Found out yesterday that George Martin had once called Noel Gallagher "the finest songwriter of his generation"

[highplainsdem]

Yesterday was Noel's 59th birthday, and there were lots of posts from both journalists and fans citing what George Martin had said. I did some googling and discovered he said this in 1997, when a documentary about Air Studios was being made.

https://www.rockarchive.com/prints/o/oasis-oa011jf

It had also been in the Wikipedia article about Noel, which I hadn't looked at closely.

Noel of course usually has a much more modest assessment of his songwriting.

I ran across video of the very first performance of Wonderwall, an acoustic performance backstage at Glastonbury in.1995, the day after Oasis had performed there. This video has the entire song, unfortunately preceded by an intro by three people including two idiots:

The night before:

The year before at Glastonbury:

Live Forever was the song Noel said changed everything for them. Clip from the Supersonic documentary in 2016:

And what IMO is the best Oasis song where Noel took the lead vocal:

At the Rose Bowl last September, dedicating the song to a fan who'd been overcome by emotion:

Anyway, a belated happy birthday to a fine songwriter...

[highplainsdem]

1. Thanks for the recs for the OP!

I checked Reddit's Oasis forum last night to see if there'd been posts about Noel's birthday and did find a thread with fans' birthday wishes - though not as many as I'd expected on this first birthday after the triumphant Oasis reunion tour last year - and another thread copying the social media post from his daughter Anais, which had included a photo she'd taken of her dad while they were snowmobiling. The speculation about and hopes for a new Oasis album this year, which seemed like the most important topic months ago, didn't get any mention in the batch of recent "Best" threads I skimmed.

What did get a lot of attention were tabloid reports about the woman who might be his new girlfriend. Noel's first wife was his age, his second wife was a few years younger, and his girlfriend of the last few years seemed to be fairly close to his age or his second wife's age. A lot of the fans I saw posting there in recent days were NOT happy with the stories and photos about him out with a woman 30 years younger than he is, only 2 years older than his daughter. Never mind that it isn't unusual behavior for rock stars or wealthy older men in general. The fans had thought better of him, thought he was more sensible. Partly because he'd been known to make comments suggesting he wouldn't find much-younger women interesting.

But I hadn't forgotten an interview he'd done a few years ago where he'd talked about possibly buying a superyacht after selling his song catalog, and then spending most of his time partying on the yacht, and maybe inviting different women to sail on the yacht for a while when they stopped at different ports. I think he said this shortly after his second divorce. So it didn't surprise me to hear he was seen out with a 28-year-old.

There's been no news about the song catalog being sold, and he'd probably need the £100+ million he'd get from that for a superyacht to become an affordable toy (think initial cost of £25+ million and about 10% of that every year for operating cost). But he and his brother Liam reportedly each made over £50 million from last year's reunion tour. And since he could probably sell the catalog at any time, there's no reason he can't party and do almost anything he wants for the rest of his life. (Unlike Liam, who doesn't have the Oasis songwriting royalties Noel has.)

The documentary film about the tour will be released in September, but there's been absolutely no news about any new music from Oasis. There are indications that Liam might be recording new music with John Squire (of the Stone Roses and Seahorses) - the album they recorded in 2024 topped the charts, and they did some touring then, before the Oasis reunion was announced. Liam's made it clear he wants to tour again with Oasis, though (he isn't as interested in recording a new Oasis album since he thinks critics will be brutal if it doesn't equal their best songs). Noel's plans for new music seem less certain now, and I think that might be part of why many of the fans weren't happy about the tabloid stories.