Chief Goods: Birthday Bashing

“This guy came up to me from some band and he said that ‘Man, I’d hate to be you right now, no privacy at all’ and I was thinking, ‘Sure thing man, I have a fucking Rolls Royce, a million dollars in the bank, a fucking mansion and my own jet and you think you’d feel sorry for me? What are you? I’d hate to be you, broke as hell living in the dole.’”  - Noel Gallagher

I don't know how I missed it but yesterday was Noel Gallagher's 47th birthday.  A former roadie turned chief writer and co-singer in gargantuan Brit-pop band OASIS, brothers Noel and Liam helped change the U.K. music landscape with their catchy anthems best heard in a stadium and their hilarious sense of self that either alienated listeners or turned them into lifelong fans.  Over 7 studio albums spanning 14 years, OASIS won multiple awards while amassing 22 top 10 hits, selling 70 million albums worldwide and being dubbed the Most Successful Act in the UK between 1995 and 2005.  After years of brotherly friction, OASIS imploded backstage at a show in France in 2009.

Since then little brother Liam's reassembled OASIS sans Noel, Beady Eye has released 2 albums.  I quite dug their 2011 release Different Gear, Still Speeding with it's hard charging, guitar and piano fueled riffs but their 2013 album BE left me cold and disappointed with it's glacier paced, meandering style.  Noel's solo effort, The High Flying Birds sounds more like OASIS because, well, he wrote 98% of the songs the band was known for.  Catchy, melodic and uptempo, the debut album sold better and received more critical accolades.  I got to see them in concert when they did two nights at UCLA's Royce Hall a couple years ago and it was a solid show with Noel's live vocals holding up much better than his hard partying little brothers.

Both brothers are equal parts hilarious and brilliant in totally different ways with Noel being more clever and thoughtful while Liam's view of the world and himself is amusing and quite inspiring in this day and age of political correctness and popularity contests.

I know you think you deserve an explanation on the meaning of life: