
I confess that I came around to Noel Gallagher after despising him for the whole '90s because of his work on the old Russell Brand radio show that caused such a controversy in 2008, despite being perhaps the funniest thing I have ever compulsively listened to the same 100 hours of at least 10 times.
I have enough distance now to say it: Noel Gallagher is kind of good. But I still can't get behind his songs, mate. Aside from maybe three or four Oasis ones. MAYBE. I've reached a point now where I almost even want to like his solo stuff, but that's no help when the songs themselves aren't up to much. Anyway, I was as surprised as any yank to learn he had a new single out last week called "Holy Mountain." I kept seeing people saying it was his best in years, which means almost nothing to me because I didn't like his classics.
Then I heard it and remembered what the main thing about listening to a Noel Gallagher composition is: You hear the song, sure, but really you spend the whole three minutes trying to figure out which song or songs he ripped off to write the new one.
In this case, the recipe is pretty simple:
You take two parts Plastic Bertrand's immortal Belgian punk pastiche "Ca Plane Pour Moi"
Add a soupçon of David Bowie's "Diamond Dogs" (just the "get out of the doorway, baby" line, really):
Et voila! Noel Gallagher's latest. Enjoy. Kind of.