Britpop Battle: Oasis vs. Blur

as it will soon become apparent. Yes, when I wrote my book about music rivalries, Your favorite Band is Killing Me a few years ago, I wrote the first chapter on this rivalry because it was one of the first rivalries that I personally ever cared about. It's what taught me how to hate Jordan's. I have to say that it's awfully hard to let go of how I felt when I was sixteen years old, which is that Asis is great and brilliant and one of the best bands

ever and Blur sucks really really hard. I have to say, when you were sixteen, I would have been I think about six I knew nothing about the famous Oasis versus Blur chart face off that was taking place at that time. To me, the winner was abundantly clear. Oasis was the wonder wall band. You know everybody that the song was everywhere.

If I'd heard of Blur at all at that time, it would have been as like a tween watching MTV two and seeing the video for song of A two or something, which to me sounded like something like Blink two or Green Day. You know. I had no idea that Blur were brit pop forefathers, probably until their best of album came out in two thousand I think, which is sort of like the Louder than Bombs for my age demo, Like that was what all the cool record

stores that are in town had like posters of. But even then I had no knowledge of this blood feud with Oasis until learning more about the history of brit pop, and to me, without knowing the British cultural implications, they seemed to come from completely different musical universe. Is Oasis and Blur? Yeah, this is like one of those episodes where I feel like the old man pulling up his rocking chair and explaining to the young people would it

felt like to live in a war? Because you can read about it in textbooks, Sonny, but you don't know what it was like to be in the trenches, buying imports singles for precious always B sides and taking your marching orders from Noel Gallagher about the evils of Damon Alburn. I think I have to break this down for you and all the other kiddies out there. So let's get into this mess. We have to start, unfortunately, Stephen with Blur.

They were the first earlier band. They were formed while the members were attending college in London, and they initially wanted to call themselves Seymour after a J. D. Salinger novella. I feel like, right there, that's a pretty good indicator of how different Blur are than Oasis. I wonder like if the Gallagher brothers have read any J. D. Sounger. I'm guessing probably not. I mean it's starting as more

of a Faulkner band, to be honest. Blur really their debut Leisure, two years later after they formed, and a two month tour of the United States in would prove to be really instrumental for the band because they were homesick and they were starting to sort of tweak their sound as a reaction against this American grunge scene that sort of helped them whenever torn across the country, and they embrace their own cultural identity and the home grown

sounds of England like the Rolling Stones, who the Kinks, bands like the Clash, and more modern groups like the Specials and the Smiths and Madness and this so the seas of brit pop, which was, you know, admittedly more of like a headline hype kind of thing than a genuine musical movement, but it did have a distinctive sound

with its mix of pop melodies and rock and roll swagger. Yeah, you know, I feel like I have to say this before we get too far into this episode, that you don't have to come clean and say that I don't actually think Blur sucks. You know, I respect their career in legacy, and I think I can analyze it without litting my intense pro oasis biases get in the way.

So I'll just put that out there. There's any Blur fans out there who are already turning off this episode because they feel like this will not be a fair and balanced episode of Rivals, I am promising that I

can do that. I think the britishness of Blur is what really ties them to bands, like you were saying, like the Kinks and the Smiths, Like when you listen to their records, especially the ones that they made at their creative peak in the mid nineties, you get a real sense of what it was like to live in England. I think at that time, like there's a specificity to Blur lyrically that really sets them apart as cultural commentators and really like on some level, like they're like satirists.

I think in a lot of ways, Oasis doesn't have

that at all. Like lyrically, they're basically focused on things like cigarettes and alcohol and rock and roll and all that and cool guys stuff the culture around bands basically, so in a way I think like Blur is probably stronger when it comes to lyrics, though I think the generality of Oasis is what allowed them to transition better to the American market, And I also think it makes oasis is songs more timeless, Like you listen to Blur and it seems very nineties to me, whereas Oasis has

a timelessness where if you just like good time rock and roll, Oasis delivers in spades. Blue reach peak Britishness, they have to say. When they released their third album, their masterpiece, really, park Life, and it's written from the perspective of the British working class, and the music video for the title track even had Phil Daniels, who played Jimmy the mod in the nine film Quadraphenia based on

on the Who album. So I mean, you know, you don't get much more British than Jimmy the maud here. This album was an absolute smash, hitting number one for nine weeks in the UK and one an unprecedented four brit Awards, which is like the English equivalent of Grammy's basically Best Single, Best Video for Park Life, Best Album and Best British Group. And before this, you know, UK indie bands were basically like fringe acts and now they

were at national figures. They basically had swept their version of the Grammy Big War really and in their acceptance speech for Best British Group, David Albert goes on stage and says that he should be sharing this award with another up and coming British group, Oasis, which Graham Cox

and ads much love and respect to them. Yes, which again I think this is going to define in a lot of ways the dynamic between these two bands, because Blur, to me, we're not the instigators of this at all, like they in a way were the victims of it. Like I don't think that they really saw Oasis as

like competitors, as you can see from that speech. In a way, I think they looked at them as like compatriots, like we're these young British bands, We're bringing England back to rock and roll at a time where grunge was very dominant. And like you said before, you know, part of what the inspiration was for Blur at the time is that they wanted to assert that England matter too, Like they didn't want to emulate what the Americans were doing, so they did something that was very much kind of

based in their own culture. And I think they looked at Oasis with pride in a way, like, oh, this is another great British rock band coming along. And of course Oways says they put out their debut definitely maybe earlier on in And if you want more background on the Oasis story, I recommend that you check out our earlier episode on the rivalry between Noel and Liam Gallagher. We get pretty deep into it, uh you know their

background in that episode. But I think in terms of the dynamic with Blur, it's important to just say quick that Oasis I think could be pretty broadly defined as like the blue collar band. You know, they came from more of a working class background, and I think musically they were just much more of like a meat and potatoes type band really, like kind of like a pub rock band, which is a crazy thing to say about a band that would like pretty quickly go on to

play stadiums. But I think that even when they were playing on the biggest stages, the appeal of Oasis was that these were simple songs that you could pretty much memorize after the first time you heard them, and by like the second or third time, you would have your arms around the other lads in your group, hoisting points and thinking about how you wanted to live forever. Like that was the appeal of Oasis, much less cerebral than Blur.

