Alan McGee Is Not A Fan Of Aurora's Cover Of Oasis' 'Half The World Away'

Former Oasis manager Alan McGee has dismissed the cover version of the band's single 'Half The World Away', used on a John Lewis advert, as "rubbish".

Little-known Norwegian singer Aurora was picked to cover the 1994 B-side for the annual Christmas advertising campaign.

However, McGee is not impressed and told Gigwise that he hopes the retailer paid Noel Gallagher a substantial fee for the rights to the song. “I think it’s rubbish," McGee said. "I don’t know what anybody else thinks of it, though. I’m pleased for Noel that he got his royalties, I hope they gave him a million quid but I thought actually it was rubbish."

McGee went on to say that he's still good friends with Noel Gallagher and is still a fan of his music: "You know as much as me. I don’t really talk to him much about what he’s doing with music. I buy the records and I go to the concerts and I’m friends with him. I met him in London in a club, he was on great form. We were talking about our children."

Interest in the John Lewis adverts has grown in recent years with contemporary artists covering older material in a stripped-back fashion. Last year, Tom Odell recorded 'Real Love' by John Lennon, while Lily Allen's cover of Keane's 'Somewhere Only We Know' was a hit in 2013.

The John Lewis advert cover-version trend took off in 2010 when Ellie Goulding's cover of 'Your Song' by Elton John hit Number One. However, the first John Lewis advert song came the year before with a folk cover of Guns N' Roses' 'Sweet Child O' Mine'.

Source: www.nme.com

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John Lewis Christmas Advert Gets Makeover From Goldie Lookin Chain

Welsh rap outfit Goldie Lookin' Chain have thrown their hat into the Christmas song ring with a brilliant take on the John Lewis advert - Man on the Moon.

Whereas Norwegian singer Aurora Asknes covers Oasis' Half the World Away, GLC have put their own clever lyrics on the backing track of Noel Gallagher's most touching songs.

The boys ask us to stop buying presents that can't even be sold on and also take a pop at Christmas jumpers.

The video also features past John Lewis adverts as well as classic Christmas TV moments like EastEnders' Arthur Fowler's breakdown.

"But the John Lewis one came out on Friday morning and we decided to have a look at what we could do with it," he continued. "With Christmas there's so much to write about anyway.

"As soon as the temporary Halloween shop in town disappears they slam a Christmas one in there, then on Boxing Day, they slam an Easter one there.

"By December 12, no one is interested in Christmas any more, it hasn't snowed, it's raining."



Rhys adds: "The junk my mother buys me, I don't even need biscuit tins.

"I don't eat many biscuits - and if I do, I keep them in the packet.

"When me and my sister were kids, my parents bought us a ping-pong table, we couldn't fit it in the house, it had to go in the garage and the car had to go on the street.

"I didn't even play ping-pong.

"The bottom line with the John Lewis advert is that they are a big shop who sell lots of stuff and they want people to buy it."

GLC's Eggsy aka John Rutledge says that all you need at Christmas is a coal fire and good friends.

"The best things in life are the simple things," he adds. "If John Lewis wants to raise awareness for Age UK maybe they should chuck a few million to them.

"I don't like the manipulation of it - you just know there was a marketing man in London, in skinny jeans, probably called Julian, trying to think of a cause to link to the ad."

The two GLC members are not totally opposed to Christmas, with Eggsy arranging a Christmas Eve walk every year and Rhys loves to torment his family with Christmas songs.

Eggsy adds: "I and a few other blokes go for a walk in the middle of now-were - I call it Uncle Daddy's Christmas Walk.

"It's lovely, there's no drinking until you black out, just being around good people."

And it's not all Scrooge-like behaviour around Rhys' house at Christmas, he says: "I do love Christmas really, I cook a big dinner for everyone, I've got Christmas songs on in each room."

"My parents go around the house turning them off, but I'm right behind them putting them back on," he addded. "And we have a Christmas quiz too."

He does also like the original advert though: "That Aurora has such a sweet voice, but in the end for our version we used the original Oasis' track because it had more oomph.

"Noel's pretty cool with us so I hope he doesn't mind. And 'Mr Lewis', I'm sure he'll be cool with it too.

"There are lots of parodies around. We'll see. I'm hoping this will boost our chances of doing the Eurovision Song Contest next year."

Source: www.mirror.co.uk

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Check Out The New John Lewis Advert Featuring Oasis' 'Half The World Away'

This is the story of a young girl called Lily. Looking at the moon through her family telescope one night, she is amazed at what she finds, a man on the moon.

Lily watches on as our man goes about his chores, all alone up there. She becomes determined to get something to the moon, to send him a message and show him that someone down here is thinking of him.

The music is ‘Half the World Away’ performed by Aurora, the original song was by Oasis.


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Noel Gallagher ‘To Be Paid Thousands’ For John Lewis Christmas Advert

It’s tradition for the annual John Lewis Christmas advert to bring a smile to the Nation’s face every year, but in 2015 Noel Gallagher will be smiling bigger than anybody else as the ad is apparently going to earn him thousands.

That’s a pretty nifty Christmas bonus, isn’t it?

The traditionally tear-jerking advert isn’t set to debut until tomorrow morning, but it has already been confirmed that it features Oasis track ‘Half The World Away’, which was written by Noel.

The song has been covered by unknown Norwegian singer, Aurora, but The Sun report that Noel will still rake in thousands of pounds in royalties for the store using the song - which you might recognise as the theme tune for The Royle Family.

Stars such as Lily Allen and Tom Odell have previously recorded songs for the advert, and a source told The Sun that John Lewis opted to use Aurora instead of an established artist because her voice is so “quirky”.

They explained: “There have been lots of options and the process has been kept top secret. Even though Aurora is a complete unknown, they felt her quirky voice is perfect for the song.

“There were initially some discussions about the song being a cover of Steve Winwood’s Higher Love, but the Oasis track won out.”

So far we have only seen an Adele-esque teaser of the ad during Sunday night’s X Factor, which simply displayed the hashtag #OnTheMoon in John Lewis’ famous font.

Needless to say, we can’t wait for the final product to truly kick off the festive season tomorrow morning.

Source: www.yahoo.com

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