It’s hard for certain musicians not to get territorial about their space within a sold-out stadium or a niche genre. We champion artists for their voices, and well, sometimes they use them in more ways than one. Here are 17 times artists have gotten loud about their opinions on other musicians:
1.
Jack White on The Black Keys
Jack White and The Black Keys have a complicated history. Both parties are Nashville-based blues-rock musicians. Things got a little too close for White’s comfort over the years. In a 2012 interview with Rolling Stone, it was revealed (off the record) that Keys frontman Dan Auerbach was “barred from entering” White’s recording studio. Additionally, White was deeply perturbed that his child was enrolled in the same school as Auerbach’s kid. All of this brewing tension led to White’s snapping point.
In his 2014 Rolling Stone cover story, White revealed his opinion on The Black Keys and their music with some heated words. “There are kids at school who dress like everybody else, because they don’t know what to do, and there are musicians like that too. I’ll hear TV commercials where the music is ripping off sounds of mine, to the point I think it’s me. Half the time, it’s the Black Keys,” he said plainly.
When Gaga emerged with her 2011 smash-hit “Born This Way,” people compared the track’s melody and subject matter with Madonna’s 1989 single “Express Yourself.” In 2012, when ABC News asked Madonna about her thoughts on Gaga’s song, she kept it short and sour. “It feels reductive,” she admitted.
Later that year, Madonna poured gasoline on the fire by performing a mash-up of “Born This Way” and “Express Yourself” at her MDNA Tour. At her tour date in St. Paul, Minnesota, Madonna candidly spoke about their beef: “I have the best fans in the whole world. So take that, Lady Gaga! You know, I invited her onstage to sing with me, but she turned me down. It’s okay. I’ve been rejected before. It builds a little character,” Madonna confided to her concert crowd.
The feud between John and Madonna lasted for over 20 years. One of John’s more outspoken moments occurred in 2004 at the Q Awards. Both John and Madonna were nominated that night for Best Live Act. When John won the award, he used his acceptance speech to take a public jab at Madonna.
“Madonna, best fucking live act? Fuck off,” he exclaimed. “Since when is lip-syncing live? Sorry about it, but I think everyone who lip-syncs in public on stage when you paid, like, 75 quid to see them should be shot. That’s me off her fucking Christmas card list, but do I give a toss? No.”
Madonna’s rep, Liz Rosenberg, responded to John via CBS News. Rosenberg stated, “Madonna does not lip-sync nor does she spend her time trashing other artists. She sang every note of her Re-Invention Tour live and is not ashamed that she was well paid for her hard work.” She continued, “Elton John remains on her Christmas card list whether he is nice or naughty.”
Cobain wasn’t shy about his distaste for other musicians. Here are a few standout quotes of his. In a 1991 interview with Seconds Magazine, Cobain boasted, “We’re not your typical Guns N’ Roses type of band that has absolutely nothing to say.”
Then, in a 1992 interview with Melody Maker, Cobain said, “You know what I hate about rock? I hate tie-dyed T-shirts. I wouldn’t wear a tie-dyed T-shirt unless it was dyed with the urine of Phil Collins and the blood of Jerry Garcia.”
And lastly (though I could go on), Cobain shared his thoughts on Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains in a 1992 interview with Flipside. “Those bands have been in the hairspray/cockrock scene for years and all of a sudden they stop washing their hair and start wearing flannel shirts. It doesn’t make any sense to me. There are bands moving from Los Angeles and all over to Seattle and then claim they’ve lived there all their life so they can get record deals. It really offends me.”
Love threw some serious shade at Swift in 2024 on her BBC Radio Music 6 show, Courtney Loves Women. Love divulged, “Taylor is not important. She might be a safe space for girls, and she’s probably the Madonna of now, but she’s not interesting as an artist.” And Love wasn’t the only musician who had things to say about Swift…
6.
Damon Albarn on Taylor Swift
In a 2022 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Albarn claimed that she “doesn’t write her own songs.” Swift clapped back at Albarn on Twitter. “I was such a big fan of yours until I saw this,” she tweeted. “I write ALL of my own songs. Your hot take is completely false and SO damaging. You don’t have to like my songs, but it’s really fucked up to try and discredit my writing. WOW. PS I wrote this tweet all by myself in case you were wondering.”
7.
Morrissey on Michael Bublé
In a 2011 interview with Billboard, Morrissey was asked, “How do you decide which older songs to work into your setlists?” He responded, “I would find the idea of compiling a setlist that doesn’t wildly excite me to be too restricting. The fire in the belly is essential; otherwise you become Michael Bublé — famous and meaningless.”
8.
Noel Gallagher on Ed Sheeran
Gallagher is another artist who is loud and proud about his opinions on other people’s music. In 2015, Sheeran sold out three separate tour dates at Wembley Stadium (80,000 capacity). Gallagher had a lot to say about Sheeran’s high demand. He admitted to NME, “I don’t think I can live in a world where that’s even possible,” in reference to Sheeran selling out three dates at Wembley. “When you hear that kind of polished pop, and then there’s a ginger guy with a fucking guitar, it seems subversive, but it’s fucking not.”