Like Blur was the kind of band again, this was a band that almost named themselves after a J. D. Sunder story. You know, they were much more literary band, and they were much more I think concerned with the culture of Britain and and commenting on what was going on in England at the time, and yeah, it just comes from two different worlds and I think because of

those different aesthetics it just really lined up well. Even though Blur I don't think wanted to have a conflict, I think it made it like really attractive for Oasis in the beginning anyway, to be this underdog band that could kind of just like throw darts at this like very popular but kind of snooty and posh band called Blur. Yeah.

I mean this really from the jump, these two bands had really distinct lanes, as you were saying, and it kind of sets the groundwork for this Beetle Stones comparison thing to come. I mean Oasis were the brash, swaggering working class heroes and Blur were like the tweetie are at school kids and they had a more refined and introverted approach to their music. Oasis are cocky and arrogant. Blur has Alex James, who's this like winky, cuddling dude

who bounces around like he's in the Monkeys. I mean it's you couldn't get more distinct from him than like Liam Gallagher who just goes on stage and scowls with his hands behind his back the whole time. In terms of their music, obviously, Oasis, as you said, made the totally opposite of Blur's kinksish character studies and all the

sort of satires found on Park Life. Instead of making an album about the British every man, which is what Blur did with Park Life, they made an album for the British every man, like a celebration of the ordinary person. I always felt like you could, actually you feel like you could be an Oasis too, where I don't think that's something that you feel with Blur. You know, no one knows what the hell supersonic man. It just sounded cool, and you mentioned cigarettes and alcohol. The song on the

Oasis track. It doesn't condone it's use, but it's about, in Nole's words, someone who's on the doll who might not have any other pleasures but these, so you know, he's sort of unders dance where these people are coming from, whereas Blur are just kind of like sketching them um style. Over Stubstance is a bit too reductive for the Oasis versus Blur discussion, but I think it's not far off

to describing what what they have going on. Yeah, to me like a handy way to break down the differing world views of Blur and Oasis is I think Blur essentially wrote songs from like an insider's point of view of British society, particularly like the country's like trendy and

like most posh people, you know. I think of that song country House Like, which is like one of the defining Blur songs of this era, which was about their manager buying this like lavish mansion in the country, and the tone of that song is very much reminiscent of like those ray Baby songs from the Kinks, where it's taking this like knowing comic view of privilege, whereas Oasis had an outsider's perspective, like they actually aspired to fame and wealth when they put out their first record, they

didn't know anyone that had a country house like they wanted to have a country house. I always think of the first song, I definitely maybe rock and Rolls are as being like their mission statement, like for Oasis, being in a band was an escape in the idea of

owning a house in the country. At least at first, it was like this incredible luxury that you could only dream about, you know, Like for Blur it was something you could that you would make fun of almost but for Oasis it was like this romantic thing, you know, like we want to be rich so we can be one of those people. So like to me, like dead is the core difference between those two groups. And yeah, I mean the thing that I love about them is

that it's it's the case of the underdog succeeding. I mean, they brought themselves out of this horrible poverty and in Northern England and be cam and it's it's rare that somebody from the Jump sings about wanting to be a rock and roll star on track one of their first album and then does it almost instantly. Man, that's part of the magic of the Oasis story. I feel like, oh absolutely, it's like the greatest called shot in rock history.

Like some of the fiercest feuds, Oasis and Blur started out actually sharing a healthy mutual respect for one another. When we talked about the brit Awards earlier, when Blur get up and and actually praise Oasis when they're accepting the award for Best British Artist, and I think only five of the enemy awards. Liam Gallagher was actually really humble when Blur walked away with five awards to Oasis is three. He said, you know, I don't think we

Oasis should have gotten more awards than Blur. Blur are a top band. I mean from from Liam Gallagher, that's like incredibly high praise. But their respects started to turn towards resentment after they were lumped together with Blur won too many times in the press under the whole brit pop flag banner, which which they really were kind of keen to avoid. They kind of thought it was just twee and like like you said, I mean, they were

doing more just rock and roll. They weren't really specifically trying to take a stand for British culture in the world or anything. And their label boss Alan McGee later said that the track A Digsie's Dinner on Definitely Maybe was actually a piss take to use his words of Blur, uh and it was just like to show Noel basically mocking the whole brit pop sound and showing that he could do it in his sleep. It was easy to do and but I just choose not to do it.

