more difficult than you ever would imagine when you're just sat in your, I was sat in my front room, you had to do the tape on an answer phone machine because that was how it was done, sat, sitting on the floor, talking to Noel somewhere, who was somewhere, probably in a swanky hotel room in Japan, having a chat. And then that happens. Do you know what I mean? It's just mad.

• 1:02:47Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. That was a big turning point. I think you kind of called it with like, in particular with Blur realizing that there's a lo, actually quite a bit of acrobony coming from these people that they thought were their friends.

• 1:03:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

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• 1:04:03Speaker 01

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• 1:04:08Yasi Salek?

  It only kind of keeps going from here, right? Like they're slinging insults. Well, it's again, it seems to be more Oasis.

• 1:04:17Speaker 05

  Well, it is because they're winning, isn't it? So like then like What's the Story comes out and it's a huge hit. And basically they've kind of won.

• 1:04:26Yasi Salek?

  That's a perfect segue for us to talk about commercial success because that's the next category. Pre the sort of battle of the singles or whatever, battle of Britpop. Obviously we would have said Blur was more commercially successful, but they also had more music out. They had started earlier, you know, Parklife was a big deal. But once Oasis is definitely maybe was number one the year it came out. And was it not the fastest selling debut at that time in UK album history?

• 1:04:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was, it was really fast. And then Elastic was really fast as well, I remember.

• 1:05:02Yasi Salek?

  They were either second to Oasis or they beat it out. I can't remember.

• 1:05:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, I can't remember, but it's both, they were both, yeah, it was a huge deal. But it somehow, I mean, I personally, I prefer definitely maybe to What's the Story. But like What's the Story had those enormous singles as soon as you heard them, as soon as you heard Don't Look Back in Anger and as soon as you heard Wonderwall, you thought, all right, okay, all bets are off now. Do you know what I mean? And then it was just really, really obvious.

• 1:05:31Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:32Speaker 05

  And yeah, I mean, I have a friend at Times Britpop from that selected a cover with Brett Anderson on the cover with it where we dropped a picture of the Union Jack, the Union flag behind him.

• 1:05:44Yasi Salek?

  This was a huge deal, right? And he was like, I don't, I don't like that.

• 1:05:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:50Speaker 05

  And we had a, it said Yanks Go Home.

• 1:05:53Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Get out of here Pearl Jam, we're sick of you Eddie Vedder.

• 1:05:58Speaker 05

  And then there was an article in there that was all about, you know, how UK is good at indie music and it's time to listen to Suede and Pulp and the Sahetin. So that's like, almost like the beginning of Britpop. And then my friend says that the end of Britpop is side two of What's the Story? Morning Glory and then it ends. That's it.

• 1:06:17Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it was real.

• 1:06:19Speaker 05

  Nebworth and, you know.

• 1:06:21Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 1:06:21Speaker 05

  There's that, but it's, there is a sense that once Oasis went huge, Britpop was kind of over.

• 1:06:29Yasi Salek?

  Once Morning Glory was out, like the commercial aspect was over. Nebworth was much bigger than anything Blur had ever done and could have been much bigger. It's really crazy to me that I think Noel and Liam had like signed off the dole less than two years before Nebworth. Like, that's how fast it happened.

• 1:06:50Speaker 05

  Everything happens so fast. It's like a proper rocket just shooting up. It's complete madness.

• 1:06:56Yasi Salek?

  And because they're not normal, they were like, yeah.

• 1:07:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, because they were like, yeah, of course. Why would it not be? Why would it not be like that?

• 1:07:05Yasi Salek?

  Fame doesn't affect us. We were supposed to be famous and it's like.

• 1:07:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:10Yasi Salek?

  Okay, so I think we can agree commercially, if we are not taking into account side projects and post Blur and Oasis projects, we can agree that Oasis won the commercial battle.

• 1:07:23Speaker 05

  You see, I think, yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Because if we don't project into the future.

• 1:07:30Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:31Speaker 05

  Then.

• 1:07:31Yasi Salek?

  Well, and arguably, I mean, Blur had a longer run and more albums.

• 1:07:39Yasi Salek?

  But it's funny, it's like at any point in time, you could do this and have a different outcome. So it just depends what year you did it. But like, I think now, i- in 2024, Oasis still wins because they just made whatever 600 million dollars selling about fucking stadiums worldwide with their little comeback.

• 1:07:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, it did. Yeah. And also, it also slightly depends on, because I think they might be doing a new album.

• 1:08:03Yasi Salek?

  Uh, yeah, I, I heard that too.

• 1:08:06Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I think if the album is good, then yeah, that makes sense. But if the album is not good, then that's slightly different.

• 1:08:13Yasi Salek?

  What's your over under on if it's gonna be good or not?

• 1:08:17Speaker 05

  I don't know, actually. I really don't know because I think people forget how long Oasis lasted, actually.

• 1:08:24Yasi Salek?

  They really do, because I think in everyone's minds, Be Here Now is the last Oasis album. Whereas meanwhile, they put out, what, like four more? And they were like, it was like 2009?

• 1:08:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was a lot later. So they basically went through for another, like another, over another decade. This is gonna sound awful, because I think they're absolutely, you know, in terms of a band and in terms of a front person, they're absolutely brilliant band. But they went off, they just went right off.

• 1:08:48Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, and it was partly because rock music, in that sense, fell out of fashion.

• 1:08:53Speaker 05

  But also, I just think they just, like, for whatever reason, I don't know that they were trying as hard, or it just didn't work after a bit, I think.

