Liam Gallagher and John Squire: Just Another Rainbow review – predictable? Definitely. Good? Maybe
Liam Gallagher and John Squire have a history that dates back to 1988, when a 16-year-old Gallagher saw the Stone Roses play Manchester’s International 2 Club in the company of his older brother Noel, an experience the former described as “life-changing”, and ultimately inspired him to join a local band, the Rain, who ultimately became Oasis. Six years later, the members of the Stone Roses broke off from the troubled recording sessions for their second album to gather around the studio’s TV and watch Oasis’s debut appearance on Top of the Pops: a music fan of a certain bent, given to romanticising, might view that as a symbolic moment, a passing of the gobby Mancunian alt-rock baton, although Squire apparently “didn’t think the tune” – Shakermaker – “was that great”. Two years later, Squire appeared onstage with Oasis at Knebworth: the latter were now the biggest band in Britain – 2.6m people applied for tickets – but, given the extent of the Stone Roses’ influence on them, Squire’s guest slot still carried a hint of benediction.
So, if you view Liam Gallagher’s latter day solo career as an extended exercise in rubbing his estranged older brother’s nose in it, then Squire’s reprise of his guest appearance at Gallagher’s own 2022 Knebworth show represents something of a trump card – see, hethinks I represent the spirit of Oasis – and the announcement of a collaborative album even more so. Indeed, listening to the first fruits of their joint endeavour, Just Another Rainbow, it’s tempting to say it’s more interesting as a triumphant up-yours-Noel gesture than a song. Certainly, it sounds almost exactly like you would expect a collaboration between the pair to sound. Squire’s guitar playing, dextrous and fluid as ever, sits somewhere between the Stone Roses’ debut album – the chiming riff with which it opens – and the heavier, more expansive sound of 1994’s Second Coming (the extended solo that tips the track over the five-minute mark). Gallagher does his patent Lennon-esque keening over the top – “no pot of gooooooooooold waiting here for meeeeeee”. The rhythm is the Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows by way of the Roses’ baggy shuffle. And that’s pretty much that.
A gene splice of Oasis and the Stone Roses, it doesn’t pack the kind of killer chorus both bands could produce in their prime – as on Slide Away and Made of Stone – and the Squire-written lyrics have a distinct placeholder feel: there’s a moment where Gallagher resorts to listing the colours of the rainbow in ROYGBIV order. But then again, it’s a long time indeed since anyone bought a record sung by Liam Gallagher, or indeed Oasis, in search of profound lyrical insight, and it’s certainly an improvement on the two woeful singles the reformed Stone Roses released in 2016 before wisely calling their reunion off before their reputation was further damaged.
The aforementioned music fan of a certain bent – Weller-haired, parkaclad and Wallabee-shod – will doubtless claim it a work of genius on the basis of the names on the sleeve. Everyone else might reasonably decry it as predictable, but that’s probably the point. Liam Gallagher has been very bullish about sticking to his guns musically. “I’m here to give people what they want and if that’s boring, so be it,” he told the Guardian in 2018. “I think it’s nice to know you can rely on me. I like certain things to stay the fucking same.” It’s an approach you can call unambitious or limited, or view as very astute indeed, the words of a man who understands his market and is reaping the commercial benefits: his forthcoming tour, performing Definitely Maybe in full, has sold out four consecutive nights at the O2. Either way, it’s evidently the ethos behind Just Another Rainbow: no surprises, good or bad.