Noel Gallagher Is Very Sad There’s No “Proper Rockstars” Anymore
"The biggest thing in the world is fucking Taylor Swift. What?! Fuck off."
Former Oasis songwriter (and man who definitely tells the kids to get off his lawn) Noel Gallagher has popped off about the current lack of rockstars in music and taken aim at Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran.
As reported by Just Jared, Gallagher went on the rant while appearing on Mark Morgan’s Funny How? podcast, saying there’ll never again be “proper rockstars” like Freddie Mercury or David Bowie.
“Music now is style over substance,” he told Morgan. “I find that these young people in the music game — they fucking look great, they’ve all got tattoos and the image and all that fucking bollocks but really they’re just shit, they’re not saying anything.
“The biggest-selling acts are shit, whereas when I was growing up the biggest-selling acts were the best acts,” he continued. “The biggest band in the world was usually the best band in the world. Now the biggest thing in the world is fucking Taylor Swift. What?! Fuck off.”
Gallagher said he didn’t consider himself to be a rockstar, rather he thinks he’s a “songwriter/grafter”, and argued that fear of social media backlash is the reason we won’t ever see “proper rockstars” again.
“There’ll never be another David Bowie, there’ll never be another Marc Bolan, there’ll never be another Freddie Mercury, proper rock stars,” he said. “I don’t consider myself a rock star, I’m more of a songwriter/grafter, I mean proper flamboyant rock stars. They’ll never be people like that because musicians will never make that kind of money and the ones that do like Ed Sheeran, fucking whatever.
“They’ll be no more private jets or David Bowie rocking into King’s Cross Station dressed as a Nazi, they’ll be none of that any more, because people will be cowed by social media.”
Gallagher has outdone himself with the rants recently — earlier this month he popped off (again on Morgan’s podcast) about having to wear face masks to protect other people from the spread of COVID-19.
“There’s too many fucking liberties being taken away from us now,” Gallagher said. “I choose not to wear one. If I get the virus it’s on me, it’s not on anyone else.”
Fellow British rock veteran Ian Brown, former frontman of the Stone Roses, was also publicly castigated — including by Jedward, of all bands — for tweeting about bizarre coronavirus conspiracy theories. Proving, once again, that wisdom does not come with age.