• 1:09:04Yasi Salek?

  I also feel like, you know, this, this came to me from, you know, a holy, a holy source. I'm simply a vessel. I was walking this morning. But I was like, damn, almost one of the worst things that ever happened to Oasis was winning the war with Blur. Because once there was no enemy,

• 1:09:20Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:09:20Yasi Salek?

  All they know how to do is fight. And then it was like, well, the enemy is, the call is coming from inside the house. Now we'll turn on each other. And once you turn on each other, it was kind of the beginning of the end.

• 1:09:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, I completely agree. Because also, like, every band, the center of every band is a kind of argument stroke love affair.

• 1:09:38Yasi Salek?

  Right, a little tension, yeah.

• 1:09:40Speaker 05

  Yeah. And it's like, you know, between Damon and Graham, that, you know, they love each other, but they, there's an argument in there. And obviously, in, in Oasis, it's between Noel and Liam. And when they've got people to bang up against, you're right, like, they're, they're united.

• 1:09:54Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, the eyes against them.

• 1:09:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, but then it's, they just keep turning on each other after that.

• 1:10:00Yasi Salek?

  It really does feel to me like those first two Oasis, and I'm I'm kind of a be here now truther. I think it's a good album. I think it got really slagged off for people were like kind of unfair to it. But those first two albums were like truly like gifted by God. It was just like.

• 1:10:14Speaker 05

  I completely agree.

• 1:10:15Yasi Salek?

  And it's like, you can't just do that. Like whereas like Blur were craftsmen, right? They were they were sort of like really tinkering and working on it and like putting things out. Noel was just touched and it's like that you can't really control. So it's like you can't be touched for 10 more years. Like the muse comes and the muse goes.

• 1:10:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. And like that, those two albums, like I remember everywhere you would go ninety five, ninety six, there would be some kids with one album on one side of a cassette and the other album on the other side of the cassette, just playing it over and over. Wherever you were, they would just play it out all the time. And you know, those two albums, they were what won the war. All the other stuff afterwards, I would say.

• 1:11:00Yasi Salek?

  The war was over.

• 1:11:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, the war was over by then. Once Wonderwall and Don't Look Back in Anger and all those kind of songs were out. Champagne Supernova, all that. Then everywhere that Damon went, people would sing Oasis songs at him. I mean, please.

• 1:11:14Yasi Salek?

  He was so upset about it in interviews, but I could not stop laughing at him. Just like he said, he was like, I was in a small village in France, waiting for a train and some French guy comes up, where's Leah?

• 1:11:24Speaker 05

  Yes, just like fucking up.

• 1:11:26Yasi Salek?

  That's so fucking funny.

• 1:11:28Speaker 05

  It's funny, but also like what I think is the really weird thing about after, like, so Damon is a really good frontman, isn't he?

• 1:11:33Yasi Salek?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:11:34Speaker 05

  He's brilliant. But after Blur, he's never a frontman again.

• 1:11:39Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:11:39Speaker 05

  Like, he just steps back. He's like, okay, I literally want to be in a band where it's a cartoon. Like, I just don't want any of this. I don't want this crap anymore. I want lots of people coming on stage so that people aren't looking at me. I want to do an opera. I want to do this. I want to just stop looking at me.

• 1:11:57Yasi Salek?

  But you know what? I really like, as just a music fan, and again, I'm not British. So like Parklife and Modern Life is Rubbish really don't do it for me. I can't connect with that. I don't know what this man is on about. Chimney sweep music, but I'm so, I really think like, not to be like, you know, Tweedledee, everything happens for a reason, namaste. But the phoenix rising from the ashes of this for me was really Damon Albarn. Cause I'm like, oh wow, this thing broke you down in such a crazy way. That then you made my favorite Blur albums where you actually talked about yourself.

• 1:12:32Speaker 05

  Thirteen, the Blues album. Oh my god, my fave.

• 1:12:36Yasi Salek?

  My fave too. And also, I'm just gonna say, Think Tank is extremely slept on. It's so cool. I mean, it's not in the same realm as thirteen, but like.

• 1:12:43Speaker 05

  But it's got out of time on it, please.

• 1:12:45Yasi Salek?

  Yes, exactly. And I'm like, whatever happened for these people to break your fucking spirit with people fucking shouting, where's Liam at you? And blasting Wonderwall out of shop windows when you walked by, created the scenario where you were like able to connect with your own vulnerability. And write some of the best music of your career. And it's like incredible. And I, I don't know that that would have happened. Had this not happened.

• 1:13:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, maybe not. Maybe, that's interesting. I mean, the thing is Damon is very restless. So it might have happened a bit, but what, it was a combination of being bruised by Oasis. But also because Graham couldn't handle it.

• 1:13:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:28Speaker 05

  Like Graham really couldn't handle it. And he wrote Damon a letter saying how he felt and that how he didn't want to be like. A bag of sweets anymore. And then he, he just couldn't cope with it. He was like, like you said, he was always, he never changed. Like, once he got on top of the pot, so it was kind of almost enough. He just couldn't do it. He just couldn't be the, you know, Alex loved it. Alex was in the grand show club all the time.

• 1:13:55Yasi Salek?

  Balls deep in supermodels, right?

