Some collaborations are meant to be. Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra, Sonny and Cher, Underworld and Iggy Pop, Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, Electronic (New Order + The Smiths + Pet Shop Boys = genius).
Some aren't on paper, but surprise you - Inspiral Carpets and Mark E Smith should never have worked but it's inspired. Fatboy Slim and David Byrne - who knew?? Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield - the moment my teenage tastes and my mum's collided, much to our mutual surprise!
Collaborations can be fabulous. But they can be awful. Eminem and Ed Sheeran? Dear Lord, what were they thinking? John Lennon and Yoko Ono - love may be blind, but in Lennon's case it was deaf...Metallica and Lou Reed - could have been amazing, but it's spectacularly terrible. Metal Music Machine is preferable listening...(I just tried to listen to their album Lulu and lasted three minutes before I wanted to remove my own ears).
So there are risks to "musical swinging". This latest dalliance has been heralded as "better than Revolver" by the ever modest, retiring and shy Liam Gallagher, formerly of Oasis and Beady Eye and now a surprisingly successful solo artist.
Teaming up with John Squire from The Stone Roses is an obvious move - both have not really lived up to the success of their previous bands. Don't get me wrong, Liam may sell albums by the bucket load and sell out huge gigs, but it's the nostalgia factor that is at the heart of this. Liam is playing a run of shows, celebrating the 30th anniversary Definitely Maybe. He's planning on only playing Oasis songs - I am going to one of the shows, and can't wait. But it's all nostalgia - if you are in any doubt that I love Oasis, please read Definitely Maybe Certainly).
Squire on the other hand formed The Seahorses (dull, dull, dull), made terrible solo albums, and then stuck to his art (very good, as it goes). He reformed The Stone Roses, but Ian Brown's remarkably accurate impression of a cat being strangled (or as he insists on calling it, singing) put paid to that being a viable long-term career. Ultimately, he seems a man lost, living on the success of a truly brilliant album released 35 years ago (The Stones Roses' debut is perfect in every way).
I want to love this, but I can't. The lyrics are pretty nothing-y, then lapse into children's nonsensical nursery rhyme "red and orange, yellow and green, blue, indigo, violet, we've crossed a line". Dear God, my two year old Godson could do better.
Liam's voice is in fine fettle so I could ignore this. But the song has two minutes of John Squire wanking on his guitar - honestly, he should be arrested for public indecency. And while he's got the rozzers there, they could look into who nicked the tune from this song, because someone has half-inched it.
I've played the song several times and could not hum it back to you if you offered me a million squid. I really hope on the remaining nine songs they are working on or have finished, that they find their mojo. But if Liam really thinks this is as good as The Beatles' Revolver (their greatest album and my all time favourite album ever), then he needs Help!
This is just indulgent rubbish - definitely lazy, perhaps?
Finally, if Liam has paired up with John Squire to annoy his brother (which, let's be honest, is his sole motivation to do anything), he might note that Noel paired up with Ian Brown 20 years ago on the rather marvellous Keep What Ya Got - I think it's a case of Noel 1 : Liam 0.
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