Noel Gallagher has claimed an Oasis greatest hits album was scrapped after a disagreement with his estranged sibling Liam Gallagher.
Last year, Liam launched a social media tirade towards Noel – who he has been locked in a vicious feud with since the band’s demise in 2009 – and his wife Sara MacDonald following the 53-year-old guitarist unveiling a demo track titled ‘Don’t Stop’ by their former group.
Liam had claimed his arch-nemesis brother had to dip into their past in a bid to stay “relevant” because no one liked the series of EPs he had released over the past several months as Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.
And now, Noel has revealed there were plans at the time to put out a full collection of the ‘Stand By Me’ group’s best songs of the 2000s, including tracks from 2000’s ‘Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants’, 2002’s ‘Heathen Chemistry’, 2005’s ‘Don’t Believe The Truth’ and their final studio effort, 2008’s ‘Dig Out Your Soul’.
The pair’s spat also means fans have missed out on hearing a trove of unreleased B-sides, demos and songs.
Noel said: “You know that ‘Don’t Stop’ demo we put up? We had planned to do an Oasis best of the 2000s because it’s a period of Oasis that the masses are not interested in but for the actual fans there’s some great tunes.
“With Don’t Stop it was like, ‘Well people are fucking floundering, put that out, the fans will love it’. Well, we did this best of and the bonus disc was gonna be all these unreleased songs.
“But, ha, unfortunately we couldn’t agree on something and it got dropped by the wayside.”
The greatest hits LP would have also included George Harrison tribute covers of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ and ‘It’s All Too Much’ by The Beatles, and featured Yes drummer Alan White and Johnny Marr.
Noel told Record Collector magazine: “There was this box in the cupboard under the stairs with all these blank CDs in.
“I went, ‘Right, today I’m going to fucking take that’. I’m putting on these CDs and I found a load of old Oasis stuff, like songs I’d never recorded but demoed. I’m going, ‘No fucking way’.
“There’s a great version of ‘Eleanor Rigby’, a punk version, and an amazing version of ‘It’s All Too Much’ we did on the day George died. Johnny Marr’s on it.
“I’d forgotten all about it. It was just the backing track. Liam hadn’t gotten round to doing the vocals.”
After the greatest hits album was shelved, Noel decided to put out a best of album to mark a decade of High Flying Birds.
The career-spanning collection, ‘Back The Way We Came: Vol 1 (2011-2021)’, is being released on June 11.
He added: “I was like, ‘Well hang on a minute, it’s ten years since I went solo, why don’t we just do a best of?’”
Mocking Noel for the ‘lost’ Oasis song, Liam told a fan on Twitter at the time: “It’s the only way he’s gonna stay relevant, by putting out Oasis demos as no fucker gives a shit about his new stuff.”
Liam also took aim at Sara – who he previously accused of being the person responsible for preventing an Oasis reunion – saying he was “surprised at the fact the witch has let him hook into his past glories”.
The ‘Wall of Glass’ hitmaker posted: “I’m more surprised at the fact the witch has let him hook into his past glories, he must have put it together while she was out on her broom for her hourly exercise.”
‘Don’t Stop’ features Noel on lead vocals and Liam suggested his brother wouldn’t release a track with him singing as he would “rip it a new arse”.
He wrote: “He (Noel) won’t because I rip it a new arse and he’s jealous.”
Another tweet read: “Oi, tofu boy, if you’re gonna release old demos make sure I’m singing on it and bonehead’s playing guitar on it if not it’s not worth a wank as you were LG x.”
Liam also tweeted: “Well there’s something missing in this god almighty stew and it’s your brother your brother don’t forget your brother La as you were LG x (sic).”
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