• 1:13:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, drinking champagne. And he just loved it, you know, he just like, Alex has an absolutely brilliant ability to love his life. Like he just is really good at it. Even now, amazing at it. And Graham just couldn't, he couldn't relax. And he couldn't relax unless he was making music that he felt like he could stand by. And so he wrote this letter to Damon and then they went and made thirteen, which was hard. And also Damon had his heart broken. I mean, that's his heartbreak album, isn't it?

• 1:14:23Yasi Salek?

  Totally. And also Graham brought my fucking guys' Pavement albums in there, you know? In the end, they let America in, didn't they?

• 1:14:33Speaker 05

  They did. Even how they dressed, everything.

• 1:14:36Yasi Salek?

  And it helped.

• 1:14:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, it helped. And then like, you know, and then they make like Blur and they do song two in like two seconds and suddenly they become like American.

• 1:14:45Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:46Speaker 05

  America loves them.

• 1:14:47Yasi Salek?

  Oh, well, Girls and Boys was on the radio where I grew up because I grew up around K-Rock. So I was kind of, but like Woo Who was really my Blur song where I was like, what is this? Who is this man? So gorgeous. What are those beads? Okay, let's talk about critical acclaim briefly. This is the third category. This is, you know, you were really, you were really in the belly of the beast. Producer Liz broke down some Metacritic scores.

• 1:15:14Speaker 05

  All right.

• 1:15:15Yasi Salek?

  What do you think got better on average? Critical acclaim, Parklife or Definitely Maybe?

• 1:15:22Speaker 05

  Oh, wow. That is really interesting.

• 1:15:25Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. It's funny because we have like objective numbers just because of the rating system.

• 1:15:31Speaker 05

  I would assume that Definitely Maybe got higher, but I don't know.

• 1:15:34Yasi Salek?

  It did, just by a little bit. Parklife was eighty seven point five percent. And Definitely Maybe is eighty nine point eight eight percent. Very close, yeah. But in your just like lived experience of it, like your, you know, subjective experience of it. How did you feel the critical tide was around those two albums? Because Parklife, I did read so much about, people were losing their goddamn minds.

• 1:16:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, they did. They just couldn't believe, I think also because it was a surprise. Like nobody expected Blur to do it. Do you know what I mean? We all liked Blur and they were really good fun. They were great live. They were great for quotes. They were just good, you know, like they were like a band that we liked. But you didn't really expect them to suddenly come out with all these madly catchy singles that were slightly different from what you, you just didn't expect them to make. It was a big leap. From Modern Life is Rubbish to Parklife, that's a massive leap. You just didn't expect them to do it. And so, I mean, I'm aware that you don't like that album quite so much, but there are a lot of really strong songs on that album.

• 1:16:36Yasi Salek?

  I'm aware that it's objectively a really good album. It just doesn't resonate for me, but like not everything.

• 1:16:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, it doesn't hit you in the heart so much. But then when Definitely Maybe came along, it's like what I said, it's like when something arises and it's really perfectly formed, it's just really unusual. And the only other time I can remember that happening is, I remember happening with the Arctic Monkeys as well. And you're just like, oh my god, like you're here. Like, we, we never knew we needed you and here you are. Strokes as well. Like, they just arrived, you're like, okay, there you are. And that happened with Oasis. And so I think people were like, you are perfect. This is a great album. Like, we can't deny it. Do you know what I mean? But I think that critically, because if you think, people who are music writers are nerdy a little bit. You know what I mean? They're like writing.

• 1:17:20Yasi Salek?

  Students.

• 1:17:21Speaker 05

  They are, they're students, spotty students. And so they are always gonna be a little bit like, you know, ooh, were the lyrics good? Do you know what I mean?

• 1:17:29Yasi Salek?

  Part, they'll be more partial, perhaps.

• 1:17:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, how, how are the words going? Do you know what I mean?

• 1:17:33Yasi Salek?

  Cerebral, right. Well, you're not gonna, Noel Gallagher's not winning any Emily Dickinson awards for his lyrics.

• 1:17:40Speaker 05

  They'll always be a little bit snotty about, you know, well, this is very vague. What is a champagne supernova? You know what I mean? And like, maybe not at the time, but long term, I think that people were a bit like, look, Noel's lyrics were a bit slapdash. Then, um, and then Oasis went off a bit. Do you know what I mean? And so I think that that, that kind of critical acclaim changed because.

• 1:18:03Yasi Salek?

  In retrospect, yeah.

• 1:18:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, in retrospect. I mean, you might not agree, but they could have knocked it on the head a bit earlier.

• 1:18:10Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:11Speaker 05

  Do you know what I mean?

• 1:18:12Yasi Salek?

  I, I do know what you mean.

• 1:18:13Speaker 05

  Much as I love them.

• 1:18:14Yasi Salek?

  I kind of am obsessed with Noel's lyrics, because it's really like, again, like, it really is the like Ram Dass, which is very funny, because Be Here Now is a Ram Dass book, which they've never, I think famously, they've said that between the two of them, they've read one book, um, at that time. Noel just saw it on the shelf.

• 1:18:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:18:32Yasi Salek?

  But the lyrics are also very like, I love lamb. But because they're so I love lamb, he has a quote and I'll butcher it, but I think he was talking about the Who or the Jam or something and he was like, I don't care what these songs are about because they're about me. And it's so crazy because I've said the exact same thing in an episode of Band Slay and I was like, oh man, my guy Noel. Because there's like two ways to experience art, right? And one is like, I need to put myself in it to feel it. And if there's not, there was no room for me on the Lori or the telly or the tea, you know, the biscuits.

