By now, it shouldn’t be news to anyone that former Oasis lead guitarist Noel Gallagher spoke ill of dance music in an interview leading up to his performance at Scottish music festival T in The Park. After claiming that he had no idea who Avicii was and poking that he sounded “like an artist from the Renaissance period,” Gallagher went on to criticize deadmau5 in another interview. Now, both artists have responded to Gallagher’s remarks, each in a fashion befitting their very different public personas.
Avicii took to Instagram to post a short clip from the Southpark episode “Guitar Queer-O,” depicting the controversial program’s beloved character Randy Marsh playing the Kansas song “Carry On My Wayward Son” to a group of unimpressed children who would rather see their peers play the song on the video game Guitar Hero. It abruptly cuts to a clip from a recent Bill Burr standup routine in which the comedian shouts, “This isn’t music!”
After Gallagher opened another interview with “Hello, this is deadmau5 without the stupid fucking hat,” the DJ responded with the following:
…Which leaves David Guetta as the only artist publicly called out by Gallagher in his recent interviews to not respond in any way as of yet.
While electronic music is certainly not immune to ridiculous tropes and the same watering down as any other youth culture phenomenon, Gallagher’s unilateral dismissal paints him as the kind of bitter old man who might complain that it all sounds like a CD skipping, completely ignoring that it’s a several-decades-long movement with manifold permutations across countless regions and time periods. While he may see the stand he’s taking as a defense of somehow more sincere music, the rest of the music world will see it as a sign that he’s out of touch.
Nonetheless, we’ll be on the lookout for a response by David Guetta to accompany those made by Avicii and deadmau5 – so check back here for further developments.