A Theory: Liam Gallagher Is Stuck at the Radio Stations Your Dad Loves

When it is your job to keep abreast of goings on in the music world, you notice certain things. And for a few months now, I have had something of an itch. I am worried – yes, all the time, in general – but also, in particular, about Liam Gallagher. Basically I am just a bit concerned that he's being held captive by radio stations aimed at dads, and milked for content like a veritable cow.

Let me explain. Liam Gallagher, obviously, is a top lad. We ourselves at Noisey have done our share of Gallagher coverage, simply because he is a man who oozes banter – breathes banter, eats and drinks banter, cut him and he bleeds banter – and banter we love. But frankly it does appear that he has not been out of the news since the summer, and yes, on one level it makes sense, considering he's especially active on Twitter (AS YOU WERE LFUKING X NOEL'S A PRICK et cetera ad infinitum) and was obviously on the promo trail for his recent album, As You Were. But could something more sinister be happening?

Since June, Liam Gallagher has appeared almost relentlessly on radio programmes aimed at your dad, and as a result, music news websites are populated with quotes where he's calling someone or other a "knob," or saying something inflammatory about Oasis. Nobody else has done this many radio interviews in 2017, I am certain of it. And, as a Dad Icon, it makes sense, because – and this is based on extremely scientific analysis – the only social contingent who still fucking love the radio are men who own cars and were born somewhere between 1945 and 1970. ie: dads. The BBC Radio 1 breakfast show, aimed essentially at millennials, is faltering, whereas on last look, 6Music, the daddy of all Dad radio stations, was thriving. The dad click market was untapped, and then Liam Gallagher saying things about Love Island came along.

And because the stations on which Gallagher is appearing are all very similar, I smell a conspiracy. Is Liam Gallagher being farmed by Big Dad Radio for quotes? Dads have smartphones too, you know, and they're desperate to know what Liam Gallagher thinks of Stormzy.

In June he appeared on Chris Evans' BBC radio show and gave the "official word" on an Oasis reunion. Days later he appeared on Absolute Radio, a similarly Dad station. This was the one where he did the rap. For content, do you see? Then he did Ireland's RTÉ2FM, on a show which also featured pieces with Robbie Williams and Billy Bragg. The Irish dads, too, are hungry for content.

Fast forward to August, when he was interviewed for over half an hour by Chris Moyles, for Radio X. Here is hard evidence: nobody would spend this long with Chris Moyles out of choice. And following the interview Radio X dined out on Gallagher quotes for weeks, until they had him on again the other week, with Moyles (have they no mercy?), to play a new song and discuss his album.

I am seeing so much Gallagher radio content that there is really no other option other than to assume that he's being held hostage in the bowels of Radio X and being told to think of new insults about Noel every six seconds. So this is my plea to Big Dad Radio: free Liam Gallagher. Let him crowdsurf at Foo Fighters shows with abandon. Let his banter flow freely, like a breeze brushing against a lake – one that, if you listen hard enough, is carrying the words "Damon Albarn is a cunt" along in its momentum.

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