You know, this is gonna be something that we speculated this episode about about like the legitimacy of this view, like whether there was genuine animus there or if it was just about basically creating a hype to sell records. And I think there's ample evidence that it was overblown, that there really wasn't that much of a conflict. I do think, however, that like Oasis, their main problem with Blur is that at this time, Blur was the bigger band, and Oasis had a lot of ambition and they wanted

to be the biggest band. I think they wanted to be the biggest band in the world. But before you could be the biggest band in the world, you had to be the biggest band in England. And this just strikes me as like a classic case of like, well, if you want to be the boss, you have to take out the boss. And it seems like, you know, more than anything, that was what was motivating the trash talking that was going on, like we can lower these

guys a peg. Also, if you talk about the most famous band in the country, that's gonna get you a lot of press attention. It's gonna basically be a double win because not only are you making them, you know Blur look bad but also elevating yourself, and it seems like that is the strategy like from this point on with Oasis, like in relation to Blur, that like they're basically just gonna like mess with these guys heads as

much as they can until they can overtake them. And it's funny to me and it maybe like a little sad too that like Blur did not know how to deal with this. I mean they really I think we're like mystified by like the attacks that Oasis we're gonna be launching on them like from here on out. Oh yeah. They took it personally. Instead of like being able to

trash talk back, they took it very personally. Damon was in a Blurred documentary No Distance Left to Run In and he says, Noel Gallaghy used to take the piss out of me constantly and it really really hurt at the time. Oasis were like the bullies I had to put up with in the school, which is you know said, I mean, the Gallagher brothers came from Manchester and they had this this difficult upbringing and very violent adolescence and

they can't resist. You know, it's it's fight or flight at all times for them, and they can't resist the chance to to just take shots at the leading band, and you know, Blur coming from you know, good London families is just the perfect target. Yeah, And that's the thing about this is that you know, you can look at this scenario and you can go like, yeah, oh, way's there were bullies. Their treatment of Blur was unfair.

But I think the reason why, like the trash talking landed is that what they were saying how to bring a truth to it. There's this great documentary about britpop that came out in two thousand three called of Course, Live Forever, where Noel Gallagher he's filmed sitting in this like huge opulent house. I assume it's like one of his like twenty seven houses, and he's like in this

like high backed chair that looks like a throne. You know, it looks like he's like King Noel sitting in this huge house and he's talking in this interview about how he used to work on building sites, and which is kind of like a weird image because again he's like in the midst of this huge house and he's talking about his working class background. But he basically says about Blur that like, you know, when before I was famous, like I used to you know, work abs where I

would get dirt underneath my fingernails. And I'm not saying that's a badge of honor, it's just the fact, like that's where I come from. And then like in the same interview, I think it's like in the DVD extras,

actually he calls Damon Auburn a condescending cock. That's a quote for writing songs about the encroachment of American culture on England, which was like again one of the big themes of those like classic Blur records and those quote is if you've got the time to worry about American culture creeping into a British society, then I would get

a proper fucking job. And then he of course calls Damon Auburn a fucking student, which I think he like, that's also like what he said about Radiohead and probably like every other like prominent British band of that time. As an oaysis fan, I think this is beautiful, of course, and I am someone who is more apt to sort of like sympathize with the blue collar underdog band. So you know, I of course eat all this stuff up.

I will say, like, on some level, I will concede that like this is no Gallagher again being a bit of a bully and maybe even being a hypocrite, you know, talking about having dirt under his figure and nails, like when he was a much richer rock star, probably at that point than Damon Alburn was. But again, he's puncturing the pretensions of like smart culture and I put smart in quotes, and he's doing it a way that I think resonates with people. And as an American fan, that

was one of the things I connected with. Like I liked the no bullshit attitude of Oasis and it really connected with me after all those years of like grunge bands basically being miserable about being famous. It's like, here was an unpretentious guy from like a really hard rocking band that embraced being famous and made fun of people that like took rock start him too seriously. I mean

that I think was the appeal of Oasis. I think it was the same interview where he said, yeah, I used to work on building sites that fundamentally makes my soul more pure than blurs, right, you know. I mean he's kidding and it's funny, but on some level, Oh you wonder how much he's actually kidding, Yeah exactly. I mean he says it with a wink, but he also used that as a cudgel against Blur, you know, and

it really worked. Yeah, it's pretty brutal shanking. Uh. Taking it back, things start to really get weird between the two bands. Backstage at the Enemy Awards, Liam starts taking shots at Alex James, who I always thought was kind of like the cute one, sort of like the Davy Jones of Blur, like always sort of like always winking at the camera. He's like, he's the one that just

seems to be so impressed with his own adorability. And I can see how Liam will get really piste off by that, So he starts shouting various uh not nice things at Alex James and Graham Coxon is very drunk and walks up and kisses Liam on the cheek and tries to like smooth things over. This doesn't completely boil over into a full out rumble, but you can definitely

tell that something is about to happen between these two bands. Yeah, and it goes to another level when Always puts out the singles I might say uh, which is one of the great Oasis songs and also an example of something I was talking about earlier, where lyrically, Oasis songs are like nonsensical, Like that is one of the most famous nonsensical Oasis songs of all time, talking about there's fishes in the dishes and like that whole thing at the end makes no sense, just terrible lyrics, but just a

brilliant rock song and incredible sort of like t Rex inspired guitar riff and Owasis through a party when that song went to number one and Damon Alburn decides to show up, I guess it's like a sign of goodwill, like he's trying to support again this other you know band in the British rock scene. And apparently at the party, you know, Damon Alburn's hanging out and Liam Gallagher comes up to him and goes right in his face and he goes numble fucking one, which is amazing. That was

me trying to do a Liam Gallagher impression. Was pretty good, and from then it just you know, pretty much like deteriorated. Apparently there were some unkind things said about Damon Auburn's girlfriend at the time, which was Justine Frishman from the band Alastica, and uh damon. I think at this point he felt like, Okay, we're gonna have this sort of

confrontational relationship I guess between our bands. But it seems like from his perspective he still kind of thought of it as like, well, this is just for fun, Like I'm not taking it personally. This is a show business. But like from then on, like Oasis like did take it seriously, like they like legitimately like hated Blur, or at least that was the story anyway, that like, you know, Blur might have looked at it as a game, but Oasis was gonna basically take it forward as a blood sport.

