Egos the size of Zeppelins! Titanic personality flaws! Extensive drug habits! If fame costs, immortality can bleed you dry. But who cares when you've got the Q readers' pantheon of the greatest talents of the 20th Century. Smarten yourself up a bit, you are about to meet the innovators, masterminds, shaggers, blaggers, loons and goons that make up that super-special club: the only stars that really, really mattered...

inside is a black and white picture of Liam in shades and parka with arm slung casulayy over the shoulder of the equally seated Noel in shades, stetson and jean jacket

picture by Jill Furmanovsky

LIAM GALLAGHER - 9

He walks it like he talks it

There is a difference between being born gifted and merely learning the craft - which is why Robert De Niro will always be a greater screen presence than, say, Keanu Reeves.

This is also true in the world of rock'n'roll. Anyone with a guitar can, in theory, become successful, take lots of drugs, and bed members of the opposite sex young enough to render them disgraceful, but very few are actually born with rock's near mythical X factor. In 1994, one such example did emerge, and promptly took his place on the hallowed podium alongside Jagger, Presley and Morrison, all of whom shuffled up to give him the space he demanded. Hands behind back, blank-eyed and unsolicitous, he was at least three-quarters to blame for the resurgence in the whole idea of live rock'n'roll that accompanied the ascent of Oasis.

While, unlike other humans, he may not have the distinction of two eyebrows, Liam Gallagher possesses an energy that places him above mere mortals. He may not write the songs, but it's his delivery that counts. He explodes out of consonants, bolsters weak grammar and song-logic with conviction. Joe Strummer-style, you can hear the spit on the microphone. John Lennon-style, you can hear the passion and the need. Nobody pronounces the word "sunshine' quite like him, and self-perpetuated rumour has it he's a pretty good footballer, too.

As a character, he's all over the shop. So cool he wears parkas in the summer, he's also as volatile as a just-lit firework, combining the grace and good manners of Paul Gascoigne and Jerry Lee Lewis. But then he's also, purportedly, a happily married man and has taken to instant fatherhood like an alcoholic to a free bar. He's triumphantly bad-tempered, flaunts the most famous V-sign since Churchill, and in terms of arrogance, he's an undefeated. heavyweight boxer. He's mad, rich, flawed, fascinating and transparent. You can live your life through him. Is there a better definition of a star?

by Nick Duerden

NOEL GALLAGHER - 8

He writes the songs...

It's perhaps churlish to say but it's a wonder Noel Gallagher took so long. He says he knew he was going to do something special at 14 or 15, yet he flitted around the periphery of the Manchester music scene for years. He worked for British Gas, kicked about on the dole, was rejected as singer for lnspiral Carpets before becoming their roadie, he tinkered with house tunes, yet all the while he had songs (Live Forever, All Around The World) and a masterplan in his back pocket.

Separating light from bushel at 24 (at which age his teen hero Johnny Marr had already left The Smiths), Noel Gallagher took over Oasis in 1991. At a time when Britain's youth were enraptured by either grunge's scuzzy guitars or rave's arms-aloft communalism, Gallagher's classicist offerings could have fallen on fallow ground. In fact, his songs - a bombing guitar roar allied to a distinctly romantic of invincibility - spoke the lingua franca of both tribes and united rockers and ravers, young and not-so-young, in a way The Stone Roses could only dream about. What the world was waiting for?

But, of course, Gallagher is, by his own admission, 'a Trad. Arr.' songwriter but Oscar Wilde had a point when he decreed that 'Talent borrows, genius steals' (instructively, the words were scratched on the runout grooves of one of Noel's cherished Smiths singles). Anyway, Gallagher can afford to leave innovation to people who don't want to sell records and get on with the job of being an uncommonly talented pop alchemist. His finest songs - Live Forever, Acquiesce, Wonderwall, Don't Look Back In Anger - are simultaneously romantic and rowdy, tender and tough. The yin/yang trick works for his band too, with his most heartfelt confessionals (though there's not many, granted) sung by a brother who appears to be emotionally armour-plated. It's only when this balance is upset - some of the blustery Be Here Now - that Noel Gallagher comes unstuck.

And that's why he and his brother need each other. Yet while Noel can joke that his sibling 'gave him a job', Liam is honest enough to admit that Noel's songcraft is 'what gets me out of bed in the morning'. The rest of Oasis, even Q readers who voted for Liam, owe Noel Gallagher a lot. A working class hero? It's something to be.

by Michael Leonard

Madonna - 7

David Bowie - 6

Elvis Presley - 5

Bob Dylan - 4

Kurt Cobain - 3

Paul McCartney - 2

John Lennon - 1

• Q Polls & Awards

c 1998 Andrew Turner

aturner@interalpha.co.uk

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