Perhaps one of the best known feuds of the music industry, but who came out on top?
It all started in the Spring of 1995, Oasis had just got their first number one with ‘Some Might Say’, and singer Liam Gallagher taunted Blur frontman Damon Albarn by repeating ‘Number Fuckin’ One’ at him, as Blur was still yet to reach that point in their careers.
Beginning the war of antagonization, team Blur decided to move the release of their new single ‘Country House’ to the same day as Oasis’ ‘Roll with It’. A feud was born. NME coined it “the big chart showdown” and the rivalry was even featured on BBC News. Who would win? the working class northerners or the well-educated southerners?
Liam coined Blur as ‘Art School wankers’, whilst Blur called them Oasis Quo, thinking that all their music sounded the same, it was essentially either a very smart marketing tactic or just cocky young men just being cocky young men – probably the latter.
Spoiler alert: Blur won the charts battle by just under 60,000 copies in the end (274,000 to 216,000) - giving Blur their first number one. Blur’s bassist Alex James even wore an oasis shirt whilst performing on Top Of The Pops to antagonize them further, but should they have won? They had released two CD singles that counted in the Official Chart count, but I think I’m showing my bias here.
You’d think the story would stop here, but it doesn’t. Blur’s ‘The Great Escape’ released in the September of 1995, landing Blur a number one album - both bands were the face of Britpop. Whilst high on cocaine, Noel Gallagher was quoted as saying in an interview that he hopes Damon Albarn and guitarist Graham Coxon ‘both catch AIDS and die’ since he ‘fucking hates them’, which is a downright disgusting thing to say (and was quickly revoked) but truly shows how cut throat and personal the feud was.
But come October, ‘What’s the Story: Morning Glory’ released and gained rivaling success to Blur’s. During the next Brit Awards, Oasis finished the war of antagonization and performed a rendition of Blur’s ‘Parklife’ whilst accepting the award of Album of the year. Blur didn’t win any awards that night for the record...
After the petering off of Britpop in the late 2000's, the rivalry seemed to settle. Damon and Noel even performed on the Gorillaz track “We got the Power”, and the bigger rivalry seems to now sit between Noel and Liam themselves – but that's a story for a whole another video.
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