Newsletterer's Note: I started this, as seen above.
So apparently the Gallagher lads have seen the commercial possibilities in no longer wanting to kill each other, which is to say that the irritable sparring partners have decided to play shows in 2025 to rekindle the magic (a.k.a., jumpstart the money machine) that was Oasis two decades ago. It'll pay for itself multiple times over even with the slowly dying concert business being what it is.
This of course raised the real debate about the band, which is not "Who could punch out whom and how quickly" but "So how good were they really?"
We will not walk you through a nostalgic tour of their discography, mercifully, because that stroll through your legally compromised adolescence is entirely yours to navigate. If you didn't like Oasis then, you're not likely to like them now. But if you did, wallet up, suckers. This is your youth talking to you, and it's always a better conversation than the one you're having with your doctor about drinking more water and doing less sitting.
You see, music belongs to the generation that grew up with it, which is why when you come across someone slagging the Beatles for not aging well, you are just part of the Don't Get It Brigade. Spotify or no Spotify, the music you grew up with is the music that is yours. If you did Oasis during (What's The Story) Morning Glory, your ears, hearts and Venmo accounts are theirs. And that's as it should be because that's all it was ever meant to be.
Oasis is among the rarest of bands for their time, and their time is the late '90s. It doesn't mean that the music died the night Noel and Liam had their last fistfight, but it does mean that they don't translate easily to either younger or older ears, nor should have to. They weren't the Beatles of the '90 any more than the Beatles were the Sinatras of the '60s. They fit their time and they will surely hold the audience they had, but the debate about their place in music history is as soul-searingly depressing as the LeBron-v.-Jordan debates, which lost their ability to amuse years ago. The Gallaghers hold up well for the audience they already won, but nothing about them and this future tour—not even the potential for driving sharpened mic stands through each other's necks during "Wonderwall" at Wembley—is going to alter their place in the musical timeline of the age.
But we're still on board if they want to punch each other's faces off as the encore.
-Ray Ratto
