Is Noel Gallager’s ‘Adele Makes Music For Grannies’ Claim An Insult To Baby Boomers?
Adele was in the firing line of rent-a-gob maverick Noel Gallagher this week when the past his sell by date rocker claimed the buxom songbird’s music was “for f**king grannies.”
Admittedly, Adele’s mournful dirge and weepy wailing is an acquired taste and leaves a particularly bad taste in the ears, but Noel’s statement seems a bit harsh on the musical tastes of the over 60 generation, or as the world affectionately knows them, the baby boomers.
The baby boomers may have left subsequent generations with a crippling debt, a nonexistent housing market, zero employment prospects, and a decadent and apathetic culture, but by Christ the baby boomers made some good music.
The Beatles, The Stones, The Doors, The Who, The Beach Boys, The Byrds, The Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan, Arthur Lee, all products of the baby boom generation and all light years ahead of today’s popular music scene, which Noel described is “nosediving into f—ing blandness – a sea of cheese.”
Yet these epic bands and artists didn’t just write songs your mother would know, they performed songs your granny danced too, semi-naked in a field with unnaturally big eyes and an amateurishly painted face.
Although it’s hard to visualize, those silver-haired boomers with their sensible shoes, big bank balances, estate cars, second homes, and patronizing attitudes, without their wrinkles and bloodshot eyes, they were once full of youth, vitality, and all the elusive promise of a warm breeze in spring.
After having living and loved through rock n’ roll’s high tide, imagine then the insult of having some whippersnapper with a John Lennon obsession, such as Noel Gallagher, come along and accuse you of listening to Adele.
Not Janis Joplin, not Mamma Cass, not even Grace Slick, but Adele. It really is beyond the pale.
Adele, of course, is the cockney crooner renowned for the songs of heartbreak and self-pity, which made her album 21 such a chart-topper. Female stalkers and self-obsessed neurotics everywhere identified and found solace in the slightly sinister lyrics of ballads as “Someone Like You,” which is all about a psychotic ex-lover turning up on your doorstep uninvited and causing havoc while you’re trying to have some quality time with your new lady love.
And then there’s “Rolling in the Deep,” which is sort of like an anthem for angry and insecure people everywhere to dance aggressively while pointing their fingers self-righteously at their imaginary lover.
It’s safe to say Adele is no Stevie Nicks, so why would grannies be rocking to her vibes, dude? And why would Noel say such a cruel thing about the blue rinse generation?
The mop-topped mouthy former Oasis songbird is proud of having a big mouth and big things have often been known to emit from his opinionated gob and take on a life of their own. As the man told Australia’s Music Feeds.
“If someone wants to know what I think of Adele, I’ll f**king tell them. Not because I have any sort of agenda or because I’m trying to whip up any kind of hysteria. I just don’t see what all the fuss is about. I don’t like her music. I think it’s music for f**king grannies.”
Which is fair enough, but please leave the boomers out of this Noel. They’ve suffered enough.
Of course, Noel’s valid opinion that Adele is responsible for some epically dire music has not gone unnoticed by the cultural shakers and makers over at the Telegraph.
Under a picture of a hormonal-looking Adele sandwiched by a moody Noel Gallagher and a heartbroken Damon Albarn from Blur, there’s a caption informing us that “Adele has been criticized,” in much the same way you’d imagine they’d announce “The president has been shot.”
A flighty filly by the name of Daisy Buchanan then goes on to snarl that because Adele is not only younger but worth $10 million more than Noel Gallagher, it makes her a better human being and beyond reproach. And what’s more, apparently in Britain, Adele is the “nation’s sweetheart,” so there!
For some obscure reason know only to her good self, Daisy then makes a point of branding Noel a “49-year-old white celebrity,” as if she was making a statement to a particularly ageist and racist cop.
Dizzy Buchanan also appears to fall head first into assuming that because Noel doesn’t like Adele’s music, he is terribly “insecure” because he needs to “slag off Britain’s biggest female star?”
She then advises that if “white middle-aged men” (What exactly is Dizzy’s hang-up with age and race?) have nothing nice to say, they shouldn’t say anything at all.
Well, isn’t that a particularly nice and offensively bland thing to say? But then again she is an Adele fan.
[Photo by John Stillwell – WPA Pool/Getty Images]