• 1:19:06Speaker 05

  What you said is really interesting because it's my theory about music, right? So your theory is there needs to be the best art, which is why I love music. I mean, I love film, I love books, you know, all culture, very good, thumbs up for culture, but like music.

• 1:19:20Yasi Salek?

  We're pro culture here on this program.

• 1:19:22Speaker 05

  Generally, but music is the one because there is room for you in music. It like, it tells your story too, like, and that's incredibly important because number, I don't really care. The, I mean, you know, I'm vaguely interested in the mood that Noel was when he wrote Slide Away, right? That's, you know, and I know that he was broken hearted about his ex-girlfriend and blah, blah, blah, that's great. But I don't really care because it's, when I listen to that song, it's about me. Like I'm in that song, right? And so all the songs that you really care about, tell your story. That's the important thing. They tell your story as well as their story.

• 1:20:02Speaker 05

  And no other, no other kind of cultural offering does that for me.

• 1:20:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I mean, you know, film, I mean, who doesn't watch Sex in the City and be like, that's right, I am a Carrie. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:20:17Speaker 05

  I don't watch it. Like, I'm sorry, I think it's rubbish.

• 1:20:22Yasi Salek?

  All right, Miranda, we'll just agree to disagree on Sex and the City, but I hear you. It is, it really is music. And like, I think that you can emotionally resonate with music that is like, okay, Nick Cave songs are more often than not, character study, the little short stories of it. I'm like, about Appalachian men or whatever. And I'm like, that's not me. I never murdered anyone or whatever. But I can have, a better example for me is because to be really honest, I don't super emotionally resonate with Nick Cave's music, but I do like it, is PJ Harvey. PJ Harvey, much of her music is not personal, right? Like, but you feel the emotion.

• 1:21:05Yasi Salek?

  Like, I, I, it's, I can still make it about me. I can make it about me. It's a real super talent.

• 1:21:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, I completely agree.

• 1:21:14Yasi Salek?

  Okay, yeah, but and then 13 and Blur self-titled have way more room for the projection.

• 1:21:22Speaker 05

  Yeah. But those lyrics, you're right, there's room for you in feeling supersonic, giving it to me tonic. You know, I mean, like, yeah, like, you know what I mean? There's room for you in there, isn't there? You know, that, those things are important.

• 1:21:35Yasi Salek?

  He's just so gifted at creating emotional response through the melody as well. Like, that's, no matter what he's, no, the words don't even matter because you're feeling something that's like brought on by like the chord progressions or whatever.

• 1:21:48Speaker 05

  Completely. And also by Liam's delivery. Liam's, the way Liam sings is amazing because it's like simultaneously defiant and yearning, isn't it?

• 1:22:02Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, and raw and vulnerable. Yeah.

• 1:22:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's like fantastic.

• 1:22:07Yasi Salek?

  It's really incredible. One of the best frontmen of all time.

• 1:22:09Speaker 05

  Absolutely, I agree.

• 1:22:10Yasi Salek?

  And, and kind of an uncanny ability to like, interpret the song even though he didn't write it. You know, like, he's able to transmute whatever this emotion is, even though he didn't write it. And that was kind of one of his superpowers, which is pretty incredible.

• 1:22:25Speaker 05

  Very much so. Yeah, I, yeah, definitely agree with that.

• 1:22:27Yasi Salek?

  Well, ultimately, What's the Story, Morning Glory, and The Great Escape have a different metacritic story, which is kind of surprising.

• 1:22:37Speaker 05

  Oh, right. Okay. What is it? Because I don't know. All I know is that I remember within When they came out, there's a thing that happens when a band makes a really brilliant debut album, which is that the second album always gets absolutely amazing reviews. Like, because it's like they're not reviewing the real thing.

• 1:22:54Yasi Salek?

  They're retroactively giving the flowers to the first album that they ignored, totally.

• 1:22:59Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 1:22:59Yasi Salek?

  And they do it the other way around, too. If they really celebrated an album before, they're gonna be a bit snotty about the one after, yeah.

• 1:23:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:07Yasi Salek?

  Your people.

• 1:23:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, I know. I believe, so horrible. Um, I think that, uh, so I think that What's the Story got really great reviews. I would say more than The Great Escape.

• 1:23:19Yasi Salek?

  Okay, but isn't that crazy? Actually, they both got really good reviews, but slightly better The Great Escape.

• 1:23:25Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 1:23:26Yasi Salek?

  Not slightly, a lot better. Eighty-eight point six percent. What's the Story seventy-eight point three-five percent.

• 1:23:32Speaker 05

  So surprised.

• 1:23:33Yasi Salek?

  I know. Well, Q Magazine gave it a three, which I think dragged down the average quite a bit. And then Spin, where I, I, this is including America, and Spin gave it a six out of ten, which is wild.

• 1:23:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:48Yasi Salek?

  I know. Somebody at Spin was like, actually bring it back to America, fuck these Britishes.

• 1:23:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. What are they on about?

• 1:23:56Yasi Salek?

  I mean, there's also the other thing, like you said, like, I think when something's really popular commercially, sometimes critics are like, hmm, it's not that good.

• 1:24:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. It's always, always. I always think.

• 1:24:05Yasi Salek?

  Wonderwall, that song sucks.

• 1:24:07Speaker 05

  Yeah. I always think it's interesting, like, once a band, if a band is liked a lot by young women, they just instantly lose credibility. And you can see that with Blur.

• 1:24:19Yasi Salek?

  Not the feminism re-entering my body.

