Noel Gallagher doesn't think Harry Styles is a genuine songwriter
The Blur vs. Oasis battle is reignited—and this time it's over who has the worst take on pop stars
Earlier this year, Damon Albarn made the (factually false) claim that Taylor Swift doesn’t write her own songs. At the time, we joked that Blur and Oasis had left their face-off behind, with Albarn now starting a new era of beefing with pop stars. But turns out, a Gallagher has entered the ring, and this time Blur and Oasis are battling it out again over who has the worst take on mainstream pop artists.
In an interview with Daily Star (via Yahoo!), Noel Gallagher ranted about The X Factor being meaningless in the grand scheme of the music industry, saying, “The X Factor is a TV show, it’s got nothing to do with music, it’s got nothing to do with music whatsoever, and anything that has come from that, that’s got nothing to do with music.”
But what could’ve been left as a critique of The X Factor turned into another inaccurate take on a major musician: Harry Styles. The singer, who got his start on The X Factor when Simon Cowell had the individual auditioning performers join forces to create One Direction, is the most successful artist to have a career kickstarted by the reality competition.
Though Styles has proved that he has more to offer than being a former boybander, Gallagher isn’t convinced. “You’re not telling me Harry Styles is currently in a room somewhere writing a song,” he says. “With any joy, he’ll be surrounded by a lot of girls.”
He adds, “I can assure you he’s not got an acoustic guitar out trying to write a middle eight for something.”
Gallagher seems to have conveniently forgotten that Styles has songwriting credits on everything he’s made post-One Direction (mostly sharing songwriting duties with frequent collaborators Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson), and has full control over his music. Styles also has multiple songwriting credits from his time with One Direction.
It’s not the first time the former Oasis member has criticized Styles, either. As reported by NME, Gallagher previously went on Absolute Radio and said his cat “could’ve written in about 10 minutes” Styles’ hit song, “Sign Of The Times.”
Things got bad enough for Albarn that he had to issue an apology to Taylor Swift after she called him out on his erroneous take and thousands of her fans attacked him on Twitter. Though Styles has yet to call out Gallagher for his words, he’s going to have to log off from Twitter for the day. You do not want to mess with Styles’ stans.