In today’s Soundbites – our look back at the past week’s news, features, videos and tabloid gossip – Noel Gallagher upsets a few Oasis fans, but Alan McGee cheers them up, there’s some shocking revelations from Led Zeppelin, Paul McCartney and Bernard Sumner, and this week’s most popular video is highlighted.
Noel Gallagher (Photo: Live4ever Media)
Noel Gallagher‘s flippant nature isn’t for everyone. That brash Northern brogue so familiar to anyone from that part of the world seems lost elsewhere, which might explain the almighty shit-storm caused by the former Oasis man’s comments this week that the band ‘didn’t give a shit about the fans’. “We were one of the five biggest bands in the world at any given time and the biggest thing to come out of England in 35 years so what would we be doing it for? For the fans? No-one ever gave a shit about the fans in that band,” Gallagher told Nation Radio’s Chris Blumer ahead of his solo arena gig in Cardiff this week. “So it’s done, it’s done.” If you haven’t seen the comments in full yet, head this way.
One man familiar with Noel who has been all about love and harmony this week is former Creation Records boss Alan McGee. After years of disillusionment with the music industry following the end of Poptones a few years back, McGee has now said a summer spent with those lovely folk in Tokyo has led to quite a significant change of heart. “Since spending the summer helping curate Tokyo Rocks for next year it’s made me realise I do still love it,” a statement read. “It was when I was flying back from Japan with the Primals that started me loving it again.” More on the story right here.
After the usual weeks of speculation this year’s Mercury Music Prize shortlist was unveiled this week to a collective shrug of the shoulders from the industry. Even the chairman of the judges’ panel admitted there is no standout album on the rundown this year. Plenty will say the slightly underwhelming group of nominations represents a disappointing year generally for British music, but there are still some genuine delights to be found. For example, both Django Django and The Maccabees have shown some true invention in their own very different brands of guitar-led records and, with both still just about on the right side of mainstream success as far as Mercury is concerned, the judges could do a lot worse than settling on one of those two to go home with the 2012 award.
Did it end up being the earth-shattering revelation they were hoping for? Probably not, but still some grand news this week from Led Zeppelin, who will release their much-heralded 2007 reunion gig on DVD in November, which will be preceded by cinema screenings in October. Check out the stonking tracklist at this link.
Another underwhelming revelation came this week from CelebrityNetWorth, who rather unsurprisingly told the world Paul McCartney‘s not-inconsiderable personal fortune has made him the ‘richest lead singer in the world’. U2’s Bono is a hundred million or so quid short in second, with Jimmy Buffett in third thanks to a wealth of £248m. The rest of the list, featuring some musicians whose inclusion seems to stretch the definition of ‘lead singer’ if nothing else, can be viewed here.
After months and months of bitching between the pair, of the kind that two school-kids in a playground would probably rise above, Bernard Sumner has made his own contribution to a week of less-than-earth-shattering news by announcing proudly that he is ‘glad’ former New Order bassist Peter Hook is no longer in the band. “He’s not been very nice,” Sumner told The Guardian. “To boil it down to its basic elements, if someone’s horrible a lot of the time, you’re not sad when they’re gone, you’re glad.” More comments right this way.
Their 2007 debut ‘Love It When It Feels Like This’ is probably only remembered now for becoming the perfect scientific example of the NME-led ‘Build em Up, Knock em Down’ culture which we seem to love so much in this country. By the time that album was released, the media had already gone from ‘next big thing’ to ‘lazy lad rock’ in the blink of an eye. Anyway, with The Twang now on the cusp of their third record, ’10:20′, there’s still enough interest in the band to push the record’s first single ‘Mainline’ to the top of Live4ever’s video chart this week. Check out all the latest new and classic promos over at our Videos section.
