What a magical time the nineties was for Britain - Labour was in power, Oasis were omnipresent in the news, and Hugh Grant was stealing hearts on screen like some kind of cardiological kleptomaniac. We were a cultural powerhouse, exporting heartthrobs and popstars, Harry Potter and Spice Girls, while at home we revelled in our own Britishness through the sound of Britpop. Everything was great. Or at least that’s what the people who lived through it tell me, hiccuping, having gulped too greedily on their own nostalgia.
Now, thirty years on, we seem to have lost the magic. We’ve staged invasions, championed austerity and, as though tired of our own dazzling brilliance, have decided to rest slovenly in the shadow of America. Any glimpse of our own identity is just a mirage of some former self: Labour are back in power, Oasis have returned to the news cycle, and Hugh Grant will star in the fourth Bridget Jones film, as though we haven’t suffered enough as a nation.
Amongst these cyclical happenings, the one most indicative of our current dire situation is Oasis’ reunion. Putting aside the fact that their music had diminishing returns after their sophomore album, the band’s tour announcement has shed an uneasy light on the state of the UK’s culture industry. First of all, the word ‘band’. Although the ticket presale site would have you hastily Google a band member’s name (yes, Tony McCarroll was the original drummer), the announcement seems to have reduced Oasis to, as Malcolm Tucker would put it, the “semi-talented songwriter” and “the loutish pr*ck”.
While it is true that the Gallagher brothers were the figureheads of the band, they were hardly a stable enough duo to have lasted as long as they did without the help of other members, like Bonehead (who has appeared on more MTV Unplugged sessions than any other artist). It is exemplary of the 2020s lack of bands, and by extension, the lack of funding for grassroots venues to allow independent artists and bands to learn their trade, build a following, and, eventually, be in massive debt to Sony Music and contractually obliged to release six albums.
Then, there is the response of certain fans. Suddenly, every middle-aged man with a mod cut has crawled onto their tallest soapbox, probably made out of woodchip and John Squire CDs, and has started to gatekeep one of Britain’s biggest bands. Crafting imaginary teenage girls to wind themselves up, they chant like an Ancient Greek chorus ‘you can only buy tickets if you can name five Oasis songs’, having seemingly forgotten that they had eight Number One singles and a chart-topping greatest hits compilation that is put on rotation by most radio stations. There will be herds of them in Heaton Park, trying to relive their youth, causing the sales of ketamine to skyrocket in the Greater Manchester area. They strut around, hands behind back, Parka zipped high, thinking of themselves as tempered stallions watching the Second Coming of Christ. Their children, who knew how to use Ticketmaster and bought the tickets, will have to lead their parents like gurning donkeys from bar to toilet and back again while the lead singer of Beady Eye and Inspiral Carpets’ ex-roadie fight on stage.
Perhaps the most widely-reported problem with the Oasis reunion is the ticket pricing. It seems that Oasis, champions of the working class, opted in for Ticketmaster’s ‘dynamic pricing’. This meant that ticket prices, which were slated to be around £150, rose upwards of £400, or the equivalent of buying six tickets to watch Oasis headline Glastonbury in 1995, alongside Pulp, The Cure, Massive Attack, Jeff Buckley, The Verve, The Prodigy, as well as the other hundred acts at Worthy Farm. When questioned about this by fans, Liam Gallagher replied with his usual eloquence, “SHUTUP”. Apparently, fans must take this daylight robbery as industry standard.
Wherever Oasis are scheduled to play in the UK, slews of hotels have suddenly realised they double-booked rooms, and suddenly realised they also had to double the price and offer it out again. Train ticket prices increased by 4.9% this year, leaving any concert-goer who doesn’t live in a major city to fork out even more cash. No wonder why only 8% of creatives in TV and film are from working class backgrounds, or why every big new musician seems to be related to someone rich or famous (Sabrina Carpenter’s auntie is Bart Simpson; Matty Healy’s mum is on Loose Women, while his dad was a main character on Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and Benidorm).
Music has been uber-commercialised into a luxury, when it should be a right. The beating heart of Britain’s culture was always at risk of having its arteries choked by great lumps of greedy businessmen and avaricious musicians, but, in 2024, the shame of screwing fans out of money during a cost-of-living crisis has been outweighed by the potential £400 million payout. But, hey, who needs morals when you have a divorce to fund!