9.
PJ Harvey on Oasis
In 1995, PJ Harvey gave an interview to Rolling Stone while promoting her album To Bring You My Love. “Sure, Oasis is catchy, but it’s not new ground,” Harvey reasoned. “I’d much rather risk falling flat on my face experimenting with weird things that maybe people won’t like.”
10.
Azealia Banks on Cardi B (and also, many others)
Banks has spoken her mind about many musicians, but her comments on Cardi B take the cake. After Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow” charted at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100, Banks called her a “poor man’s Nicki Minaj.” During a radio appearance on The Breakfast Club, Banks went on to describe Cardi B as an “illiterate, untalented rat,” and a “caricature of a black woman.”
11.
Nick Cave on the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Cave’s dig at the Red Hot Chili Peppers has become somewhat of a viral sensation. Cave famously remarked, “I’m forever near a stereo saying, ‘What the fuck is this garbage?’ And the answer is always ‘The Red Hot Chili Peppers.’” The band’s bassist, Flea, took the high road with his response to Cave. He replied, “I don’t care if Nick Cave hates my band because his music means everything to me.”
12.
Lily Allen on Beyoncé
On her podcast, Miss Me?, Lily Allen got vocal about her thoughts on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter. Allen admitted that she hadn’t listened to the project in full. Still, she had thoughts on Beyoncé’s decision to cover “Jolene” by Dolly Parton.
“It’s quite an interesting thing to do when you’re trying to tackle a new genre, and you just choose the biggest song in that genre to cover,” Allen remarked. “I mean, you do you, Beyoncé,” she continued. “And she literally is doing her — or is she doing Dolly?”
13.
Usher on T-Pain
Usher’s comments on T-Pain were unveiled in a private conversation between the two artists. Since then, they’ve been brought into the public eye by way of the Netflix series, This Is Pop. T-Pain told his side of the story. He said, “Usher was my friend. I really respect Usher. And he said, ‘I’m gonna tell you something, man. You kinda fucked up music.’” At first, T-Pain thought he was joking and laughed it off. Usher went on to clarify that T-Pain’s popularization of auto-tune had “fucked up music.”
T-Pain continued, “That is the very moment, and I don’t even think I realized this for a long time, but that’s the very moment that started a four-year depression for me.” Usher has expressed his gratitude to T-Pain for sharing his perspective on their conversation, and the two artists have since made peace.
14.
Lou Reed on Frank Zappa
Reed spoke out against many of his contemporaries, but his words on Zappa were particularly impassioned. Reed spilled, “He’s probably the single most untalented person I’ve heard in my life. […] He’s a two-bit pretentious academic, and he can’t play rock ‘n’ roll, because he’s a loser. And that’s why he dresses up funny. He’s not happy with himself, and I think he’s right.” Years later, in 1995, Reed made amends by inducting Zappa into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with an honorary speech celebrating Zappa’s career as an artist.
15.
Billie Eilish on Taylor Swift
In a Stationhead clip that went viral, Eilish spoke out against long-winded performances. “I’m not doing a three-hour show, that’s literally psychotic,” she stated. “Nobody wants that. You guys don’t want that. I don’t want that. I don’t even want that as a fan. My favorite artist in the world, I’m not trying to hear them for three hours. That’s far too long.” Even though Eilish didn’t mention anyone by name, many speculated that her criticism was directed at Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.
16.
Pat Metheny on Kenny G
Metheny had A LOT to say about Kenny G’s ethics as a musician. In 1999, Kenny G released a version of “What a Wonderful World” by the late Louis Armstrong. Metheny responded to his track with a cutting review that he posted on JazzOasis.
Metheny wrote, “When Kenny G decided that it was appropriate for him to defile the music of the man who is probably the greatest jazz musician that has ever lived by spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped-out, fucked-up playing all over one of the great Louis’s tracks, he did something that I would not have imagined possible. He shit all over the graves of all the musicians who have risked their lives by going out there on the road for years and years, developing their own music, inspired by the standards of grace that Louis Armstrong brought to every note he played.”
17.
And finally, Jerry Garcia on Jim Morrison
In Conversations With The Dead: The Grateful Dead Interview Book, Garcia revealed his thoughts on Jim Morrison of The Doors to Blair Jackson. Garcia disclosed, “I never liked The Doors. I found them terribly offensive…when we played with them. It was back when Jim Morrison was just a pure Mick Jagger copy. That was his whole shot, that he was a Mick Jagger imitation. Not vocally, but his moves, his whole physical appearance was totally stolen from right around Mick Jagger’s 1965 tour of the States. He used to move around a lot, before he started to earn a reputation as a poet, which I thought was really undeserved. Rimbaud was great at eighteen, nineteen, and Verlaine — those guys were great. Fuckin’ Jim Morrison was not great, I’m sorry.”
Do you have a favorite piece of musician-on-musician criticism that didn’t make the list? I want to hear it! Tell me in the comments below or fill out the anonymous Google Form.