• 1:24:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, but like, you know, do you know what I mean? Like, as soon as Blur got a lot of young female fans in part life and Great Escape, then actually, the NME boys were like, oh, we don't like them. And then when they took the sideways kind of move and went off and kind of did thirteen.

• 1:24:39Yasi Salek?

  Courted the lads.

• 1:24:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. Then they were like, oh, no, it's fine. They're all right. They're, we like them again. You're not allowed to have too many teenage girl fans because then it's apparently your naff.

• 1:24:49Yasi Salek?

  Right, because we're, teenage girls are not trusted to have good taste.

• 1:24:52Speaker 05

  No, when teenage girls have the best taste, come on, they know about rave music more than anyone else.

• 1:24:59Yasi Salek?

  Honey, why do you think Graham knew about Pavement and Dinosaur Jr? She wasn't a teenager, but she was a young girl named Jo from the band Huggy Bear, okay?

• 1:25:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:25:08Yasi Salek?

  There would literally be no fucking woo-hoo song without Graham's girlfriend, Jo. So take a moment to think about that. It almost feels to me that the critical acclaim, we're not gonna go through every album, but like, you tell me what you think. I almost feel Blur wins this one. If we look at the entire arc of their-

• 1:25:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, probably, I would say so.

• 1:25:31Yasi Salek?

  Because all the other Oasis albums were like, according to Traxx, you know?

• 1:25:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:25:37Speaker 05

  And yet, there was definitely a phase when whatever Damon did, people were just like, "Oh my God, he's so amazing. It's just amazing." He's written, he's written an offer about monkeys, like, he's amazing. And like, he's done, you know, Gorillaz, he's amazing.

• 1:25:50Yasi Salek?

  Okay, now we're gonna talk about, really briefly, because again, I think this one is pretty obvious. Who won in America? Who won America's hearts and minds?

• 1:26:00Speaker 05

  Well, I suppose Oasis did. Blur didn't win.

• 1:26:02Yasi Salek?

  I think it was Oasis, yeah.

• 1:26:04Speaker 05

  Although Gorillaz won more than that.

• 1:26:06Yasi Salek?

  Right. If we're, if we're counting outside of the scope of this, Gorillaz blew everyone out of the wa- well, Oasis is still, I mean, their legacy in America is huge.

• 1:26:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm not surprised. I mean, like, they've got the songs that everybody's gonna wanna sing. I mean, really.

• 1:26:24Yasi Salek?

  I wonder what was one of the first songs on Spotify to hit a billion streams?

• 1:26:28Speaker 05

  Wow, that's so-

• 1:26:29Yasi Salek?

  It wasn't the first, but it was one of the first. Like, it's, I mean, it's anthemic. It's a huge, it's a huge song. So yeah, America was-

• 1:26:39Speaker 05

  More Oasis-y.

• 1:26:41Yasi Salek?

  More Oasis-y, yeah. And even to this day, I mean, like, famously Blur played Coachella, was it last year?

• 1:26:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, but that's completely the wrong audience, I think, for them, don't you?

• 1:26:51Yasi Salek?

  Totally. I mean, I was at the Coachella when the Stone Roses reunited, and I was like, ma- I was like, ang- I was like yelling at people around me. I was like, "Shut up! Have some fucking respect. This is the Stone Roses! Dude, what are you talking right now? This is Stone even played." But like, this is not the right, this is like teenagers who are on TikTok, listening to rave mus- Like, they don't, you know, they're not SoundCloud rap. Like, this is not the place to listen to. There's a real resurgence, and it just, it might be the bandwagon thing, because the Oasis reunion has been such a big deal.

• 1:27:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:27:25Yasi Salek?

  But that you you do see young people kind of being like, oh, yeah, I like Oasis. And I'm like, really? Like, it's like your parent, like, this music is older than the Beatles were when I was a teenager in the nineties.

• 1:27:36Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:27:37Yasi Salek?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 1:27:38Speaker 05

  So like, when I was young, obviously, the Beatles existed. I didn't have a Beatles album, but I knew all the Beatles songs. Cause I just knew the Beatles songs. They were in the ether. Everybody knew them.

• 1:27:47Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 1:27:47Speaker 05

  And it's the same with Oasis. People just know Oasis songs. They're in the ether, particularly if you're British. Like, there's no way, like, how could you not know Oasis songs? Everybody knows Oasis songs. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:27:58Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's true. Yeah.

• 1:27:59Speaker 05

  Like, say, my two kids have got completely different tastes of music, but they like Oasis because they just like Oasis. It's like, they like ice cream. Like, everybody likes it. Do you know what I mean? So I think that there are some people who are like huge Oasis fans, and they're, but most people like Oasis. Because, you know, every busker you went past sang their songs. You know, everyone knows their songs. You can't not know them.

• 1:28:26Yasi Salek?

  I also have this theory that I'm not fleshed out because I'm not a student, but time stopped in like the year two thousand. Like, when the internet really took hold, time kind of stopped because after that, things just really were recycled, right? Because there was so much reference. It was so easy to reference. So it doesn't feel that far away, even though it is really far away. Do you know, like, even fourteen year olds now think Nirvana is cool.

• 1:28:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:28:52Yasi Salek?

  They'll always be cool. Like, Oasis will always be cool. They're frozen in amber in time. Whereas in a way, like, when I was a teenager, I thought the Beatles, I was like, who fucking cares? Or like Led Zeppelin? Like, I was listening to punk music. I was like, that's like fucking old dad music. I mean, of course, I've come around. But, you know, when you're, when that's like the music of your parents of thirty years ago, you're not gonna think it's cool, but that's not what it is now.

