Born on 29 May: Noel Gallagher, melodic architect of Oasis

Noel Gallagher was born in Manchester in 1967, five years before his irascible brother Liam.

In order not to inflame an already volatile relationship constantly on the verge of explosion, let’s not dwell too long on the fact that Noel truly is the creative driving force behind Oasis. Let’s not pour oil on the fire as the band is gearing up to reunite on English (and Irish) stages for nearly twenty dates this July.

As the son of Irish immigrants, he grew up in a working-class environment in a Manchester already struggling with factory closures. As a child, his first musical thrills reportedly came from listening to the Smiths, before he explored the catalogues of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles—undeniably his major influences.

But to give credit where it’s due, it was Liam who first laid the foundations of Oasis, which Noel only joined in 1991, immediately making himself indispensable to the creation, writing, and recording of their first (and masterful) album "Definitely Maybe" (1994). Indeed, he was behind songs such as "Live Forever", and later "Don’t Look Back In Anger" (1996) and "Wonderwall" (1995), which helped shape what we now know as Britpop.

The album "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?" (1995) catapulted Oasis to global fame, but soon the epic arguments between the two siblings became more talked about than their music. Noel, the perfectionist and thinker, often clashed with Liam’s explosive and unpredictable nature. It was an impossible marriage of water and fire that frequently erupted into physical fights. Having been the group’s driving force, their now-irreconcilable rivalries ultimately led to the band’s downfall. In 2009, after one final altercation, Noel walked out of Oasis.

He then embarked on a brilliant yet more low-key solo career with his new band High Flying Birds. By 2023, he had released five distinctly interesting albums, intentionally breaking away from the Britpop mould, sometimes even flirting with refreshingly experimental melodies. Listen, for instance, to "Pretty Boy" on his latest album "Council Skies" (2023), or "The Dying of the Light" (2015) and "If I Had A Gun…" (2011).

Despite circulating rumours to the contrary, no new material appears to have been written for Oasis’s summer tour. Those close to the band even suggest this could be the last. Of course, naysayers predict it will never reach its end, as for Noel and Liam, six weeks without a spectacular fallout does indeed seem a difficult feat…

(MH with Stéphane Soupart – Photo: © Etienne Tordoir)

Photo: Noel Gallagher with Oasis during a (lunar) press conference before their concert at the Globe Arena in Stockholm (Sweden) on 9 September 1997