A mere decade ago, the notion of Blur singer Damon Albarn and Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher collaborating on anything other than a bar brawl would have been unthinkable. Bitter rivals, those blokes, the story went.
Ah but time changes everything. Now it appears Albarn has invited Gallagher to collaborate with him later this year, so-called rivalry notwithstanding. (And in truth, much of that rivalry was conveniently manufactured by the UK press).
England's NME is reporting (via Shortlist) that the Blur and Gorillaz frontman said he'd like Gallagher to be a part of his cross-cultural Africa Express project, which reconvenes in September.
Albarn said: "Well, why not? He should come on the Africa Express train in September. That’d be a nice chance to collaborate."
Albarn also admitted that Gallagher and his bandmates handled the fame they experienced at the height of 90s-era Britpop "a lot better" than he and his colleagues in Blur did.
"I never held anything against him, even right in the middle of it," Albarn said. "I just kind of admired them in a way; that they were better at handling it all than me. They didn't seem to get too affected by the bulls---."
For his part, Gallagher proved typically quotable, telling the NME earlier this year that if he was going to collaborate with a contemporary, "It'd be Damon. For a start, he's as mad as a box of frogs. Number two, he'd get loads of hip-hop dudes working on it, which itself would be f---ing mental. And number three? It would be a better record."
So… that's a compliment right? Boxes of frogs are cute and fun and good crazy, not bad Nick Nolte-crazy, right? Ha, those wacky English…
Still, wanting to collaborate is quite different than actually collaborating, so this all remains to be seen. (Somewhere, a jealous Jarvis Cocker of Pulp is fuming.) Guess we'll wait and see.
I want Damon to collaborate with Gallagher, no not the Oasis bro but the watermelon smasher.
Posted by: Mo | 05/02/2012 at 12:06 AM