• 1:29:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's funny because I do still think, you know, there's an element of the way that people get music now that I really like, which is the ahistorical element. So like, you can get anything. Like, my daughter will learn about music from her friends, but from TikTok or from whatever. And she'll come up to me and, you know, she likes Mazy Star. Like, why does she like Mazy Star?

• 1:29:35Yasi Salek?

  Star has a has a weird, huge resurgence with teenagers. And I think it's because of Tik, I think it's because of TikTok. I'm not totally sure, but it's very interesting.

• 1:29:42Speaker 05

  It's TikTok Fleetwood Mac? Like, what?

• 1:29:44Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:44Speaker 05

  What? Yeah. And and like, you know, she came up to me one time when she was young. She was like twelve, eleven, twelve. And she was like, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, do you like? The Smiths. And I was like, yeah, man, I like them.

• 1:29:58Yasi Salek?

  You're like, you're like, honey, you have a seat. Mommy has a lot to talk to you about.

• 1:30:02Speaker 05

  And then she was like, and, and, and, and my mom, do you know, blurb?

• 1:30:08Yasi Salek?

  You're like, personally, I have their phone numbers. Do you want to talk to them?

• 1:30:11Speaker 05

  I do know them. Like, yeah, I do. And she was like, it, it just popped up on the algorithm. In that really weird TikTok way where they speed everything up as well.

• 1:30:19Yasi Salek?

  It's so wild.

• 1:30:21Speaker 05

  But who's won your competition?

• 1:30:23Yasi Salek?

  That's a great question. We're, we only have one, one more category.

• 1:30:27Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:30:27Yasi Salek?

  And that's, this one, I think, is a challenging one, and it's legacy.

• 1:30:31Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 1:30:32Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it, cause there's not a real objective way to decide this, right? Like, are we asking who has a bigger legacy, who has a better legacy? I think bigger, you would have to give it to Oasis. I think they have a bigger legacy.

• 1:30:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, definitely. There's a shorthand to Oasis, like, you know, there's loads of comedy sketches in Britain. I mean, all you need is like a Rennie hat and kind of a walk and you've got Oasis.

• 1:30:58Yasi Salek?

  Oh, my God, it's so good. I did that. I actually did that. I wore a wig for our promo for our season and.

• 1:31:04Speaker 05

  It's easy.

• 1:31:05Yasi Salek?

  I'm not proud of myself, but you know what? I had a little parka and I like to dress up in a costume and it's easy.

• 1:31:11Speaker 05

  And also, there's so many people that don't, that just carry on wearing that, like, honestly, it's like a standard middle-aged person's wear.

• 1:31:17Yasi Salek?

  I know. My, my friend in Manchester was like, the kids like make fun of the dads who wear like the Adidas and the parkas, like, it's like dad fashion. And I'm like, oh, that's so funny.

• 1:31:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's like, it's like, like, every middle-aged man looks like that, of course.

• 1:31:31Yasi Salek?

  Middle-aged man, record collector fashion, totally.

• 1:31:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, definitely. And, and I think, yeah, it's funny because also in terms of blurs, the way their music changed.

• 1:31:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:43Speaker 05

  So much, then it's a bit hard to say that they had a legacy of bands that sounded like them because that didn't, how could that happen? Cause they changed so much. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:31:52Yasi Salek?

  Totally. Yeah.

• 1:31:54Speaker 05

  I don't think like Arctic Monkeys sound like Oasis, because they don't. But there's a kind of tunefulness and attitude. They're from a different northern town. They're from Sheffield. So they're from Pulp's town. But like, there's a kind of, you could do a kind of track through from. You know, Stone Roses, Oasis, Arctic Monkeys, there's something about them that reassures a northern working class man. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:32:20Yasi Salek?

  It's it's the attitude, I think, like you can really boil it down to like the feel. I mean, not, I don't, you know, Alex and Liam Gallagher are vastly different frontmen and people. But there is like sort of a northern spirit that even me as an American can pick up on. I imagine it's even greater for, you know, people who are from there. The bands that Britpop wrought is a very interesting thing for me to think about because, like you said, like ultimately what Oasis did in one fell swoop was bring the biggest band in the world back to the UK, but also kill kind of the future of rock music.

• 1:32:59Yasi Salek?

  I mean, but besides the Arctic Monkeys, and I guess like if you really wanted to like push it Coldplay.

• 1:33:05Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:33:05Yasi Salek?

  The next wave was kind of back to America, right? Because then we got the Strokes and whatever.

• 1:33:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, very much so.

• 1:33:10Yasi Salek?

  And then rock music died, R I P. Um, and nobody cares about it anymore. But again, besides Arctic Monkeys, I think the last great huge rock band, it's kind of coming back, right? With like, you see it with, um, I know they're not British, but the Irish band Fontaine's D C is kind of a big, a big band and there is some, it sounds like it's bubbling up again. The one thing I love about the UK is like, they love their guitar rock music. They will live and die for guitar. They celebrate it, they enshrine it as they should. We need to learn a little more about of that over here in America.

• 1:33:43Speaker 05

  You know what I think is is as well is that like, I think, I remember Alex once saying to me that the hardest thing about a band is finding the other people of the band, like it's really hard. And so like with Blur, they had like various other people and then two of them left and Graham switched from the saxophone to the guitar. I mean, like, what an idiot, like, why was he playing the saxophone? What an idiot.