And for years this incident was put forward as the moment when Blurred decided to launch their famous chart battle

with Oasis. They were going to release their single country House, and they were checking the release schedules and Oasis is uh single role with It was going to be out I think the week before, so they moved their song backs they'll be released on exactly the same day, so they could duke it out in the charts and see who would be you know, the pre eminent British rock band of the moment, and so for years this whole number fucking one thing was cited as like why that happened.

In later years, many have suspected that there was actually a deeper reason for this feud, and you can kind of get a sense of it in the Live Forever documentary when Damon's asked about the feud with Oasis and he gets really like awkward and quiet, and he says, I'm not going to tell you the real reason why, because you know there are other people involved in the real reason why we fell out so publicly, and it

was kind of this like ominous thing to say. He got very like, you know, you didn't really want to go there, and and it kind of seemed like, okay, maybe he just thinks he's too grown up to you know,

engage in this kind of like feuding now. But then in the Daniel Rachel's two thousand nineteen oral history of brit Pop called Don't Look Back at Anger, Nol speaks of a love triangle between Liam Gallagher and Damon and you know, as one might expect, he was less than delicate and his phrasing he said, Liam and Damon were shagging the same bird and there was a lot of

cocaine involved and that's where the germ of the feud grew. Uh. And so it hasn't been proven, but it's some other people in the in the Oasis and Blurred Camp have basically backed that up, that there was there was a love triangle situation going on. Yeah, like Ellen McGhee, who was the head of Creation Records, he backed up that version of events, but like Liam Gallagher himself has denied it. He went on Twitter and he vehemently said that this

was not true. I love that he referred to Damon Auburn as Dermott Oblong, which is an incredible this of Damon Alburn. But yeah, he basically said like that that that's not true. And he said and as for you McGee, you fucking wasp, keep your fucking mouth shut about me. Oh yo, get slapped as you were lg x um. So yeah, I don't know, I mean, does that is that actually an admission of guilt there? I don't know, is this like a non denial denial. I mean he's

sort of like vehminly I said, attacking them. He's not like I think he protests a little too much. Yeah, like he doth protest too much. I'd say, we're gonna take a quick break to get a word from our sponsor before we get to more rivals. So who knows the real reason for why this food is taken off. But it's August four, that's the release date for Blour's next single, country House, the same day that Oasis was due to release Roll with It Showdown in the charts.

The British rock community have not seen anything like this since the Beatles versus the Stones. I feel like it should be noted here that like none of this stuff like really mattered in America. I mean, it's kind of amazing to me that like I cared about it at all like ninety six, because you know, Oasis was building an audience in the United States, but like it didn't really like flourish here until like the spring of ninety six. That that's when wonder All like really blew up and

it became a top ten hit in America. And like Blur still like wasn't like that big of a deal in America that they were a cult band, but like you mentioned song too, you know, that didn't come out until like ninety seven. Or so, so like all the stuff that we're talking about, it was really kind of focused, you know, in England and you know maybe some other

places in Europe. You know, the only Americans really who cared about the Oasis versus Blur rivalry in America were like basically just nerds like me who were into British bands, who were you know, like buying Supergrass records and Verve records and you know maybe even like getting into Gay Dad and you know, bands like that. We're the only

ones that cared. But yeah, this was definitely you know, an outside of America phenomenon at this point, and it is just crazy to reflect on how huge a cultural moment this was. In England. It was like a serious cultural event. They were on the cover of the Enemy, which is like the British version of Rolling Stone, basically a big banner headline British heavyweight Channe being Chip with this mock boxing poster featuring the two bands, and they're

even like spots on the national ten o'clock news. I mean, in the eyes of the British public, this was an all out cultural wharves industrial North versus you know, cultured South. It was rich versus poor educated versus uneducated, middle class versus working class. As we said earlier, Blur took on the role of the sort of elitist middle class Londoners, and Oasis appeared to personify the roughnecked working class Northern

English folk. And Oasis dubbed Blur art school wankers and Mott Damon for singing with this like faux Cockney accent that you know he had he had no right to sing in because of his posh upbringing. And you know, Oasis hadn't gone to college. And you know, as we mentioned earlier, they spent time before they were banned as construction workers. And you said said it perfectly earlier. They were trying to reject this pretense that they felt that Blur was all about the sort of art school, slightly

bohemian thing that Blur put forward. They wanted to make

rock and roll real again. And you know, Blur they dismissed them as preening public school boys, and the inference being that like a life of privilege had left them with no real emotions to call on it, and Oasis were like really had their heart on their sleeve and they could be I'll behaved and laddish, but they were real and you know, it's it's important to mention that at the upstart of this whole feud, Blur were a much much, much much bigger, better established bands, so it

did have that underdog thing and it really added to their whole every man charm. But then on the flip side, Blur came across as like the kind of nerdy kid who got bullied, and Oasis were absolutely the buoys in

