So Noel Gallagher is blaming the choice of Jay-Z for the poor sales at Glastonbury. The Guardian basically calls him an irrelevant idiot and continues to bash him and then suggests he's a racist.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/04/gallagher_knows_nothing_about.html
It may or may not be the choice of Jay-Z that is causing the low concert sales, but the article makes little sense otherwise. First, in order to make a measure of concert popularity, it looks at singles, where they point out that Jay-Z has had two number one singles in the UK since Oasis last did, and that is when you count Umbrella, which I imagine a good majority of fans don't consider a Jay-Z track, rightly attributing the majority of the success to Rihanna. Also, nevermind that The Importance of Being Idle was Oasis's last album single to be released (in the interim there has only been Lord Don't Slow Me Down, a barely pushed single that accompanied a DVD). The Guardian overlooks that, when it comes to concert ticket sales in the UK, Oasis is right there with Muse and Radiohead in the ability to consistently draw.
The article quickly devolves into "I love Jay-Z and I think Oasis are shite". Which is a fine opinion to have, but its presented as if its some sort of unbiased take on things.
Both times Oasis headlined Glastonbury, it sold out in minutes. Regardless of your opinion of Oasis, to say he "knows nothing about Glasto" is pure idiocy. There are any number of reasons why Glasto is selling much slower, and someone who has no proven track record of selling out huge venues in the UK being the headliner is not that crazy of an opinion to have.
What is even more worrisome is that if a white rocker says he doesn't like hip-hop, he is inevitably labelled as a racist. I love HOVA. But do I think if Noel Gallagher doesn't think he should headline, that makes him a racist? nah. Does anybody think that if say, Ben Harper had been the headliner (an artist with a proven track record of selling tickets in the UK) Noel would have said anything? If it was Eminem, do you think he would have said the same thing? Absolutely.
And for his UK popularity argument, I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that the Oasis album due out this summer outsales anything Jay-Z has done in the UK ever. Its just a fact that, in the UK, even today, Oasis is widely considered the "national band". I mean they once had a charting EP that was nothing but Noel and Liam arguing.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
2 comments:
I haven't paid attention to Oasis in years, but after they changed the band's lineup (don't know what the configuration is now), they were crap. The Gallagher's can diminish the contribution of the original members all they want, but there's something to be said for continuity and chemistry.
I didn't really intend this to be about how good or bad Oasis is. Its an objective fact that Oasis still remains gigantically popular in the UK.
But to address your point, I really think Heathen Chemstry easily stands with their first two albums. The Hindu Times, Stop Crying Your Heart Out, Songbird and Little By Little are all as good as anything they ever put out.
Perhaps Oasis wasn't as relevant in 2002, but I really don't find a lot of credence in saying they weren't as good at what they do.
I'm not the biggest fan of Don't Believe The Truth, but I don't think it has anything to do with the band, the songwriting just wasn't as good as the previous albums.
Post a Comment