Who d’you think you are, a rock and roll star?
For what seems like all of 2025, our Instagram feeds have been a swirling torrent of bucket-hatted Manchester laddishness. Those Oasis lads against the world have eventually morphed two middle aged brothers against divorce settlement-driven poverty. Aw-yeah. And in what feels like an implausible bit of retconning, it seems that America wants me to believe it was huge for Oasis all along. This latter surprise twist is perhaps a reflection of the enduring resonance of yer actual rock stars – Beady Eye may not have set the world ablaze, but on them tunes, our kid’s still got it, yeah?
Rock stardom has always been something of a consensual delusion. The makeup eventually smears or won’t remain applied at all. (Don’t ask about my once all-too-close encounter with an Autumn years Johnny Halliday.) The waistlines aren’t telegraphing heroin chic like in the hey day. And the dressing up, the airs and graces, the ridiculous behaviour are non-negotiable parts of the deal – like them or not. If the star of the band doesn’t behave strangely or take themselves incredibly seriously, why should we foist our interest on them? The Gallaghers early blend of oafish menace and hooky sparkle was perfect in the nineties. If anyone could be cocaine brand ambassadors when the nation needed them most, it was our Noel and Liam.
A rock star has always exceeded mere musical ability, they’re both captain of the ship and the carved wooden figurehead on the bow. Given the height of the mic stand, preening is part of the job. In Oasis’ jokey, early hit ‘Rock and Roll Star’ we get a pretty blithe statement of intent:
“You’re not down with who I am, look at you now, you’re all in my hands tonight
Tonight I’m a rock ‘n’ roll star, tonight I’m a rock ‘n’ roll star”
(It was all in the delivery, clearly.)
Yet actual bands, the well spring of so many of rock stars’ careers, as a format or delivery mechanism (ho ho), have been suffering. Only a few months ago an interesting statistic did the rounds, via the Rest is Entertainment podcast and latterly YouTuber musicologist, Rick Beato. The internet was concerned:
Redditors aren’t happy.
The streams don’t lie – the band ‘format’ seems to have become an endangered species. A development, like Trump presidencies, that feels both startling and utterly predictable at the same time. Given how much of media consumption is vertical video by singular, talented and charismatic individuals … how would there still be room for four scruffy individuals making their way up the charts in a knackered van, just grins, tins and a dream?
Get in the van lads
Whenever you see footage of the young Beatles, engulfed in the first fires of total stardom, you’re struck by how precarious and precious the whole phenomenon was. There’s a particular shot of them playing Shea Stadium, four tiny figures in the middle of a sports field, their under-powered amps overwhelmed by thousands of screaming fans. The band format made more sense in the post-war period of new motorways, affordable motoring, and the youthful naivety to drive countless miles from one show to the next. Although they were easily the most famous people in the world, the band concept was still working out how to meet the demand for performance and … connection.
Credit: KPA/Zuma / Keystone
Today’s music stars are still plying their trade in 2-3 minute long, largely up-tempo musical moments, but almost everything else about pop is closer to a mashup of TV, film, dance, vaudeville, held together by a phalanx of digital platforms; from auto-tuned vocals, to TikTok promos to create ‘fan connection’, to the LED screens that dwarf the performers in massive stadiums. If you were coming in cold, you’d have to say the entire category is entertainment, rather than music, primarily.
How can you expect to be taken seriously?
Perhaps the Oasis boys’ main appeal is that their catalogue works best as a bunch of easy-to-singalongs. I’m not really a fan, but the videos people have shared on Instagram and elsewhere suggest it’s almost best understood as nostalgia-powered mass-karaoke – group therapy for those that survived the Britpop wars, and a nice thing to share with teenagers who are discovering guitar-based rock for the first time. Oasis’ somewhat lumpen approach to songwriting was mostly held together by its attitudinal energy and Liam’s sneering vocals. They were too late to be classic rock, but determinedly not trying to soundtrack the future – leaving them somewhat stuck in a bubble of 90s playlists in the streaming era.
