Liam Is Best

Sibling Rivalry

We all hear what has been going on. Noel this, Noel that yet many people forget that it wasn't Noel who formed Oasis but in fact it was his superbly talented brother Liam Gallagher who created Oasis.

All the time Liam and his four friends in the original line up were making a go of things Noel was just a roadie for another band. It has to be asked though if keeping Noel out of the band altogether would have been better for Oasis or that once Noel joined his brother, Oasis really started to get noticed, even if it was for all the wrong reasons.

There is no doubt that sibling rivalry plays a huge part. Liam and Noel have gone through various stages against each other, even going so far as to refuse to speak to each other for prolonged periods of time, but they are still brothers and blood is thicker than water so it's not surprising that they still tolerate each other, even if they continually fall out over the most trivial things.

We often assume the rise of Oasis to have been instant and unchallenged, but it wasn’t: the first review in Britain’s NME was noncommittal and the second scathing. Nevertheless, by the time their debut album Definitely Maybe arrived, most observers had no trouble recognising it as a classic. The theme was the band’s dream of escaping the life they’d been born to, but where a song like Rock ‘n’ Roll Star could seem mediocre in other hands, this song wasn’t about being a rock star, it was about feeling like one; about that arrogant sense of immortality you got when you stalked into a bar at the age of 18 knowing you looked great, felt great and to hell with everyone. No one has ever captured this demonstrably better than Noel, while Liam came across as the stereotype.

Everything which followed was built on this initial start. The second album, What’s The Story Morning Glory, went to the very heights when Wonderwall became a worldwide anthem for 1995, while Oasis became part of the national identity in the UK.

Yet even when they had got established it seemed as if the brothers still wanted to outdo each other in the tabloids and Liam's antics certainly came to surpass those of his brother.