I dunno I feel like Noel and Oasis have been doing that since day 1. As much as I adore them, they do talk an incredible amount of nonsense lol. And dropping relatively newer material from the sets in favour of tried and trusted classics is certainly not exclusive to Noel.

I saw him on this tour and the setlist was like 40% Oasis, 30% new album, and a sprinkling of the rest. I'm happy with that mix. Although I was very annoyed he didn't play Holy Mountain as me and the mrs enjoy dancing like loons to that one.

Mmm not sure about that. After BHN, Noel had to learn how to write songs again, him no longer being a 27 year old lad on the dole. SOTSOG was the beginning of that but he then chose the ill-advised route of trying to regain the Oasis sound. But throughout the 00's, Noel was building his new songwriting style but the success Oasis had during those years made it look like they were fading away. Then NGHFB came out and Noel was back.

What I'm saying is that in any long lasting careers, there will be highs and lows, changing in directions and in styles. For a lot of us here, this is a lower point but for others this record is his best. That was also true with Moon. So there's a matter of taste here too. But his career isn't over until he decides it is and until then, as long as he's writing and recording music, he can surprise us all.

I mean this is true of most people isn't it? It is far more worrying if you don't change over time.

And with regards to it "not being fair" on the rest of his band -- they are hired hands. High Flying Birds is not a bunch of people who have formed together over common tastes and friendship etc. They are employees of Noel. Yes any employer has a responsibility to look after their staff but I'm sure it was all amicable and respectful when their part in the journey came to an end, I'm pretty sure Noel didn't just stop answering the phone one day.

I am only basing my opinions on my own personal experiences, just like anyone else can, and I'm positive that if Oasis reformed tomorrow and dropped the second coming of Definitely Maybe, it would not hit the same way as it did when I was a teenager, how could it? I just think people have unrealistic expectations of how his records can make them feel and what they can get out of it. And that isn't just down to Noel or the listener, it is down to many factors, like the world we live in in 2023 is very different to 1993.

To be honest, the time for Noel to radically alter his sound was 2000.

I don't think Standing on the Shoulders was it, it's a very mellow record but aside from a bit of psychedelic window dressing, the songs are as mid tempo and conventional as you'd expect (barring Fuckin In The Bushes). He wrongly retreated from going further than that.

To mix it up as a 50 year old on Who Built The Moon is far too gone to stick with it. That's the only album that doesn't sound like Noel retracing old steps and the one with a bit more of an kaleidoscopic up tempo sound for the most part. Old habits die hard though and looking at his career as a whole, I suppose it would have been shocking to see him stick to that change that only started in his fifties.

I wish he had. While his melodic gifts are still there, they're not at the ear grabbing elite level they used to be. They're nice and pleasant but on the same level as a Travis album. I like Travis a lot, but there's a reason why Noel Gallagher is far greater than them as a songwriter and I just don't want him being part of that pleasant melodic mid tempo rock crowd. Pleasant and fine can be as much an insult as a compliment though, especially if you hate acts like Travis, and he's too good for that.

While he still can, he should use those melodic gifts to vary the sound and feel of his songs, mix it up. That apocalyptic feel of The Man Who Built The Moon, that euphoria of Holy Mountain, the pure energy you get from things like Keep On Reaching (a song I love by the way), these are all grand statements in his solo career and they stand out because of the feel they give me, I don't feel like a passive listener like with Council Skies or Chasing Yesterday. That's got a lot to do with the real punch of that David Holmes produced music. Mix it with his melodic sense and he'll be grand. Notice that I don't mention any of his EP 'dance' tunes that I think are fairly tame sounding. And that goes for most of his self-produced songs since then, barring A Dream Is All I Need and Sail On which I adore.

He can't rely on lyrics so it's got to be all about the music and melody. Council Skies is pleasant but it's nothing I haven't heard before, I've just heard it done better by him in his glory days.

Staying in your comfort zone is fine, as Noel previously said rebelling against accusations of his musical conservatism, 'that's where your comfy, why would you change it?'. But staying in your comfort zone for too long ends with you becoming numb and eventually becomes a pain in the arse. I'm at the numb feeling, I don't feel anything with his new music. Keep things fresh and exciting.

In his defence, many people moaned about WBTM and his cosmic pop and maybe he just recoiled from that back to NGHFB (and CY) safety. And we all moaned about the fact that in 2022 he was still touring the 2018 album (and EPs).
All of which is a shame, because the balance of the set around 2019 Palladium and Tokyo gigs was pretty perfect

I've been saying the same thing since HC. SOTSOG was a change in direction and a big one at that but they didn't have the songs. But he just threw everything away for HC and they still didn't have the songs. SOTSOG should have been the beginning of Oasis MKII as it seemed to be at the time, not just a sneeze in the bulk of their career. Them getting rid of DIV saying it was because they didn't have the songs is bullshit in my opinion. They didn't call them back once they had written more songs did they? Same thing with AA.

Noel's always been influenced by the fans no matter what he says. With WBTM I thought "Finally! He's loosening up a bit!" and he was saying that he decided to do like he wanted and not care about what the fans said (yes I know he was quite contemptuous when he was saying that but that's not my point). This is what he needs to do, stop listening to every Tom, Dick, and Harry and just trust himself and do what he wants. There's always a part of his fanbase that will complain.

Like I said before, my only issue is the backtracking. If he hadn't told half the fanbase to f*ck off for three years, I'd be much less critical.

Yeah some of the songs they already had made it onto the album and the b-sides. But reading my post I wasn't clear. I do think they stopped working with DIV because they didn't have the songs. But I also think he got scared of the results which is why Sardy ended up producing when they had more good songs. PTSD from SOTSOG maybe but since the first record after the holy trinity of Oasis, Noel seems to want to experiment then goes "fuck this" and does his usual acoustic guitar and tambourine numbers.

'I Just Wanna Be Like You'. Mentioned by Noel on Matt Morgan's podcast on New Years Eve as the last song he wrote and is "a really great one".

Noel should make a compilation of songs he said were really great or the best he’s ever written.

It will have 15 discs : all his back catalogue then except Be Here Now and Sunday Morning Call 😅

He's said with the DIV sessions the songs just weren't there. He doesn't put that on DIV.

But he's said Lyla, Importance Of Being Idle and a fair few others just weren't included in those sessions. Imagine DBTT (which is a good album) without either of those songs?