the scenario. Yeah, and I think you really see like Blur having second thoughts almost immediately that they engaged with this because I think they they knew that they were in over their heads, not only because I think Oasis was just better at insulting them, Like Oasis, you know, Noel and Liam they are among the greatest insult comics in rock history. So like, if you're gonna go toe to toe with them with you know, insults, you're gonna lose. Was like, there's really no one that can keep up

with them. But also you had this wave that was starting to happen with Oasis where they were really starting to take over the country. So you know, they had this I think appeal as underdogs, but they were like really becoming the dominant ones like pretty quickly, so it just seemed like an every opportunity like Oasis would be the ones kind of like seizing control of this rivalry. And like again, like just their ability to put Blur down,

it's just consistently hilarious. Like one of my favorite putdowns of Blur at this time that came from I think I think it came from Nol. He referred to them as Chimney sweet music, you know, like think you know, like Dick Van Van and Mary Poppins like that kind of thing, which is hilarious, you know, I think again

of this. Yeah, like this like very sort of like I don't want to say affected britishness of their music because they were actually British, but like it just seemed adgerated to the point of at least an Oasis asize as being like comic, it's like give it a rest, Like we know you're from England, you don't have to like lay on this accent. That just seems phony at

some level. And uh, as Oasis was rising in popularity, it just seemed like these hits that they could take against Blur, it just seemed to be landing more and more and having more of a devastating effect on their popularity, and the more of the Blur would kind of go on on the news and sort of like backpedal a little bit, you know, earn even more wrath from the Gallaghers,

because there's nothing that they hate more than somebody. You know, if if they sense fear in you, they're gonna go that much harder, I feel like, so that really earned even more disrespect from Oasis. And the funny thing to me about this whole chart battle thing is that all this fuss is over too. Not that great songs. I don't think either of these songs are, like you know, in any way really notable aside from this feud in

either of their cannons. I mean, the Blur song country House sounds like a parody to me of park Life, And as you said, it's about a man in the city who makes his millions and then retires to the country for this rural life of anti depression meds and weight watchers. And it was poking fun at their former manager, and it boasted this really high concept video directed by Damien Hirst, the world famous artist, and it co starred

pretty big English stars at the time. Keith Allen is Lily Allen's dad, and Little Britain star Matt Lucas, who are big comediy so it had these, like you know, celebrity driven music videos, and Oasis, on the other hand, didn't bother with things like that. Well yeah, and you know the thing is, though, I I think you're right about in terms of these two songs. I'll even say, and this is again to prove how unbiased I'm going

to be in this episode. In spite of my pro wassis bias, I actually think country Houses maybe a better song than Roll with It, Like Roll with It is like one of the weaker tracks for sure. I wants a story Morning Glory. I mean, even Noel Gallagher himself said, and this is another great quote, he said, it's about funk all That's what he said about Roll with It, basically just like a meaningless song that he just knocked out.

He also called country House fucking dogshit, so he thought both songs sucked, and like, I don't think always has ever played role with It live. It's like one of the few songs off that record, and what story Morning Glories just like a blockbuster album. Most of the songs on that record have become live staples. But like Roll with It, in spite of being a single, you know, they've never really played it, and I think that pretty much says it all about how they feel about that song.

But yeah, it's funny that this ended up being like the flashpoint really between these two bands, and again it is still some mind blowing I think of how big a cultural event this was. The final results were the lead story on the ten o'clock news in England. I mean that that was what they lead with, so huge cultural event. Oasis were the band that were favored to win. I think it was a bookmaker gave him the odds at six and four in their favor, but ultimately Blur

were victorious. Country House sold I think two hundred and seventy four thousand copies to Roll with Its two hundred and sixteen thousand, and they charted number one and number two respectively. Uh. Some cynics, I have to say, pointed out the fact that Blur released two CD singles, one of them had live tracks from their mile end show in June. Uh. In other words, some Oasis fans believed that the election was stolen. Yes, but they were still

number one and William. William's response was took him five years ago to number one, took us twelve months fair point. And you know, again, when you look at the response to this election that took place, you see where these two groups diverge because I think, you like, when Blur found out that they won, you know this thing, they kind of had this attitude of like, Okay, now we

can maybe go back to just being normal here. Like Alex James had this quote where he said, the thing that most people don't understand when they read the papers is that this revelry is all made up. I know that when I want to hear a good song, I can write one, and when I want to go for a drink, I can call up Liam. There's few peple would rather drink with than Oasis. So you know, he's trying to put a good face on it that like, Okay, this this is just for publicity, we're actually friends in

real life. And it seems like, you know, Blur has felt this way consistently over the years, like when they've been asked about it. There was a quote from Graham Coxon where he looked back on this, you know role with it versus Country House competition and he he really felt that it was like quote a hollow, pointless victory, you know, that this was just basically just like a lot of nonsense that was that was ginned up to sell records. And yeah they won, but he you know,

it doesn't really matter that we won this thing. But Oasis did not feel that way. They felt much different. And I think what's interesting about this is that like, yeah, Blur, like, you know, they won this competition between these two singles, but it was kind of the beginning of the end

of them being the big expand in England. I mean, because I think pretty quickly this is where they're kind of crossing like their trajectories and like Blurs going down a little bit, and you really see Oays again shooting up into the stratosphere. If Blur and interviews were saying like, oh yeah, we didn't really care, we're all friends always just a the total opposite approach. Uh. Liam gives an interview the Enemy soon after the chart battle, and he says,

