I am the Mrs. OJ Simpson of music

This post is about Oasis. But really it's about the last Top 5 and what it means for us all.

Let me explain.

On a fairly recent Super Bowl half time show, Prince pulled out a guitar and sprayed the millions of viewers - present and on TV - with his musical sex juice. I, like - I assume - many, was not aware that Prince could play the guitar, much less so freaking well. This is probably due to the fact that my only memory of Prince is this particular half time show, which is probably due to the fact that my involvement in the 1980s is about level with OJ Simpson's involvement in the world of romantic comedies. In any case, seeing this did something to my perception of pop stars: shattered it. Up to this point, contributors to the Billboard Top Ten danced well, and any other talents they possessed had nothing to do with me. 

Now, I wasn't that young, so I did know something about music beyond the lyrics to Aqua's "Barbie Girl" and the fact that Whitney Houston had a fucked-up personal life. But bands made real music, not pop stars! What this mono-nymous she-man was doing was blasphemy.

I stop here and move on to another anecdote. Every time I'm really into an Oasis song (every few minutes or so) I can't help but wonder who's dishing out the sick guitar solos. Instantaneously, I always answer myself: Noel Gallagher is the lead guitarist, therefore it must be him. There's a problem with this. Oasis is the DIY band of all time. In retrospect, most of their fans  feel pretty stupid that they didn't write "Don't Look Back In Anger" themselves, because the musical know-how required to do so can be acquired by hiring your three-year-old cousin Jon-Jon to tutor you in music theory for 50 cents an hour. Then we realize the naked truth: Noel Gallagher is a fucking G. 

In this case, G stands for genius. 

He's composed the vast majority of all the life-changing tracks of the slacker era. This, however, is acceptable. The Beatles don't seem to be virtuosos at their instruments, and with the exception of Harrison's early riffs, we couldn't prove this either way.  They simply came out of nowhere armed to the teeth with melodies, and it's taking upwards of 40 years to recover from the assault. But it doesn't matter anyway, because they're Classics with a capital C; they're not real. Oasis is real. (A week from now, I'll have the pictures to prove it.) But I can't be Noel Gallagher if he's so good. Do you see?! The appeal is that they're just a couple dudes from Manchester, but the paradox becomes that every time he pleasures me with his able fingers, I feel a split-second pang of disappointment.

Back to Prince. If I'm disillusioned by Noel Gallagher because he can play a guitar better than I can, I'm disillusioned by Prince because he can play a guitar at all. It's different in that I never wanted to be Prince. Perhaps Prince at that moment represented the outside world, the establishment in which I was institutionalized and had developed myself within and around, specifically vis-a-vis the arts. Noel Gallagher raises the bar, but Prince created a bar where there was none. I don't know which one defeats me more.