It's been 10 years since Oasis broke up. For the past 25 years, I've enjoyed pretty much everything involving the Gallaghers. Oasis obviously but their post-Oasis careers too. But in the last 2 years, things have gone down a dark road and right now, the Gallagher brothers are, to me, in a very bad state.

Let's start with Liam. We all know he's never gotten over the end of Oasis. At first, he, along with Gem and Andy, ended up releasing a first record that was comparable to a kid leaving home. When we leave home, at first, we feel liberated from the rules and we break them. Because we can do what we want. We stay up late, eat crap, we don't clean our apartment and so on. We all eventually understand why we needed to go to bed at a certain time, eat healthy food and clean our apartment. But we had to test our liberty first.

Different Gear, Still Speeding was pretty much that. It's comprised of mostly songs that were never included on Oasis records, mostly because of Noel's vetting. But obviously if Liam, Gem or Andy presented the band with those songs, it's because they liked them. So they were kept until that record was made.

Then they made BE. I love that record. They were doing things differently and especially Liam was exploring something more than just stomping rock and roll and simplistic acoustic numbers.

But I get the feeling that, with Beady Eye, the guys, especially Liam, were kind of keeping the fort until Noel got his solo ambitions out of the way. But BE was a commercial failure and of course everything went to shit at that time. Gem injured himself twice, Liam got a nasty divorce. They didn't tour the US for the first time ever. But more importantly, you could feel Liam was very proud of that record before it came out. For the first time ever, he tried something different and took risks. It was a failure. I think that's why he ended Beady Eye so abruptly. I think he was in a "fuck them" state of mind which is why he got particularly lost after that. But also, he could see Noel’s career going really well and him saying that he was never going to come back with Oasis. And Liam lost it. He understood, 5 years after the breakup of Oasis, that it was actually over.

When As You Were was about to be released, everything was going great, we were all looking forward to it coming out. Wall of Glass was a great tune. But then, the Manchester bombing happened and Liam shamelessly used that as a way to market himself by throwing Noel under the bus when he was talking about how he went and Noel didn't and all that. He made this tragedy about him and Noel for a while. That was the beginning of him using Oasis and his endless feud with Noel as a marketing tool, whether on purpose or not. But he knows that when he tweets about it, the press turns to him, talks about him. He even made a movie about his comeback that seems to include a fair share of “Oasis ended”, “Noel’s a c*nt”, “I’m a victim” and so on. It’s as if Liam doesn’t think he can market himself without all of that, which he could. As You Were is a good record and he would have made it as big as he did without all that nonsense.

And now “One of Us”. In a vacuum, that song is beautiful and so is the video. But in a world where Liam constantly uses the end of Oasis and his broken relationship with Noel as a marketing tool, it’s pathetic and annoying. He’s not selling his music, he’s selling nostalgia. His music WOULD suffice. But I don’t think he’s that confident. Maybe he’s still affected by the last time he tried to do something different and focused on the music: BE. But the fact that we can listen to Bold, Greedy Soul, Paper Crown, I Never Wanna Be Like You, Shockwave, Once and One of Us and hear either a dig at Noel or a countless, hypocritical and fake-feeling “I miss you” to Noel speaks volumes.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t do anything to shake off that angry reputation he has. That’s a shame. In Oasis, they used to be all about being positive. But in the last 5 years, he’s lost that. I miss that Liam. And I cannot stress enough that he could have marketed As You Were as a great rock and roll record, which it is. He could stop him constant Twitter rants against Noel, or go back to his post-Oasis interviews where he reacted with maturity and positivity to the Oasis questions in interviews. That all changed in Beady Eye’s last year of existence.

Now, Noel.

There’s a huge difference between 2011 Noel and 2017-onwards Noel. I used to love watching Noel being interviewed. But since 2017, bar some exceptions, he seems to have turned into a massive sour c*nt.

I think it started with the reaction the preview for Who Built The Moon. That or he was already like that before the record came out and this is a coincidence. But he’s been complaining about how his fan base reacted. Since Black Star Dancing, he said on numerous occasions that he’s making that music to piss off his fans. In his iHeartRadio interview, he also said his fans were stuck in their ways. Ever since 2017, his interview has seen him complain about music, but not in an amusing funny way like before. He never says anything interesting anymore either. The only two interview I actually enjoyed watching was with Frank Skinner and his recent Reel Stories. Other than that he’s been acting more like an arrogant c*nt who takes himself way too seriously, which he didn’t do before. He seems to be wearing his shades 24/7 (which reminds me of when he said about Liam that, if the eyes are the window to the soul, he does a good job blocking it out). The video for this is the place is kind of the culmination of this. But he never says anything interesting anymore either.

Of course, there’s always the music. Who Built The Moon is my favourite of all three NGHFB records. But Black Star Dancing and This is the Place lack the general talent Noel has for melodies. All of his songs have a certain core that’s made of a melody. You can play WBTM on an acoustic guitar in its entirety bar Fort Knox. I’m not saying they’d all be as good. But there’s a core there that works stripped down. You can’t do that with Black Star Dancing or This is the place. It’s kind of hard to explain but I’m sure you’ll all get it given you’re fans too. There’s something missing in his latest efforts. Rattling Rose is pretty good and Sail On is one of his best songs but it’s a left over from Chasing Yesterday. So I’m starting to wonder if he’s actually doing this style of music on purpose like he claims or if it’s actually what he likes. If it is I hope it passes. Because right now, I can’t recognize the Noel Gallagher music we all love. And I know he seems to dismiss this as just hatred from the “parka monkeys” but I always love his experimentations and, like I said, Who Built The Moon is my favourite record of his. So that’s not the point. The latest songs are simply weak, to me anyway.

So yeah, that’s my rant.