A triumphant and much anticipated entente-cordiale between the two brothers was probably the only plot point left to them. This contrasts with once peers Pulp who’ve just returned with a splendid and interesting new album or Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz – also reappearing with two other timeless souls, Sparks). Perhaps more than anyone else, Albarn could see where pop was going 20 years’ ago. The Gorillaz project anticipated the virtualisation and digitalisation of rock bands before anyone had even asked – a project that thrives on assembling strange casts of characters, context-less, ageless, remade as cartoon avatars, liberated to do some of their best work.
A band about nothing
Side note on AI (because it’s unavoidable): the blink and you’ll miss it internet scandal about ‘The Velvet Sundown’ – an AI generated country rock band that was getting millions of streams on Spotify, seemed another death knell for the band concept. The ‘meh… fine’ response of listeners who probably discovered the music on a playlist and had no idea it was ‘generated’, is either a terrible indictment of streaming listening in general, or just a white flag for the whole idea of any actual artistic connection in music.
Whether this was all an artful meta-hoax or simply a bit of commercial chicanery scarcely matters. Discovering Madonna was a robot all along? That would be news. Guy logs into music generator and tries to make some quick (but scant) money from streaming? We all just yawned. It all fits into a wider picture where Spotify seems unfazed about filling its platform with AI generated slop, as it might be the only way it’ll ever be meaningfully profitable given the regular reappearance of the music publishers and labels’ bag men with their usual ‘nice little service you’ve got here, shame if all the music disappeared…’ schtick.
“Said we’ll get on the hovercraft, cross the water…”
There’s always been a tension between rock’s primal energy and mass seduction, with pop’s studied superficiality (or its artfully sardonic raised eyebrow). In the era of vertical video content, there’s literally less room to fit in the keyboardist, bass player and drummer. The illusion of connection demands one-to-one, constant LOLS, and immediacy. Given most bands don’t live, à la Monkees, in a shared (if fictional) house, how on Earth is one meant to maintain the content-creation schedule? “Get Bonehead and our kid over here, we’ve got to pump the B-sides collection playlist…”
So I’m calling it, pop won. They’re all just popstars now. Let’s close this meandering tale, with a much-overlooked (because #billwyman) sardonic novelty pop gem – ‘Si, si je suis un rock star’. A brutal sideswipe by the Stone’s then bassist at Mick Jagger’s approach to fan girl seduction, dressed up in a wonderfully odd (and catchy) pub-rap-rock banger. As they say in politics, every accusation is a confession and the lyrics hilariously foreshadow Wyman’s own, ahem, complicated relationship with a young Mandy Smith. 🧐
“We could go on the hovercraft, across the water,
They'll think I'm your dad, and you're my daughter…”
Anyway - I still love it:
Those lyrics! Those dropped ‘h’s! That casual Franglais!
Said she come from Rio, lived on a mountain
I met her in Trafalgar Square, she was sitting in the fountain
She took off her hat, and she had lovely hair
Said she smoked marijuana, at the Coco Cabana there
South American lady, you've got that crazy beat
Brazilian beauty, with the flashing feet
We danced to the music, at the Mardi-Gras
Then jumped on the Concorde, you're so lah-di-dah
Si, si – Si, si - Si, si
Took her to a disco, in Battersea
I asked her to dance, and then she danced with me
And then I took a chance, come home with me today
I live in France, we can get there B-E-A
Je suis un rock star, Je avais un residence
Je habiter la, á la south of France
Voulez vous, partir with me?
And come and rester la, with me in France?
But BEA's on strike, there's no planes flying
I can rent a motorbike, at least I'm trying
We could go on the hovercraft, across the water
They'll think I'm your dad, and you're my daughter
Je suis un rock star, j'avais un residence
Je habiter la, a la south of France
Voulez vous, partir with me?
And come and rester la, with me in France?
Je suis un rock star, j'avais un residence
Je habiter la, a la south of France
