I'm 100% onboard.

attention to their music after giving them as little attention as possible in the '90s.

Edit to add: I’m a fan of music, my personal catalog is quite vast.

One good album with a couple of great songs…

The brothers hated each other passionately until somebody waved a big enough check…

Glad people who like the band are enjoying the shows, but I just don’t get it.

Fighting among the brothers, maybe not having the tour, huge radio promotion months in advance of the tour, it was absolute genius.

went on sale only 4 DAYS after the reunion was announced, and they sold 1.4 million tickets within minutes.

Their fans were hoping for the reunion for years. In the meantime, both Noel and Liam's solo careers were very successful. Liam sold out two concerts at Knebworth in 2022.

There was no need to hype the Oasis reunion. Their reunion tour was always going to be historic.

You look at it from a fan's perspective. Both are valid.

They had way more demand for tickets than they could possibly meet, without a marketing campaign.

And their shows have exceeded the high expectations.

The reviews have almost all been raves. That isn't the result of marketing.

it includes booking venues at strategic times that can sell out and all the PR that goes on to create a sell out. It includes working with radio stations a year or more in advance to say good things about the upcoming tour.

Where I live they started hyping the reunion 8 months before the show! (I hear it might happen, I hear it will happen, the brothers are going to fight and cancel it, the tour is on here are the probable dates, here are the real dates, tickets will go on sale soon, ticket give aways before they are on sale, tickets on sale at noon, etc.)

Marketing includes organizing/planning merch., reviews, album sales, ticket give aways, public relations and everything done to sell a product.

Forbes: Marketing encompasses every part of a plan to turn a prospective consumer into a happy and satisfied customer. It includes everything from market research to advertising. The goal of marketing is to convince a person that your product is worth investing in, establish brand loyalty and increase overall sales.

I used to do concert review and interviews. Rave reviews happen when happy writers had a good time at a show that they enjoyed.

Bands somehow "remembered" me from the previous year (did I have the same girlfriend? etc. I'm sure that was because I had such an amazing personality and had nothing to do with trying to create a good relationship with the interviewer, right?

I turned down interviewing and reviewing an Elvis show because I didn't like his music and could not write a fair review. Tickets sell out when happy customers bought a product that was effectively marketed to them.

You seriously believe marketing was responsible? As opposed to the reality of fans hoping for a reunion, and Noel and Liam having always made headlines without trying?

And you believe rave reviews happen only when PR machines cosset and manipulate reviewers?

OK. Go on believing that... Thanks for explaining marketing controls everything. It's an entertaining theory.

Sometimes it is successful, sometimes not. Remember "New Coke"? Their marketing plan flopped spectacularly.

You can believe that bands form and tour and sell merch spontaneously if you wish. My contention is that a marketing plan was established long before the concert dates, and it was successful and well-done. Fans wanted a reunion and the marketers were able to boost/exploit the fan's interests rather effectively.

Regarding reviewers, my contention was that astute bands treat interviewers/ reviewers nicely. That is an intelligent way to treat someone who has the power to reach thousands.

but I'm glad you have.



They usually form spontaneously, as Oasis did. They're definitely not a band created by management or a record label, and they didn't break up and reunite because of management or a corporation. You were making it sound as if the sibling rivalry was an act, with "fighting among the brothers" just "absolute genius" from a PR firm.

Marketing did not create the demand for those tickets. And no ethical reviewer will let himself or herself be manipulated by some PR person, just as they won't blindly follow an editor's suggestion (though an editor may be able to warp what was written later, maybe editing something out or writing a misleading headline).

Don't assume people here other than yourself have no experience with advertising, journalism, the music industry, or creativity on both the personal and business sides.



Oh, you definitely look at the world from a marketing perspective.

And I will not criticize anyone with a fan's perspective - though I've mentioned here before that I think it's best if people who really love an artist don't identify too much as fans of that artist, but instead channel that love of the artist's music (or art, or writing) into developing their own creativity (and I don't mean fan fiction or t-shirt designs or a tribute band). Someone else's creativity can be a springboard but shouldn't limit.

