She may not be mad for his music, but pop critic Fiona Shepherd reveres the wit and wisdom of Noel Gallagher


A COUPLE of weeks ago Noel Gallagher, in his eternal, blokeish wisdom, produced a highly predictable list of the ten greatest rock bands of all time, noting with deliberately inflammatory prejudice that "no female artists" were "allowed". It wasn't his finest moment, but for sheer ignorance it paled next to his notorious response to the news that Jay-Z was headlining this year's Glastonbury Festival: "I'm not having hip-hop at Glastonbury," quoth he. "It's wrong."

Shame on you, Noel – you let your fans down, you let your band down, but most of all you let yourself down. Because we have come to expect better of rock's accidental sage.

Ever since the circulation of the Wibbling Rivalry tapes (featuring a hilarious, heated argument between Noel and younger sibling Liam) back in 1994, it has been clear that the Gallaghers give good quote and, now that Liam has decided he prefers jogging to skirmishing, it is Noel to whom we look for an entertaining rant.

He has exhibited a flair for stoking controversy ever since his notorious pronouncement that compared drug-taking to having a morning cup of tea. Often, his comments are just plain noxious – he has called Kylie "a demonic little idiot", proclaimed that The Backstreet Boys should be shot and was more than happy to stoke a bitter rivalry with Blur – in particular, frontman Damon Albarn – at the height of Britpop (yet has all the time in the world for a dullard like Richard Ashcroft).

I shouldn't be listening, but I am. Like many people, I would rather read an interview with Noel Gallagher than listen to his dreary music. His soundbites at least have the modicum of wit, spice and imagination that is lacking in his songwriting.

Gallagher has no aspirations to be either a Wildean wit or a spokesperson for a generation (and he has harsh words for those who would); instead, he just sounds-off prejudicially, like some guy down the pub – which is part of the appeal.

He can be off-puttingly boastful, once claiming that the only reason he is not the most lionised pop songwriter of them all is that The Beatles got there before him.

Most of the time (Jay-Z slight aside, I would hazard), he knows exactly what he is doing and what effect his remarks will have.

But sometimes he does actually make a judicious observation, such as his response to George Michael's Bush-bashing single Shoot the Dog – "This is the guy who hid who he actually was from the public for 20 years, and now, all of a sudden, he's got something to say about the way of the world? I find it laughable," he scoffed.

Ultimately, Gallagher doesn't take himself too seriously, and neither should we. Describing himself as "equal part genius, equal part buffoon", he at least shows self-awareness, if not grammatical and linguistic skill.

My favourite Noel Gallagher quote is a consummate distillation of his half-baked philosophy, wicked wit and downright irreverence – in sharing it, I can allow Noel to have the last word.

"Do you ever look at the sky and think, 'I'm glad I'm alive?'" he once pontificated. "After I heard System of a Down, I thought, I'm actually alive to hear the shittiest band of all time."

via L4e / source: Thescotsman.co.uk

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