The big comeback is making a big comeback. Having owned the culture section news cycle — and your gobby uncle’s wallet — for weeks, the Oasis reunion is now expanding into North America, Asia, Australia and South America, en route to a rumoured £400 million rake-in. Meanwhile, rap metal titans Linkin Park are overcoming controversy around new singer Emily Armstrong replacing Chester Bennington, tragically lost to suicide in 2017 (fans approve of Armstrong, Bennington’s family object) to step up to stadiums by year’s end.
All this in the wake of reformed acts like Blur and Pulp playing some of the biggest shows of their careers in 2023. The age-old tactic of a farewell tour at the first hint of decline, then a cryptically hyped resurrection when the offers hit eight figures has been standard music industry practice since The Who first “called it a day” in 1982. But this is next level. Unless you’re Coldplay, Harry Styles or Taylor Swift, the heftiest money in the business right now is in the long-fantasised throwback.
As demand reaches unprecedented heights, though, might Oasis actually be the last of the great, grand-scale rock reunions? Glance down the list of the best-selling bands in history and they’ve virtually all back already, or lumbered with a deceased, irreplaceable singer. Who’s left to comeback?
The only viable reunion liable to have you seven billionth in a queue right now is One Direction
Led Zeppelin have shown immense uninterest in the idea for decades and — while we’ve been fooled by apparent displays of unbreachable rift before — the bitter public spats underway within former members of The Smiths and Pink Floyd suggest we’re likely to see Morecambe & Wise back together before those guys. Amongst the most Googled potential reformations today are Fleetwood Mac (last seen: 2019), Black Sabbath (2017) and KISS (barely had time to wash off the make-up from 2023). The only viable reunion liable to have you seven billionth in a queue for the first dozen Wembleys right now is One Direction.
That only pop comebacks — 1D, the K-Poppers, Swift or Beyonce after brief “retirements” perhaps — look to be Oasis-sized in future is telling. REM, Outkast and The White Stripes reunions would certainly be big news and there’s still plenty of time for Arctic Monkeys, Kings Of Leon, The 1975 or Muse to split and reform — maybe even, please god, U2. The cycle will inevitably rumble on. But the economics of music in the streaming age favour solo pop, dance and rap acts over bands, both in terms of tighter touring budgets and algorithm-friendly breakthrough potential. As time goes on, there will simply be fewer and fewer major groups left to bury the hatchet over contractually alcohol-free lagers and snatch the cheque from the hands of Coachella.
The cannier promoters, then, will look a little further down the Google list. To Nirvana, Freddie Mercury’s Queen, even — whisper it — The Beatles. ABBA’s digital reunion with their virtual Voyage show has pioneered the next generation of musical revivals, and it only takes a juicy licensing agreement with the estate to get Prince, Jimi Hendrix or Wham! back on the pixellated road. The future of reunions, as with so much in society, will be a face-off between flesh and avatar.
In that, though, a thread of the thrill will be lost. Part of the joy of reunion tours is the (arguably naïve) sense that the music ultimately meant so much that it bridged impossible divides, negated courtroom resentments and reunited musical families. Watching folk-pop masters Stornoway, back after a five-year hiatus in 2023, play songs I never thought I’d hear live again has felt, for me, like finding a Bitcoin cache lost in landfill. I treasure every moment I get with second-era Pixies like my own personal Pet Sematary. Would I feel so connected to a virtual Kurt Cobain replaying Reading 1992 at Reading 2037? Then, the Oasis reunion itself might feel like a golden age.
