Of all the-longed-for-but-will-never-ever-happen reformings in this world - ABBA, The Smiths, The Style Council (ok, maybe that’s just me) - I was caught out by my reaction to the news of Oasis’ reunion. You see, I was never a devoted fan, yet when it was announced in the headlines that yes, in spite of all that had been said, they were getting back together, I was bizarrely happy. It suddenly struck me that to have the Gallagher brothers striding out again is a brilliant idea, and exactly what the British music industry needs at this moment.

You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. The 1990s were positively curated compared to our age of media oversaturation; but they were so replete with great bands, I took them for granted. To assess the state of the UK’s current music scene now in 2024, a quick look at the charts tells you all you need to know. For we are in a new era where solo performers dominate, with the feat. combo close behind. As of the week of the 6th-12th September, the only bands to be found in the top 40 were those that had their beginnings in the 90s – Coldplay and Oasis (storming the top 20 again with ‘Live Forever’, ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ and ‘Wonderwall’). The question is, how did the British music industry become so taken over by solo artists? Well, aside from the fact it’s more cost effective to promote a single performer, we could point the finger at one Simon Cowell. For decades, Syco Entertainment promoted the Saturday night telly end of Britain’s music industry, making overnight stars of mainly solo singers with huge weekly exposure that drove radio play. But in reality, larger forces were at work long before then.

A big factor was the demise of local radio. With their advent in the early 1970s, independent radio stations, much like regional television, had a legal requirement to play a diverse range of music and spoken word, and provide a service to a clearly defined area that catered to everyone in the community - the aforementioned ‘Live Forever’, for example, was first aired on Cheshire’s Signal Radio. What began in the 1990s, accelerated in the noughties – the deregulation of the airwaves. County radio stations were absorbed into and networked as part of large national brands such as Capital, Heart and Hits Radio that masquerade as local radio. Specialist programmes that used to air a diversity of new local artists were replaced by programming, with playlists tailored (or perhaps, Taylored) to the tastes of the audience advertising and sponsors value the most – females in the 14-24-year-old bracket. Mostly, listeners don’t want to hear something new and different; they just want to hear the hits.

The ever narrowing and commercialising of how music is consumed created the model that Spotify have honed, with an increasingly smaller number of artists reaping the greatest profits. We listen to music now more than ever, but the market has never been so fragmented and off kilter. Monster acts such as Taylor Swift, Adele, Ed Sheeran, and legacy artists are making gazillions, whilst those starting out no longer have the infrastructure and industry support to develop their talent. All of which has led to the Glastonbury organisers finding it harder and harder to fill the Pyramid headliner slot without bringing back Coldplay. The continual slick of hyper promoted vocalists destroyed the once healthy eco system of charts, too.

Are the charts still important? Perhaps, not so much now to the music buying public, but for upcoming artists, they are still a key measure of success. I suspect if the top 40 was to ever return to its previous state of variety, public interest would return, too, as we just can’t resist a national barometer of tastes and trends, or the sudden unity we find in a song that captures our collective imagination. A great band has its own special charisma - a sound that is organically built from the ground up. It’s focused and thrilling because it emanates from enduring friendships, subtle understandings, a shared sense of humour and from the immediacy of a sense of place.

Often one of the key draws of being in a band, in the initial years at least, is that in spite of the hard graft and long hours of rehearsal it takes to become good, it’s fun. Of course, there are always the inter band dramas, and the dynamics of the Gallaghers are another drama altogether; familial fallouts that outsiders will never completely understand. But their music is a reminder of the indefinable synergy that makes a great band; something that has almost disappeared from Britain’s music scene altogether. It’ll be a regrouping not just of the sparring brothers, but of the joyous, reckless, imperfect, audacious, shoot for the moon camaraderie of British pop at its finest.