I cared because I want number ones. I think roll with It is a great song, and he goes he talks about how he met up with Alex James in a pub soon after all this, and he said, oh, yeah, congratulations on your number one. You know, it's about sucking time, and Alex is trying to be all nice and friendly, says, oh yeah, well you know both of our songs were shipped anyway, and William turns on and says, no, this is where you're wrong, and this is why I fucking

hate you and your band. I thought our song was top. So again this really gets back to the whole like they're not here to play, you know, like like this faux humility, bashful thing like, no, we want to be the best fucking band in the world, and if you're in front of us and get out of the fucking way, which you know I I appreciate on some level. No, actually was even more blunt about his hatred of Blur. He was giving an interview, I think to the Observer

and he said I hate that Alex and Damon. I hope they catch aids and die for which which he later apologized and downgraded the wish to a bad coal but but still not not a not a nice thing to say. Yeah, this is the most infamous incident I think in this rivalry, and I have to say, you know, I love Oasis, but this is an instance where I feel a little embarrassed to be backing the band that wished aids on the other band. I feel like that's not a great look for my boys here, and I

wish that wouldn't have happened. Again, showing my lack of bias in this episode, I will call out Oasis for doing that. They shouldn't have done that. Blur, you were in the right. I'm sorry that happened. But this all goes back to something I brought up earlier, which is,

you know how genuine really? Like was this ravelry? And I I'm just flashing back to that quote that we were talking about, like where Alex James was saying, you know, I can go to a bar and I can call it William Gallagher and I know I can drink with him and it's going to be a good time. And then we have that quote from Liam Gallagher like where they are actually drinking together and he's talking about how much he hates Alex James and it's like his face

like what's right? Like are they actually pals or do they actually hate each other? Again, I I just go back to this idea that like I think Oasis felt genuine competition with them. I think they you know, they wanted to be the biggest ban in the world, and they knew that in order to do that, they had to take out Blur first. So it's like, you know, almost like a sporting competition, like you have to hate your opponent, and I think that is where the hate

was rooted. And maybe like if that wasn't in the way or like once you know, Blur was vanquished, you know, there wasn't going to be that motivation to hate them anymore. So I think that's genuine. But also at the same time, I think there was an acknowledgement on Oasis part that

this was going to be good for their career. It was like a win win, like, we hate these guys, It's going to motivate us to propel our career forward, and it's also going to give us publicity, you know, the pro wrestling side of Oasis, which I've always loved, and that's another reason why I like them more than Blur.

I like their outrageousness, but it just seemed like it had a double thing of like kind of fueling their fire and also you know, helping them out on the pr n you get the impression that Oasis all they ever really knew how to do was fight, like just in their interactions with the world. I mean, if you look at their upbringing and just just sort of the violence of the Arato lessons, it makes total sense. I mean, fight is like sort of the first thing that comes

to their mind in any kind of human response. So yeah, it almost seems like they would lead with that in any in any interaction. And you noticed that once uh, they clearly begin to eclipse Blur as Britain's biggest band and eventually the bigger band in the world, the feud

between them kind of dissipates. I think that the real sort of defining moment when they overtook Blur was at the brit Awards, in which was I believe a year after Blur had come out ahead and they went up on stage and they thanked Oasis and said, you know, they should be up here with us as best British Band, and they shared the moment with them. Oasis kind of flipped that on its head. They when they won I

think it was Best British Band. They get up on stage and they mock Blur by singing from the Podium a version of Blurs Park Life that was now titled Shite Life. So very different response to UH to getting the Glory and becoming the number one band. And I feel like this was right when Blur and Oasis released their long players in the fall of Blur came first with The Great Escape, and What's the Story Morning Glory

came in October. The Great Escape came out, hit number one, but it didn't hit the highs that Park Life had. It was generally seen as kind of more of a disappointment from the previous album one triple platinum and got good reviews, but it just completely pales in comparison to the cultural juggernaut that was What's the Story Morning Glory? I mean, if Blur won the commercial battle with the

song chart battle, Oasis won the war. I mean they rebounded from role with it to score of this global success that just, you know, almost immediately afterwards, with the release of Wonder Wall, it just crushed any subsequent single releases from Blurry's The Great Escape, and it bolted them to fame not only in England but in the United States,

which had alluded Blur up to this point. I think that's the crucial difference here is that Oasis was able to become genuine rock stars in America in a way

that Blur never was. And you know, we're an American podcast that we have an American centric view of this whole thing, of course, but I think for you know, historically, for British bands to make it in America, that's a whole other level of success, you know, going back to the nineteen sixties, like if you could come across the pond and have hits in America, that meant that you were really going to be one of the greats, and you know, Blur never was really able to do that.

You know, they had song to which is like one of the like cooler Jack jams I guess of like the last twenty five years, but like in terms of a song like wonder Wall or even like you know, songs like don't Look Back in Anger and Champions Supernova, which you know aren't as big as wonder Wall, but like we're still like substantial hits and like we're playing

on MTV all the time always. It's just achieved like a level of cultural ubiquity in the States and then of course elsewhere in the world that Blur could not compete with which is why I think, you know you were saying earlier, like for a lot of Americans, they don't even think of this as a ravalry. You know.

That's the kind of the irony of it for you know, as much as like I've talked about it in my book, and you know, as intensive as it was in England, really like in terms of like the greater world, you know, it's not on the level certainly of like the Beatles and Stones, like two bands that you know had equally

great careers outside of England. This was really like a British phenomenon, you know, these two bands going at it, and then Oasis of course they go to America and then they end up just kind of going off on their own and being much bigger where it becomes more about the ravelry within the band than it does with

this other band. Of course, like with Oasis, you know what's the story, Morning Glory like really ends up being their peak in America because after that they're gonna put up be here now and look, I love be here now. I had a great time talking about that in our Leam versus Noel episode. I'll direct you to that if you want to hear more conversations about that Coked Out debacle, which is again I think, kind of a brilliant debacle.

