Noel Gallagher is pretty well-known for being one of rock’s grumpiest grumpy old men, often making condescending remarks about everyone from Jay-Z to his own brother and former Oasis bandmate, Liam Gallagher. Most recently, he directed his disdain toward Harry Styles, calling the pop star’s music “worthless” and positing that he doesn’t write his own songs — an opinion likely born from Styles’ origins as a member of X Factor-launched boy band, One Direction.
Normally, given Noel’s crotchety reputation, the majority of music’s stars dismiss or ignore him (although Jay-Z got in an awesome, subtle shot in 2008 at Glastonbury, pretending to play a guitar and covering “Wonderwall”), but one self-declared Harry Styles fan decided to stand up for him in a recent interview. Appearing on NME’s latest cover, Kehlani addressed the situation in the accompanying feature promoting their new album, Blue Water Road.
“That person – whoever that is – can kiss my ass,” they said. “They might as well call me inauthentic and I’m about as authentic as it gets. [Styles] worked his ass off to make people fall in love with him on national TV and be lumped in with a group of boys and still had to stand out from an entire group of people. That’s as authentic as it gets! I’m a Harry Styles fan, clearly, but watching the transformation that he’s taken to find his own songs and his own voice, own persona, own fluidity and image – I think he’s been brave and epic. He’s f*cking tight.”
We’re sure Gallagher will be just delighted someone finally responded back to him, but if nothing else, let’s all hope we get a ripping Harry Styles/Kehlani collaboration out of this.