Rock

David Gilmour raised some eyebrows during the summer. In an electronic press kit shared with press, the Pink Floyd guitarist commented that his new album, Luck and Strange, is “the best album I’ve made since Dark Side of the Moon, since 1973.”
That’s certainly a bold comparison — though in subsequent conversation Gilmour notes that Dark Side‘s successor, Wish You Were Here, is actually his favorite Pink Floyd album. But it nevertheless made clear how happy he is with his fifth solo album, and first in nine years.

“The album feels like a solid body of cohesive work,” Gilmour, 78, tells Billboard via Zoom from the Astoria Recording Studio, in a houseboat docked on the Thames in London that he bought in 1986. “It’s the cohesiveness of the whole thing — the writing, the work, the thrill it still gives me to listen to it all the way through as an album. There’s a consistency of thought and of feeling that runs through it that excites me in a way that makes me make those comparisons.”

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The nine-track Luck and Strange is, he adds, the product of a “liberation” he felt going into the studio.

Gilmour was working on new material when the pandemic hit in 2020, bringing the world to a stop — but also opening some new vistas for him and his family. Gilmour’s wife and frequent lyricist Polly Samson published a novel, A Theatre For Dreamers, the week of lockdown, which scotched planned promotional appearances. Their son Charlie came up with the idea of doing livestreams, during which Gilmour would play some songs by Leonard Cohen, who was a character in the book.

“It started pretty much only on Holly’s book as a focus,” Gilmour recalls, “but then it became broader. We got our daughter Romany to sing along and play with me, and that showed me that we have got that lovely sort of family tonality that happens — Beach Boys, Everly Brothers, other people. These artists that we loved in the past. All these things came together to create a different mood and a different feeling for the making of this album. It left me feeling I don’t need to stick with any pre-rule book or anything that’s gone before. I can be freer to do anything I feel like. That became emphasized for me.”

As he set out to make Luck and Strange in earnest, Gilmour veered from previous collaborators such as Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera, Chris Thomas and Bob Ezrin and brought in a new (and younger) face with Charlie Andrew, a Music Producers Guild Award winner who worked with alt-j on its Mercury Prize-winning An Awesome Wave, James, Bloc Party and others. One of his first questions — “Do we need another guitar solo here?” — made clear that Gilmour was open to fresh input this time out (though rest assured there are plenty of guitar solos on the album).

“His lack of being over-awed by my reputation was a big plus for me,” Gilmour says. “Pink Floyd wasn’t one of his influences…but (Andrew) liked the music I was working on, and I liked him. Polly liked him very much; she found him, really, and my acceptance of what he was showing me and the direction he was proffering was an interesting and exciting way for us to be moving forward.”

“I didn’t specifically know a lot of his previous work, and I purposefully didn’t immerse myself in it as I just wanted to come at it with a fresh angle,” Andrew tells Billboard. “All I tried to do is keep it coherent as a body of work and make sure that there’s a flow to it. When we started out one of the first things I asked David was, ‘What are we making this for?’ For me, there’s more to it than ‘here’s a bunch of songs’ and just release them. I think it should be a bit more of one whole thing. I know David thinks the same.”

Luck and Strange — recorded primarily at Mark Knopfler’s British Grove Studios — also features drummers Steve Gadd, Adam Betts and Steve DiStanislao and keyboardist Roger Eno and Rob Gentry, along with longtime bassist Guy Pratt, who started playing with Pink Floyd in 1987 and has remained by Gilmour’s side ever since. (He’s also part of Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets band.)

“It felt much more like a family,” Gilmour says, “much more like a group of people working toward a common end than I’ve felt for quite awhile.”

While not a concept album, Gilmour acknowledges that themes of mortality and retrospection unite Luck and Strange’s mostly midtempo songs — two of which, “Black Cat” and “Vita Brevis,” are instrumentals, and one a cover of the Montgolfier Brothers’ “Between Two Points,” sung by daughter Romany. She plays harp on the album as well, while son Gabriel Gilmour provides some backing vocals. “You discover the record as you work on it,” producer Andrew notes. “You don’t start it knowing exactly what it’s going to be. I really wanted to understand what the lyrics were focusing on, and Polly has been an incredible help in that regard, taking me and the musicians through the lyrics and what they mean.”

Particularly poignant is Luck and Strange‘s title track, which began in 2007 and includes the late Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright, who was part of Gilmour’s touring band at the time.

“It’s wonderful to have a track that he’s actually a part of,” says Gilmour, who included a lengthy “barn jam” version of “Luck and Strange” as a bonus track. “Rick’s unusual playing style pours out of it and makes me sad that he’s not around to take more part in what I’m doing. Obviously, I worked on it later to add in these bridges and choruses and things. I don’t know why, in 2015 or ’14, that I didn’t listen to that track and go, ‘Yeah, let’s go,’ but this time it demanded to be heard and worked on, so we did.”

As Luck and Strange comes out Gilmour is gearing up for a tour, his first in eight years, that begins Oct. 9 with the first of six shows at London’s famed Royal Albert Hall. He’ll also play four Los Angeles area dates — starting Oct. 25 at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif., and moving to three concerts at the Hollywood Bowl — and five at Madison Square Garden in New York, wrapping up Nov. 10.