But as we look ahead, like to the two thousands and beyonds it is interesting to compare the trajectories of these bands, and especially like Damon Alburn as he becomes a solo artist and really like this like musical renaissance man. Yeah, I mean, Blur kind of collapsed after two thousand threes think Tank uh, and they didn't make music together for I think almost a decade. But Damon saves his best ideas for his animated at the time side project Guerrillas,

which is actually one of my favorite bands. And he scored an international smash with Delva Funky Homo Sapien on the song Clint Eastwood And you know it's funny. I mean, no at the time when Oasis, his fortunes as a band are really on the downturn, he couldn't resist twist the knife a little bit. Noel said that, you know, it's fitting that Damon has ended up in a cartoon band, but you know, I think that it's really it's incredible

how he's able to reinvent himself creatively. I mean you could be cynical and say he does this by having the sort of revolving door of all these different artists that he brings in from you know, Snoop Dogg to think Elton John most recently. It kind of is sort of almost like you could view Ms almost a musical vampire, just taking from other people. But I think it's an incredibly creative and innovative approach to to make in music and deep in Days in two thousand and five, another

international hit Plastic Beach in ten. Really, I think he's had a creative high and he definitely hit a bigger commercial peak in the States than he ever did with Blur. And this is at a time and again Oasis is

really on the downturn. Yeah, I mean I think you know, you look at Oasis in comparison to alburn in the auds and beyond, and you know, it's very easy to look at alburna is again like this musical renaissance man, that he's someone who I think really proved that like he wasn't just a one trick pony with Blur, that he could move beyond brit pop and really kind of going to all these different musical arenas that I think felt much more contemporary with the time, like he felt

like he was evolving with like the music scenes of you know, the century in a way that Oasis really wasn't. Like Oasis by the odds became essentially like a legacy act. Although I will say again as an Oasis fanboy, two thousand Fives Don't Believe the Truth one of their great records, and I'll say that, like, I think that album really is like an instance of them being a band in a way that they weren't in the nineties, because you had at that time people like Andy Bell and gam

Archer in the band who were writing songs. Liam actually was writing songs at this time. Actually, on the previous Oasis record, Heathen Chemistry, he wrote like a really nice ballad called Songbird, which ended up being one of the breakout tracks from that record. And it seemed like Oasis might be the kind of band that, like, for all of their struggles and in her personal conflicts, that you know, maybe they could be like the Rolling Stones and just

continue on for decades and decades. But of course that was not to be the case. They ended up inmploating in two thousand nine after a fight between Liam and Nol backstage in Paris. As we discussed in a Liam in No episode that was thrown fruit involved. It was very crazy. Again, please listen to that episode to get

into the nitty gritty of that. What is kind of amazing to me and maybe like a little bit sad, is that, like, you know, a ways this is done, Blur actually ends up coming back and having a resurgence in the two thousand tens, and of course Damon Alburn is doing all this stuff with Gorillas as well as like various other side projects that he was involved in.

You also see like Damon Alburn and Noel Gallagher actually start to be friends publicly, you know, which is like, oh this, this is a sign of maturity for these guys, but also for a fan like me, I didn't know how to take that, and I guess I still don't. Yeah, No one gives an interner you inn when he's talking about we just bumped into Damon at a bar and he said, oh, yeah, I haven't seen this guy in

like fifteen years. Hey, how you been. Remember all that ship in the nineties and we were like fighting and slacking each other off on the predect that was really weird. Do you want to want to have a bar? I want to have a beer, And just like that, you know, I mean, beer is a hell of a diplomat, I should say. But uh, it kind of made it apparent that like time had healed any of these bruised egos.

And Noel said, you know you can I'll paraphrase slightly what he said, but he said, you know, you can say you respect someone as an artist a thousand times and will never get reported, but you call someone a dick my words once, you know, So it kind of didn't seem like ins that it was all water under

the bridge. And um. Noel actually shared the stage with Damon and Graham Coxon in at a at the Royal Albert Hall for a Cancer Trust benefit show and they played Blurs Tender together and then he went even on record for the song we Got the Power of two thousands seventeen, Guerrilla's song, and uh, Dannon said in an interview later that year, he said, you know, we don't

talk about our past. We talked about our present. I value my friendship with Noel because he's one of the only people who went through what I did in the nineties. And again I can look at this and you know, as an adult, I can say, well, this is great. These are people that have like reached middle age and they have achieved a certain I guess zen serenity, and they can put aside any kind of conflicts in the past.

