Noel Gallagher says artists using teams of songwriters are ‘ruining music’

Gallagher also reveals he has turned down chance to write for others

Noel Gallagher has said that musicians who hire teams of songwriters to help them make songs are “ruining music” and revealed that he has turned down offers to write for other artists.

Gallagher, who releases new album ‘Chasing Yesterday’ in March, revealed this in a new interview with BBC Radio Four . In the same interview he also criticised the lack of working class voices in the current music scene.

As the conversation turned to the subject of song writing, Gallagher chastised the way some songs are written. “We live in a time where I would say 90 per cent of people don’t write their own songs anymore and they get away with it because of iTunes and the internet because there’s no album covers anymore so nobody looks at who is writing the songs and arranging the songs,” he said.

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He then revealed that he would not be interested in writing a song for another artist. “It’s something that I have been asked to do on a couple of occasions, and I just think that they’re just performers aren’t they? Unless you do your own stuff, what are you? You’re just a performing seal for somebody else. I’ve co-written tracks with The Chemical Brothers and stuff like that, but I’ve never written a song for anybody else, I wouldn’t have the nerve to ask anybody else to write me a song. Write your own songs, what you asking me for?!

“I know it’s a thing and people do it but that’s what is ruining music, these teams of songwriters. I was at the Ivor Novello Awards once and no word of a lie, song of the year, nine people got up accept this award and they read out the winner and they read out all these names and they all got up and they all gave a little speech. It took him longer to read the names out than the song!”

Gallagher even went as far as challenging two of the biggest pop acts in the world to cover one of his songs. “If someone was to sing ‘If I Had A Gun’, and please, One Direction, feel free to have a crack at it. How could they possibly deliver it with the same, because I know what every line is about and I know the woman it’s written about but again if you’re listening, Taylor Swift, have a crack at it.”

Yesterday Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds were announced as the first headline act for the Teenage Cancer Trust at the Royal Albert Hall next year.

This year, Oasis’ first two albums – ‘Definitely Maybe’ and ‘(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?’ – have been reissued. NME‘s newest Collector’s Edition is an attempt to bottle up and present the wild spirit of those times. Over 100 pages it tells the story of every song they wrote, recorded and released during the time, delves into the NME, Melody Maker and VOX archives to pick out some classic interviews, and builds up to the peak of their career: playing to a quarter of a million people at Knebworth Park in August 1996.

Download this issue here OR order the print copy here

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