The UK's Observer had 4 interesting articles on Oasis in late June and early July that I missed then

[highplainsdem]

All very readable, if you're at all interested in the band.

Three were published on Saturday, June 21.

What’s the story? Three new Oasis books focus on the war and the glory
https://observer.co.uk/culture/music/article/whats-the-story-three-new-oasis-books-focus-on-the-war-and-the-glory

This review of all three books can't go into any of them in great depth but does set the books in context, and includes these paragraphs on one of the most interesting quotes from Noel Gallagher in Supersonic, the film now on YouTube that I recommended here - https://www.democraticunderground.com/1034149416 - recently:

These high waters carry upon them a number of books, two of which claim to have been in the works since before the reunion announcement: PJ Harrison’s Gallagher: The Fall and Rise of Oasis and A Sound So Very Loud: The Inside Story of Every Song Oasis Recorded by Ted Kessler and Hamish MacBain. In the latter we find Kessler – in 2016, as acting editor of Q – hanging out with Liam Gallagher, a man he had interviewed many times before, including for The Observer in 2002. In the pub, they’re dissecting the pre-release screening of Supersonic, the soon-to-be-released Oasis documentary. Liam has issues, but he can 100% endorse the bit where Noel compares himself to a cat and Liam to a dog.

“Without a doubt,” agrees Liam, getting into the kind of bullish, savant stride that sold millions of copies of music weeklies and men’s monthlies between 1994 and the internet age, and newspapers both tabloid and broadsheet. “He’s arrogant, sticks his arse up, comes and goes as he pleases, stands apart, just surveying everyone. Loves being stroked. Total tart. Loves you when he wants. I only get took out on a lead. I’m not allowed on the sofa. I run around with the pack, barking, tongue hanging out. He’s all aloof up there watching, licking himself and plotting. That’s us all right.”

Oasis were – are – a band that served as a kind of lightning rod for all sorts of binaries, both real and convenient, to which “cat” v “dog” is just a sideshow. Oasis represented the north; many of their fellow Britpop-era bands were from the south (Pulp the obvious exception). Oasis were football terrace; their biggest rivals were art school. Oasis were direct, no-nonsense and ambitious when many around them were apologetic and disdainful of the mainstream.

Within the Burnage quintet, Noel was the clever one who wrote all the songs, and Liam was his live-wire liability of a brother, a glowering pin-up whose appetite for destruction was equal to his love of John Lennon; a teenager who was hit on the head with a hammer and discovered that music was the equal of football.

Much more at that link.

Next article:


Scroll with it: the next generation of Oasis fans
https://observer.co.uk/culture/music/article/scroll-with-it-the-next-generation-of-oasis-fans

In 2017, when James Corcoran got an iPhone for the first time, the first thing he did was search for an Oasis podcast. None existed. “I filled the niche, basically,” says Corcoran, the 45-year-old host of the Oasis Podcast. There was, he assures me, no master plan. “Nothing in my professional life prepared me for it. But within 12 episodes, I was interviewing [the band’s original drummer] Tony McCaroll.”

Today, Corcoran’s podcast is just one part of the world of very online Oasis fandom. He was there for the band’s 1990s heyday, but many who participate were not. When we think about internet music fans, it’s more armies of Swifties or breakout TikTok stars than the very analogue Gallagher brothers, Liam and Noel. But when Oasis take the stage for Oasis: Live ’25 next month, it will be the moment that an online subculture finally goes overground.

When Oasis split in 2009, Facebook was still imperial, Twitter a plucky upstart, and Spotify had just launched in the UK. All of this was suddenly more available than ever on the new iPhone 3GS. “In the early 2010s it was unfashionable to be an Oasis fan,” says Corcoran. But that changed thanks to the 2016 documentary Supersonic and Liam Gallagher’s comeback the following year.

-snip-

“Liam being on Twitter [now X] has attracted so many people of my age,” points out Marchant. Fans use the #Oasistwt tag, or reply to Gallagher’s tweets. At first, fans like Marchant might begin posting on r/oasis, the band’s hugely active Reddit fan page, where younger users share Gallagher memes and gossip. But a pre-social-media fan forum, Live4Ever, has also had a resurgence.

-snip-

Marchant is Sadie Marchant, a 22-year-old who discovered that many if not most of the Oasis fans she met online were young women, belying the false belief I've still sometimes seen pushed that almost all Oasis fans are middle-aged men.

Next:


Where were you while we were getting high? A night with Oasis
https://observer.co.uk/culture/music/article/where-were-you-while-we-were-getting-high-a-night-with-oasis

This is a long and well-written article by Thomas Beller which I hope you'll read in its entirety. Final paragraphs, which don't contain what would be spoilers from the story:

Bono was recently quoted, in advance of this summer’s Oasis shows, as saying: “I love them; I just love them. And what I really love is, the preciousness that had got [into] indie music, they just blew it out. There was just the swagger, and the sound of getting out of the ghetto, not glamorising it … they were rawer than anybody.”

My encounter with the band was about a year after Knebworth, prior to the release of Be Here Now. It was the beginning of the long second act. And then the breakup years involving the brothers hiding in plain sight. It’s not like they stopped making records and touring. If there is a chart for the most mentions in the NME over the last 30 years, Oasis and the Gallagher brothers combined must surely be at number one. But the sense during this period was never of finality, but rather of dormancy. A volcano, not a death. And now these two wizened faces peering out at us from a poster, skirting perilously close to Spinal Tap territory and yet not, because the excitement is real. Once again: “Butterflies”.

Finally, a review of the first concert of the tour, published the next day, July 5:

Oasis back together and giving people what they want
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/oasis-back-together-and-giving-people-what-they-want

A total of 5,789 days after Liam Gallagher threw a plum at his older brother Noel at a festival in Paris, setting in motion a chain of events that would lead to Oasis’s break-up, the Gallaghers walk onstage with Liam’s arm slung over his brother’s shoulder. The words “This is not a drill” ring out over the PA, followed by the opening chords of Hello.

“It’s good to be back,” sings Liam, sporting an unnecessary cagoule in the July heat, as Noel remains sphinx-like, focused on his guitar.

But when Noel sings too, his voice curling around his brother’s, the emotional reality of their long-awaited reunion dawns. It’s like a dam breaking, a collective yearning satisfied.

-snip-

It is, pretty much, what people want: a set of zero selection surprises, no deep cuts, no messing about, no pyro, no T-shirt cannons giving away merch for free; just two-and-a-bit hours of unadulterated fan service. The roof of the stadium is shut, the better to boost the extreme volume of this band’s three-guitar attack.

-snip-

Again - with all of these - much more at the link.