Why Me? Why Not. – Second solo No. 1 after As You Were

Second solo No. 1 after As You Were

In September 2019 Warner released Liam Gallagher’s second solo album Why Me? Why Not., cut with Greg Kurstin, Andrew Wyatt and Simon Aldred between London and Los Angeles. Sessions ran from spring 2018 into April 2019 at Abbey Road and RAK in London, plus Bonnie Hill, Echo and Republic in L.A. The brief was not a Beady Eye reunion. After the chart run of As You Were, Gallagher wanted co-writes that kept his nasal lead, put it on bigger choruses, and left the swagger in the vocal.

Shockwave opens with a choppy guitar figure and a Kurstin rhythm bed before the vocal lands hard on the hook. One of Us names the Oasis split without naming Noel; the lyric sits over Wyatt’s slower groove. Once is the acoustic ballad people hold phones up for, with chords close to Lennon and a chorus about only getting to do it once. Now That I’ve Found You, with Simon Aldred, keeps the tempo brighter and the guitars dry. The title track and Halo, Meadow, The River, and Gone fill out a program of short rock songs rather than a concept suite.

The François Rousselet clip for Shockwave put Gallagher in Deep South imagery (much of it filmed in Budapest): burning buildings, train tracks, protest crowds holding lyric boards. Live, the album tracks sat next to Oasis standards in the same set. Vinyl demand was part of the story from day one; Official Charts later flagged the LP as the fastest-selling vinyl album of 2019 in the UK opening week.