Kurstin, Grech, back in the charts
In October 2017, As You Were walked Liam Gallagher back into the room with the swagger intact and the Twitter sign-off turned into a title. After Beady Eye and the long aftertaste of Oasis, the debut solo album on Warner Bros. handed that nasal battering ram to producers who knew how to frame it: Greg Kurstin on “Wall of Glass” and several companions, Andrew Wyatt on “Chinatown”, Dan Grech-Marguerat on the rest. The Deluxe edition stretches the set further, but the spine is the same: choruses built for open air.
“Wall of Glass” opens like a door kicked in. “Greedy Soul” and “You Better Run” throw petrol. “For What It’s Worth” slows the pulse into something closer to confession without dropping the stadium posture. “Chinatown” and “Paper Crown” show the quieter craft around the famous bark. Gallagher has said finishing certain lyrics left him in tears and certain he was back. Whether you take that as myth or method, the voice on tape believes it.
As You Were is not reinvention so much as reclamation. Classic rock silhouette, Britpop DNA, collaborators who polish without sanding off the sneer. It gave audiences the Liam they came for and reminded them mid-tempo can still feel like a terrace chant.
Man, it’s good to have him back. This debut solo album gives us the Liam Gallagher we want: impassioned and piloting rock ‘n’ roll high on attitude and skyscraping choruses.
(Apple Music editorial note on As You Were)
Released 6 October 2017, the record relaunched a solo career that kept touring the same defiant stance: open vowels, wall-of-sound choruses, no apology for Oasis DNA. Producers Greg Kurstin and Dan Grech-Marguerat framed the voice; Liam still sang as if the room owed him the mic. The glass-wall videos were marketing. The vocal was the product.
