Robbie Williams thinks Noel Gallagher is no longer a great songwriter for one reason
Robbie Williams has given a backhanded compliment to Noel Gallagher – saying his songwriting “magic had gone” after the first few Oasis albums.
Robbie and the Oasis brothers Liam and Noel were embroiled in one of the longest ever pop feuds after Noel branded him the “fat dancer from Take That ” and Robbie ended up challenging Liam to a £100,000 prize fight at the 2000 BRIT Awards.
In recent years things have thawed between the trio, but Robbie has now come out to say that songwriter Noel lost his magic touch for hits after Definitely Maybe and (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? came out.
Appearing on the Heretics podcast, Robbie said: “It’s very interesting about how, why the magic is there and when the magic leaves, and who gets the magic for the longest.
“Like Noel Gallagher, right? Three-year, very, very, very hot streak, like the best on the planet in that moment. And, you know, B-sides that everybody else would just want one of those b-sides for themselves, for the rest of their lives to tour on the end of it.
“And he just shat them. Every time he sat down, it was just gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold. And then you can see that for whatever reason, the third album was still really f***ing impressive. I’d love that. But then, you know, with respect, because he’s still an amazing songwriter, magic, gone.
“When did the magic, the magic, that ethereal quality, when did that happen for Paul McCartney? He seemed to get it for, you know, the longest time. I don’t think anybody gets to stay in the pocket forever.”
Noel could be in some kind of agreement with Robbie’s claim as on the Oasis Live ‘25 tour only one song released after 1997 featured in the setlist; 2002 single Little By Little from the band’s fifth album Heathen Chemistry.
Robbie, 51, befriended Oasis at the 1995 Glastonbury Festival before their huge falling out and even after decades of feuding he still admits he dreamt of being like rival Liam, rather than be a boy band with Gary Barlow.
He said: “When that euphoria of guitar music making its re-entrance back into the charts in 1994, 1995, 1996, I’m like, ‘I’m this.’
“I loved Oasis and I loved Pulp, and I loved Supergrass, and I loved Radiohead. I was like, ‘I don’t want to be Gary Barlow’s backing dancer. I want to sing like Tom Yorke and strut around like Liam Gallagher.’ “So I shook my fist at it and attempted it. And on that album, there was Let Me Entertain You and Angels, but there is, like you say, Lazy Days, South of the Border, and Life Through a Lens. Fortunately for me it worked.”
Robbie admits he has suffered a similar writer’s block and that’s why he has tried to get into the same mindset he had in 1995 on his upcoming new album BRITPOP.
He said: “The creative process, for me, is thus. I wandered through the first five or six albums, like a pool player going to the table that could never miss. And just clearing up. I didn’t have to think about anything. It was just like next, next, next, next, next, next, next.
“Then in 2006, I released an album called Rude Box. And that is the album that 14-year-old me would have wanted to make and have been incredibly proud of.
“I did a daft song that I knew was daft. I wasn’t sort of going, I’m a rapper now. I was just going, ‘Wahey, I’m Freddie Starr and I’m rhyming s**t.’ That was the energy, but I think people took it that I thought I was grime or something in that moment. It was just fun.
“That was when the record sort of skipped. For me anyway, as somebody with deep anxiety. And then after that, I had to think about everything I’d done.
“And then the sort of like diminishing returns. You can only go this far on the roller coaster before you’ve got to do the loop to loop. I’ve just sort of over complicated everything musically for the longest time.
“There was no anxiety when I was writing those first five or six albums. And then I guess that with this new album, I’ve just gone, ‘Let’s just go back to the start. It’s 1995, I’ve just left Take That. What is the album that I would make now knowing what I know?’
“That’s what I’ve done with this album. And it’s very freeing and liberating because I’ve stopped chasing the hit per se.”
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