• 1:34:08Yasi Salek?

  And specials, I don't know.

• 1:34:10Speaker 05

  They needed a bassist, they found Alex and as soon as he walked in, like, it was obvious, they wrote that there is, there's no other way on the spot. There's something about the chemistry of the four of them that worked. And the same with Suede, like, they were a good band and then Justine left. And that worked, it just worked. And it's really hard to find that. That's really, really difficult. And the only way you're gonna, and how are you gonna find it now? When the rents are really expensive and nobody lives in London because they can't afford to live there. And there are no rehearsal spaces. So you're not gonna bang into each other in that easy way. It's much, much harder. So people, of course.

• 1:34:47Yasi Salek?

  And the dole system is not the same.

• 1:34:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, it really isn't.

• 1:34:50Yasi Salek?

  Almost all of our greatest British bands came from, came off the dole.

• 1:34:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, there is no enterprise allowance. What's going on?

• 1:34:57Yasi Salek?

  No enterprise allowance. Thank you, Margaret Thatcher.

• 1:35:01Speaker 05

  And also you can make the sounds on your computer. So like, of course, you're gonna get like more solo artists or whatever, because they don't have to go out and find the other members of the band. They don't have to go out and find the bassists, you know, they don't need it.

• 1:35:15Yasi Salek?

  You really said something so profound, which is that bands are, is a community. Being in a band is, is being, even in the scene, right? It's, it's a, it's a community-based experience.

• 1:35:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:35:27Yasi Salek?

  And that doesn't gel with online. Online is different than being in a real life community. And I kind of really have the theory that people are so isolated and lonely that the push is gonna come back to different forms of community. And maybe like forming bands and having these communities. I mean, from my mouth to God's ears, you know?

• 1:35:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, that's what you want. You just want, I mean, it'll just be in different places is what I think. Because it has to be somewhere where, you know, nowhere has cheap rent, right? That's just really impossible. So if you're a young person.

• 1:35:58Yasi Salek?

  What about whales?

• 1:36:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. Literally, it'll be somewhere like, it's like, you know, a lot of people from, who naturally live in London now are all living in places like Margate and these funny little seaside towns. And they've all moved out and no, and I just feel like it's gonna happen there. Because no one can afford to live in London. Like my kids, they, you know, they, they can't afford to live in London.

• 1:36:20Yasi Salek?

  What we need is, I think, a technological advance, much like how CDs made. People have so much money that then you could have like Tony Wilson being like, what could a gallon of milk cost? Eighty five dollars? Happy Mondays? Go to Barbados. Here's four hundred thousand dollars. Have a beautiful time. I mean, it didn't work out great, but they were great. Like people like Tony Wilson and Alan McGee were these like mythical amazing figures. Yeah, important because they were, they were like the Medici's of fucking indie rock music where they were providing capital for creativity. Right? Again, for better or for worse, but like

• 1:36:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, not their own capital.

• 1:36:57Yasi Salek?

  No, but like kind of their own cap. I mean, that was your company. Like you didn't, Tony Wilson bankrupted his own company. You know, like to like to make the worst Happy Mondays album and it's, they always blame the Happy Mondays. It's not the Happy Mondays fault. There was many bad decisions being made at Factory Records involving money, but it's like, we kind of need that spirit back. And we need some sort of technological innovation that brings money in that's able to be redistributed to make bands.

• 1:37:22Speaker 05

  I wonder about festivals a bit because festivals make a lot of money, don't they? And I like, and I wonder if there's a way of like somehow siphoning those off, like, like siphoning some of that money away.

• 1:37:35Yasi Salek?

  Right. Like making them like artist collective festivals or something that

• 1:37:39Speaker 05

  Yeah. Or like making them like, maybe they can set up a record label, like a Glastonbury record label or something like that.

• 1:37:45Yasi Salek?

  Okay. Well, I think we've, we've really covered it now.

• 1:37:49Speaker 05

  I think that you have decided that Oasis are gonna win.

• 1:37:52Yasi Salek?

  Well, I personally am a little biased, but not, not really because, you know, if we're being really honest, I love that. That's a British thing to, if I'm honest. If I'm honest, I think Blur has a far more interesting catalog and I, I think in terms of respecting them as artists with what they've done, I would be a little more on the Blur side of things. Because I think it's so cool how many different avenues they went down and what they tried and like think again, I, I, I can't, I never heard of Things Tank in real time because by that time I was definitely not checking for new Blur albums. It really blew my mind. I'm like, the fact that this was very

• 1:38:36Yasi Salek?

  Ahead of its time also, and it was really cool. And if you can forgive the cover art, it was mid 2000s and everything was ugly. But like, it's cool. They've, they've done really cool stuff. And again, I do think they created Britpop. It, it really does, it still comes to back down to like the same initial argument, which is like, I said it in the Blur episode, but I'll, I'll say, I think Blur are artists. I think they're making art the whole way through. Their framework is about art. They're making art. Oasis is making music in the best, highest capacity in the beginning. Like they want to make anthems, rock music, and they did that. So it's just kind of like, what's your flavor? What's your preference?

• 1:39:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. It's like different categories. What do you, what do you, what are you looking for? And, and also some days you're looking for one thing and some days you're looking for another thing, aren't you?

• 1:39:25Yasi Salek?