“I’m thinking more modern times than old times,” Gilmour says of the setlist, “but there’ll be some songs from the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s. All the way through, there’ll be some stuff, but I’m focusing perhaps a bit more on the new album and the newer material.” And, he hopes, there will be more new material in less than the nine years he took before making Luck and Strange.

“My intention is to gather some of these people together and get back and start working on something else in the new year,” Gilmour says. “What you want is a few things to get started with and hope it all starts flowing, and that’s what I’m hoping will happen.”

What started as a whisper soon became a cacophony. As the August Bank Holiday weekend approached the U.K. industry was abuzz with rumors that stadium dates had been booked and that the great divide between Noel and Liam Gallagher had been bridged. The following week (Aug. 27) Oasis released a statement saying that a truce had been reached and they would reunite. “The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over,” they said.
But how did the stars align exactly? It’s the question that everyone wants the answer to and, as of publication, we’re no closer to knowing. Beyond the reveal that the band would reunite to play a string of U.K. stadiums in 2025, there has been silence: no tell-all interview, or dispatches on Liam’s unfiltered, often hilarious, X (formerly Twitter) profile. Following the announcement, Noel did get cornered while out shopping by a brazen youngster who asked why the pair had fallen out. “‘Cause he stole my teddy bear,” Noel replied coyly.

Perhaps it’s purely for sentimental reasons. For years the pair fired insults at the other via the press. Liam took to calling Noel a “potato” and chiding his “cosmic pop” direction in his solo material. Noel gave as good as he got, saying that he didn’t listen to Liam’s solo material because “I can’t stand his voice” and dubbed the younger brother’s 2019 single “Shockwave” as “Shitwave.”

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But eventually there was a softening. In a clip released alongside the 30th anniversary of Definitely Maybe, Noel made a point of praising his brother’s vocal performances on the record. Last spring, he laid down the gauntlet to Liam to get a reunion sorted and to stop the chatter: “He should get his people to call my people.” Seemingly, the call worked.

Post-COVID, the ‘90s have never been so popular. The decade’s aesthetic – baggy clothing, long hair, middle partings – has infiltrated TikTok videos, as has the sounds of the generation of musicians that made it big in the era. Reunion shows for the band’s contemporaries (and rivals) Blur and Pulp over the past two summers were attended by both Gen Z and their parents. Social media users have made spurious links between the selection of a Labour government in this year’s general election and that of Oasis’ return. In 1997, Tony Blair capitalized on the Britpop movement and his left-wing Labour government was elected in a landslide victory. Noel was later seen hobnobbing at No. 10 with the elites he once chided.

Liam, who remains a youth icon despite his 51 years, has seized the initiative. Earlier this summer, he celebrated Definitely Maybe’s 30th anniversary with a dedicated U.K. tour, playing the album in full. The tour was wildly successful earning rave reviews and stellar ticket sales; by the time he reached the run’s final show at Reading Festival on Aug. 25, he was teasing the incoming reunion announcement during the show.

The commercial opportunities for reuniting were likely overwhelming. Music industry expert Professor Jonathan Shalit estimated that the shows stand to generate £400 million in income for the group and promoters including SJM Concerts and Live Nation. Noel and Liam are expected to clear £50 million each after tax from these shows alone. Billboard Boxscore reported that a reunion world tour could “easily out-gross and out-sell the band’s entire touring history.”

The band have already collaborated with fashion brands Levi’s, Urban Outfitters and even Amazon for new merchandise drops. Streams of the band’s back catalog are on the rise following the news of their announcement. The possibility of getting a new demographic into the back catalog on DSPs will sweeten their existing power on physical media: a reissue of Definitely Maybe is set to go in at No.1 on the U.K. Albums Charts this week, toppling Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet.

There have been setbacks, however. Last year, Noel announced that he and publicist Sara McDonald, his partner since 2000 and the mother of two of his children, would be divorcing. Reports earlier this year said that Gallagher paid a settlement of £20 million to his former wife. She also took ownership of their £8 million-valued mansion in London.

There’s potentially another sizeable payday looming for Noel, the band’s chief songwriter. In 2025, the publishing rights for the band’s entire back catalog – including “Don’t Look Back In Anger” and “Wonderwall” – will reportedly revert back to his ownership.

In recent years, there’s been continued interest from record labels and investment firms such as Hipgnosis to acquire the rights to some of music’s most lucrative catalogs. Queen recently sold their rights for an eye-watering £1 billion, while Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Katy Perry have also landed sizeable sums for their work.

A 2025 reunion would no doubt act as a thrilling advert for the breadth and potential for these songs as they potentially go up for sale. The opportunity to boost streams of the catalog – where much of the income will be generated – through a renewed presence in the spotlight is a shrewd one. Liam, who did not contribute any songwriting credits until 2000’s “Little James,” will likely not benefit from such a sale.

Despite the excitement and opportunities, Oasis have found themselves at the center of a storm. The use of Ticketmaster’s controversial “in-demand” dynamic pricing model meant that fans paid substantially higher prices than expected, particularly after queuing on the site for hours for a chance to purchase. Some reported paying over £350 for a ticket that initially was priced at £135. It has drawn the ire of fans, industry and politicians, with the government and the consumer watchdog Competitions Market Authority said to be “urgently investigating” the practice. The band have since responded saying that they had no “awareness that dynamic pricing was going to be used.”

After 15 years of waiting, the reunion the world was waiting for finally happened. Can Messrs. Noel and Liam keep it together long enough for everyone to enjoy it? Definitely. Maybe…