Anyway, it's quite possible to have multiple perspectives for multiple reasons.

And your perspective on marketing being the main reason for Oasis's success with this reunion tour is a very narrow one that IMO misses most of the picture.

Last edited Sun Aug 31, 2025, 05:14 PM - Edit history (1)

what you said here:

I might have said that was possible at one point, but I've listened to lots of interviews from more than 30 years, and read a lot more about them since the tour started, and my impression - which of course you're free to disagree with - is that it's classic sibling rivalry, often love/hate, exacerbated by the trauma of having an abusive alcoholic father. Further exacerbated by the strain of being in a band and touring a lot from the early 1990s through 2009. If I recall correctly, one of the Moody Blues (think it was John Lodge, but I'm not sure) once said that by the end of a tour, the Moodies wouldn't be speaking to one another. I've posted a lot here about Golden Earring, who stayed together for several decades, but there were times they were barely speaking, even times when the lead and bass guitarists - founding members who were childhood friends and brothers-in-law - would communicate backstage only through intermediaries.

And that strain in Oasis was further exacerbated by Noel and Liam envying each other. Which both have commented on. Noel particularly.

And it probably looks worse to Americans because of the English tradition of "taking the piss" - insulting people without meaning real offense, basically doing it for laughs. A friend of mine who worked in England for years had a very hard time getting used to it.

I have two kid brothers who have at times left me so sick of their sibling rivalry that it was one reason I really didn't even want to hear about Oasis in the '90s. But even when my brothers are not talking to each other for a while, I know that in a pinch they'll be there for each other.

I've seen a lot of interviews where Noel and Liam were both clearly affectionate, enjoying each other's company, and admiring each other's talent.

The split in 2009 came at a time when Oasis wasn't doing as well, and Noel had been wondering for years about possibly going solo. And once he made a public statement blaming Liam for his decision to leave the band, he'd pretty much painted himself into a corner. As Liam did with his response.

But they knew their talents were/are complementary.

I believe they'd have reunited much sooner if this was purely about money.

I've read that both their kids (who get along) and their mother had a lot to do with the reunion. So did Liam's fiancee/manager, who gets along with the kids and Liam and Noel's mother. So did Noel divorcing his second wife, who disliked Liam and took Noel for every penny she could get.

So did both Noel and Liam - Liam especially - maturing.

And so did Liam becoming successful enough in his solo career to sell out concerts at Knebworth. Which has to have made Noel aware that his kid brother might not be such a liability after all.

Liam had been saying for years that he wanted a reunion, and wouldn't care what it paid. Noel had said repeatedly the last year or so before the reunion was announced that Liam should call him. We might never know exactly when and why they reconciled, but saying they hated each other and got back together just for the money seems, to me anyway, to be wrong.

Family relationships are complicated. Same with bands.

They were a huge act. 100 million albums sold in a pretty short time.
The reunion is a big deal & it's been very successful.

giving me hope for a strong resurgence in guitar rock.

opinions and thoughts. But there have been so few replies here that I'm now wondering if my not responding was a mistake.

Before I post any responses to the replies above, though, I want to emphasize again that we all have different tastes in music, and that's a good thing.

My tastes are all over the place, and it bothers me not at all if people feel differently.

We're in a Gillian Welch phase right now. Just discovered Aiofe O'Donovan - wonderful. The lastest Brian Eno albums. There's just so much!

We are introduced to so much on WNCW, WXPN, KEXP and Radio Paradise.

tastes in music.

Same here. And thanks for the recommendations you've made here of those radio stations. These days so much of what we listen to is narrowed down to relatively short playlists assembled by corporations - and with a platform like Spotify even stooping to adding lots of AI music to a popular playlist of Vietnam War era classic rock.

So it's more important than ever to share our different tastes in music and favorite artists and new discoveries.