Damon can get over feeling bullied and you know, whatever fall out he felt over Noel wishing that he had AIDS and Noel can, uh, you know, put aside the competition that he had as a younger man and just

respect Damon Alburn as an artist. I should think that this is beautiful, and on some level I do, but there's also the part of me that hosts a Rivals podcast and I like the pettiness and I have to say that I appreciate that Liam Gallagher continues to waive the petty flag in the Oasis versus Blur Rivelry, and he was talking about this in and of course he was on Twitter and he says now that dick out of Blur and the creepy one out of Oasis need to hang their heads in shame, as it's no dancing

in the streets. As you were talking about that Gorilla song, I guess, and of course also making a reference to the Mick Jagger David Bowie duet dancing in the streets, which I thought was a pretty funny joke. And then he had another tweet where he said that gob shite out of Blur might have turned Noel Gallagher into a massive girl, but believe you me, next time I see him,

there's gonna be war. And you know, and Liam went on to say that he felt that like this uh datant basically between Damon and Noel killed brit pop and like just took all of the fun and drama and conflict that we all loved back in the nineties and you know, put it away. And you know, as we covered in our Liam versus Nol episode, I think Liam, he continues to I guess, keep that pro wrestling aspect

of Oasis alive. I think Noel has reached a point in his career in life where maybe he's a little embarrassed by that he doesn't want to do it anymore. But thank God for Liam Gallagher. He keeps the pro wrestling part of Oasis going, and he feeds the petty souls of Oasis fans like me who don't really think that Blur suck, but like we love to say that they suck because it's a lot of fun. We're gonna take a quick break to get a word from our

sponsor before we get to more rivals. All right, so we've reached the part of our episode where we give the pro side of each part of the rivalry, and let's let's talk about Oasis first. As I've said, I love Oasis absolutely one of my favorite bands of the nineties, and there's no question that in relation to Blur, Oasis has had a much bigger impact on the world. I mean, their most popular song, wonder Wall, is among the only songs to have been streamed more than one billion times

on Spotify. You know, there's just something timelessly rock and roll about their music, whereas Blurred, to me, is much more of a nineties band. You know, they're specific to their era. Plus there's all the stuff around Oasis that is just so outrageous and fun. I never get sick of reading about it or hearing about it. Oasis forever. You're right, how can you not love these guys? I mean, their personalities are are just as big as their commercial success.

It's just they're They're incredible. They're the best insult comics ever. Maybe Blur were smarter, and maybe they were better received by the critics, but Oasis are just so much more fun. And you know, when you want to rock out, what do you reach for, like you know, End of a Century, Like no you put on fucking like you know, rock and roll Star, or like even like roll with It. You know, I think people connect to Oasis in a

way that emotionally that they never could with Blur. I think that, you know, Oasis, like I'm saying earlier, they every man. They made you believe that we could all be rock and roll stars if we all just had enough swagger and self belief. And I think they make people feel better. I feel like, So if you go over to the probe Blur side, look, I've bent over backwards to be magnanimous in this episode, and you know, to set aside all my prejudices, you know, in favor

of Oasis. So in the spirit of that, I will say that, you know, Blur, they were not the instigators really of this ravelry. They were I think, in many respects, the victims of it. You know, they were targeted because they had the misfortunate being the more popular band when Oasis came out, and that made them a target. It made them this topic of scorn that Oasis was going to shoot on basically until Blur got out of the way,

and that happened to work. But you know, again, I can say as an Oasis fan that they definitely bullied Blur and that maybe wasn't a cool thing to do. I also think that, you know, you could make a case that Blur was maybe more consistent over their career

and they were undoubtedly more musically diverse. Also, I think Damon Alburn, you know, his career outside of Blur has been very distinguished and he's done things as an artist, whether it's with Gorilla Is or one of his many other bands that you know, it's overshadowed really anything that like Liam or Noel have done on their own. So

he deserves credit for that. That said, Blur will never matter as much as Oasis, and I'm sorry I have to say that in the pro Blur part of this episode, but I said a lot of nice things about Blur without you, so I feel like I needed to put something at the end and say it once more. Oasis Forever. Yeah, I have to agree it. Just as an American, I always felt like Blur's music wasn't for me, you know.

I mean, I appreciate their eclectic, arty nature and when they're at their most kinksie, but yeah, it just was something that it never really resonated with me in an emotional way. But I appreciate that just how eclectic Damon's career was later on. Just from an artistic standpoint, I think his music keeps me interested longer than Oasis is sound,

which is generally static. Like if I hear a new Gorillas albums coming out, I'm really excited to hear it, But if there's a new Liam or Old solo project, I kind of feel like I know what I mean for and the excitement is not totally the same. But again, I'm gonna have to echo what you said Oasis forever.

I agree. So if you look at these two bands together, I mean, look, I think it was a really funny and like fun rivalry that made me care about rivalries as a teenager, and it was more fun to love Oasis if I could also hate Blur at the same time, Like it just enhanced my appreciation of something that already

gave me a lot of joy. So you know, again, I am Oasis all the way, but I appreciate Blur for being a supporting player, really like in this conflict and being you know, a great topic for some just hilarious Oasis insults. Yeah, somebody who lived the majority of their life listening to both bands independently without realizing that they were direct competition with one another. I could say it's pretty easy to enjoy them both separately. I mean, the things that I like and admire about each band

sort of stands in contrast on one another. I like Oasis is swagger and their pro wrestling level insults, and I like there's weird, quirky art school sensibilities. You know, you can like them both. So I think at this point the only thing that's left to be said is don't look back in anger the most perfect one, or maybe roll with it. I guess we could say we're rolling with it here at the end of our episode,

thank you again for rolling with us. I guess in this episode of Rivals, we've had a great time talking about this beef and feud and long swimming resentment. We'll be back with more in our next episode. Next week Rivals is a production of My Heart Radio. The executive producers are Shawn ty Toone and Noel Brown. Supervising producers are Taylor Chicoyn and Tristan McNeil. The producers Joel hat Stat,

I'm Jordan's Run Tug, I'm Stephen Hyden. If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcast for My heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or where ever you listen to your favorite shows.