{"id":1946501,"date":"2025-08-07T12:54:21","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T12:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=1946501"},"modified":"2025-08-07T12:54:21","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T12:54:21","slug":"two-new-oasis-books-released-to-coincide-with-summer-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/two-new-oasis-books-released-to-coincide-with-summer-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Two New Oasis Books Released to Coincide with Summer Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This summer\u2019s Oasis reunion tour is a real BFD for fans of the British band that tore up the charts during the \u201890s because no one really thought it would ever happen. <\/p>\n

The band broke up after a backstage tussle between brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher, Oasis\u2019 lead singer and its guitarist, in 2009. Prior to Oasis\u2019 appearance at the Rock en Seine festival near Paris, things got physical between the pair. As quoted by the Far Out website, Noel recalls that, after a bit of bickering, Liam went to his dressing room, retrieved a guitar and \u201cstarted wielding it like an axe,\u201d noting, \u201che nearly took my face off with it.\u201d Noel later said of Liam, \u201cHe\u2019s the angriest man you will ever meet. He\u2019s a man with a fork in a world of soup.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n Time may not heal all wounds (especially in the case of the Gallaghers), but in August of 2024, an announcement was made that Oasis would begin a world tour the following summer. With silly bickering behind them and lots of money in front of them, the Gallagher brothers have kissed and made up (well, they have at least reached the point where they can occupy the same stage for a couple of hours), embarking on a world tour that began in Wales and will come to these shores in late August, with shows in Chicago, New York and LA before heading to Mexico, South America, South Korea, Australia and Japan.<\/p>\n

So just as the attention of many music fans is once again directed toward the brawling brothers from Manchester, two books have been released to coincide with the tour. The first, A Sound So Very Loud: The Inside Story of Every Song Oasis Recorded <\/i>by Ted Kessler and Hamish MacBain (Pegasus Books, 374 pp., $28.95) provides, well, the inside story of every song Oasis has recorded. The other, Oasis Talking Shite <\/i>by Not the Gallagher Brothers (Simon and Schuster, 208 pp., $28) is a compendium of quotes from the Gallaghers that fall under the category of, well, \u201ctalking shite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naturally, both books reek of opportunism. A Sound<\/i> begins with a transcript of Kessler and MacBain texting back and forth about rumblings concerning an impending Oasis reunion tour. After noting, \u201crumors getting pretty deafening,\u201d Kessler proclaims, \u201cGuess we better get on with this book, then.\u201d In the case of Talking Shite<\/i>, a photo of a cell phone accessing \u201cOasis Tickets\u201d on the Ticketmaster website is juxtaposed with a quote from Liam, who says, \u201cWhen rock and roll calls, you\u2019ve got to pick up the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two volumes lie at opposite ends of a continuum. A Sound So Very Loud<\/i> is described in a press release as \u201cforensically detailed.\u201d In this case, the PR folks got it right, as Kessler and MacBain dig deep to provide extensive information about each song from the Oasis oeuvre, from the circumstances surrounding a tune\u2019s composition to its instrumentation and musical style. However, not much is said regarding the actual recording of these tunes, which is something of a shame and which might be expected from a book of this type.<\/p>\n

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A Sound<\/i> does, however, take the reader behind the scenes of some Oasis business dealings, as when Stevie Wonder (or his people) noted a resemblance between his song \u201cUptight\u201d and Oasis\u2019 \u201cStep Out,\u201d which was supposed to have opened side two of the album (What\u2019s the Story) Morning Glory? <\/i> Wonder\u2019s representatives demanded six points (six percent of the album\u2019s royalties), but the Gallaghers held firm. Noel explains, \u201cWe said, \u2018Do you know how much money you\u2019re gonna get? Nothing, because it\u2019s not going on the album. So you can fuck right off!\u2019\u201d As things transpired, \u201cStep Out\u201d ended up as the B-side of the single \u201cDon\u2019t Look Back in Anger.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is worth noting that Kessler (formerly of the magazines Q<\/i> and the New Musical Express<\/i>) and MacBain (also an NME<\/i> alum) have enjoyed friendly relationships with Oasis over the years. In fact, A Sound So Very Loud<\/i> is punctuated periodically with brief entries titled \u201cOn the Frontline with Oasis\u201d which detail various instances when one of the authors got to hang out and maybe sink a pint or two with one or both of the Gallagher brothers. <\/p>\n

In the spirit of professional courtesy, I will assume that these relationships have not interfered with Kessler and MacBain\u2019s objectivity, even if the back cover of the book bears the quote from Liam, \u201cTed Kesler [sic] and Hamish McBain [double sic] are fantastic chaps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oasis Talking Shite<\/i>, on the other hand, has more modest aims, and on its own terms can be classified as a success. It is not clear who the authors are, but press materials state, \u201cNot the Gallagher Brothers are not the Gallagher brothers (in case there was still any confusion), but they do share a love of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, parkas, crisps, Man City and talking shite.\u201d <\/p>\n

Talking Shite<\/i> might best be described as a diminutive coffee table book. Its dimensions are small, its length is rather short, and the only text is direct quotes from Liam and Noel on the left-facing pages and photos of the brothers with and without each other, often in the company of celebrities (Yoko Ono, Darth Vader, Tony Blair) on right-facing pages. Some of the photos demonstrate the Gallagher\u2019s bilinguality, at least so far as obscene gestures go, with displays of both the American upraised middle finger and the British two-fingered variation. <\/p>\n

The curation of quotes is uniformly excellent, demonstrating the boys\u2019 skills in the wiseacre department. Sometimes their utterances are funny (Noel: \u201c[Liam\u2019s] like a squeaky toy that swears a lot\u2026in a blazer.\u201d), other times they cut deep (Noel: \u201c[Liam\u2019s] not as good as John Lennon. He\u2019s not even as good as Jack Lemmon.\u201d)<\/p>\n