  So. Exactly, exactly. But if we are going off of our categories, Oasis one. And also, it's very funny. I think if we had done this like two years ago, Legacy might have had a like better argument, but it's impossible to deny like the craze right now. You know, it's very funny. We planned this season well before Oasis.

• 1:39:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's funny. Yeah. It's like, well, the same that, you know, when I wrote my book, I wrote that before, obviously before Oasis, like decided to reform. It's just something like, there's something in the air a little bit, isn't there? Don't you think a little bit?

• 1:39:59Yasi Salek?

  And the kind of, I, I totally, I mean, I really feel that I'm a bit of a witch and I'm tapped into the collective unconscious.

• 1:40:06Speaker 05

  So was you?

• 1:40:07Yasi Salek?

  I don't think I had a hand to play in it. Noel Gallagher, you're welcome. It was also probably also Noel Gallagher's divorce. It's a lot of things that conspired together. Peggy, Peggy Gallagher, um, a lot of things came into the ether, but.

• 1:40:22Speaker 05

  That it was the kids. It was the fact that now the songs are all out of publishing, so he gets the publishing direct and the divorce. And the fact that Blur had done two dates and then they can maybe do some more.

• 1:40:37Yasi Salek?

  Because. Well, we we can kind of end on this. Noel and Damon are good mates now.

• 1:40:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:40:43Yasi Salek?

  They're actual proper real friends.

• 1:40:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:40:45Yasi Salek?

  Liam, to this day, and I don't know if he's being serious, or if he, well, I don't know if he has the capacity of not being serious, or like not being truthful or whatever, but he's still at any given opportunity will throw shots at Blur. It's so fun. Like, out of nowhere, no one's asking you about it. Blur's not in the conversation. He will, he did that 73 questions with Vogue thing. Somehow Blur comes, he's like, yeah, Blur, ugh. And I'm like, what? Who even asked you about Blur? It's, it's very hilarious.

• 1:41:14Speaker 00

  What's your guilty pleasure? Ooh, Blur.

• 1:41:21Yasi Salek?

  The reason people love Liam Gallagher is because he's like the saint of rock and roll. He embodies everything that people love about rock and roll. He doesn't give a fuck. He loves to party. He's antagonistic. He doesn't care what people think. It's pretty, it's pretty amazing.

• 1:41:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, he's completely great. And yeah, I think, I do think that like, I spoke to Alex quite recently. He said, the really weird thing is like, if you're a dude, like as a member of Blur.

• 1:41:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:50Speaker 05

  And you, and like, you see Noel and Liam, you're like, fine, actually. You're fine about it. He said, like, there's some people you see, you'd be like, oh, man, not them.

• 1:41:59Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:42:00Speaker 05

  If you see like Noel and Liam, you're like, that's fine. Like, you'll probably have a bit of a laugh. It'll be, you know, it'll be fun. It'll, it's actually fine now.

• 1:42:09Yasi Salek?

  I love that. I love that. I like, hope that, I hope they all just like hang out and have like, I would love to see like a We Are The World, you know, just like bring these old people together. Yeah, let's do it. I'll organize it. We need it. Let's bring them all together. Like the, like the Imagine, the cursed Imagine video during COVID.

• 1:42:27Speaker 05

  That would be so bad.

• 1:42:29Yasi Salek?

  But we'll bring them all together to do it. I think this is a million dollar idea.

• 1:42:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a million dollar idea that will never, ever happen.

• 1:42:38Yasi Salek?

  Okay, well, I'm so sad to end this because I love talking to you, but it does feel that we've sort of-

• 1:42:43Speaker 05

  We've covered the lot.

• 1:42:45Yasi Salek?

  Miranda Sawyer, thank you so much. It's been such a joy and a pleasure. I'm so excited to read your book. Everybody, get the to the, to the website of choice and preorder Miranda's book. It's, I wish I had had it for this season to research, but-

• 1:43:00Speaker 05

  I'll wave at you, then you can sit.

• 1:43:03Yasi Salek?

  Oh, it's got a gorgeous cover, gorgeous cover.

• 1:43:06Speaker 05

  Thank you. I designed some of it.

• 1:43:09Yasi Salek?

  Okay, well, thank you, Miranda. Come back next week for a new episode of Bandsplain.

• 1:43:20Yasi Salek?

  If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bandsplain. Our guest today was Miranda Sawyer. Her book, Uncommon People: Britpop and Beyond in 20 Songs, is out now in the UK and available for preorder here in the United States. Get the to the bookseller. This episode was produced by Liz Sanchez and edited by Adrian Bridges with help from Justin Sales. Executive producers for Bandsplain are Gina Dalvec and me, Yasi Selig. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Cosentino and Jennifer Claven, and graciously recorded by Carlos de la Garza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to our producer emeritus, producer Dylan, AKA Dylan Tupper Rupert,

• 1:44:02Yasi Salek?

  and also Michael Hardman, Casey Simonson, Robert Adler, Leah Edwards, David McDeana, Dana Myerson, Jessica Hopper, Chloe Walsh, and my annoying dog, Joey. Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bandsplain on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

• 1:44:20Yasi Salek?

  Shut up. My dog, Dog's a big Oasis fan.

• 1:44:23Speaker 05

  It's fine. I've got a dog here as well.

• 1:44:24Yasi Salek?

  She doesn't like to hear about that. She's like, I'm always Team Oasis all the way. Um, oh my God, hello. I say this so lovingly and respectfully, but your dog looks really British. Like, I just know he, I know he has an accent. Like, he has like an accent for sure.

• 1:44:47Speaker 01

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