By BRIGID PARKER
The enormous commercial success of Kendrick Lamar’s 2024 hit “Not Like Us” showed us that even in times of unending political strife, the power of hatred can draw us back together. While no other musical feud has quite reached the magnitude of having an entire stadium full of people call your opp a pedophile at the top of their lungs, the music industry has seen more than its fair share of tension and resentment between creatives over the years, and gossip lovers like myself have been gobbling it up since before Drake and Kendrick were even a thought in their mothers’ minds or a sperm in their fathers’ balls.
Below, I’ll describe a few of my favorites, and I’m not bringing up simple social media shade or creative disagreements. Only real hater shit from this point on.
Morrissey vs Robert Smith
Morrissey is a world-renowned hater. I like to think that in another lifetime, he funneled that talent into a Twitter account rather than being a freak and a bigot.
This feud began with a 1984 issue of the music publication, “The Face,” in which a journalist asked Morrissey the rather provocative question, “If I put you in a room with Robert Smith, Mark E. Smith, and a loaded Smith & Wesson, who would bite the bullet first?”
Morrissey somehow found an answer that was worse than the question itself, saying he’d line them up in a way that would allow him to shoot them both using only one bullet. Really normal stuff. He took extra care to dig at Robert Smith specifically, calling him a “whinebag” and mocking The Cure’s musical style.
Smith fired back in a subsequent interview, saying that if Morrissey didn’t off himself soon, he’d have to take matters into his own hands. The feud that followed basically consisted of the men taking turns publicly calling each other miserable in a years-long pot-kettle-black situation that, at least from my perspective, had no real winner. Smith, however, is often lauded as the victor by fans on account of him not being openly racist.
Oasis vs Blur
Behind the Britpop scene that took over the 1990s were two powerful groups, fighting what would become not just a battle over success but also a real-life portrayal of the long-simmering animosity between North and South England.
To understand this feud and the class dynamics that underlie it, it’s important to know that Blur was formed of a bunch of literary nerds who met at university in London, and Oasis was formed of scrappy, working-class Mancunians.
While Blur aimed to create music that critiqued British society and its class inequalities, the boys of Oasis had already experienced those inequalities for themselves. They were more interested in music that captured what success meant to them: sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.
A critical moment that brought much media attention to this feud occurred when Blur’s Damon Albarn deliberately moved the release date of single “Country House,” a critique of upper-class executives, to coincide with Oasis’ upcoming release “Roll With it,” a song which Noel Gallgher describes as being “about fuckall.”
Aside from their chart battle, which Blur ultimately won, Oasis was the main instigator in this beef. This was exemplified when Blur won the Brit Award for best band, and took time out of their acceptance speech to praise Oasis, who were experiencing comparable success at the time. When Oasis accepted the same award the following year, they shed light on their rival by performing their own rendition of Blur’s “Parklife,” which they titled “Shitelife.” Like I said, real hater shit.
Sun Kil Moon vs The War on Drugs
Not sure if you can really call this one a feud, but I bring it up for its exemplary representation of the hater spirit. Basically, both groups were performing at the Ottawa Folk Fest in 2014, when the sound from War on Drug’s set was so loud it bled into Sun Kil Moon’s stage, taking away from their performance.
The whole ordeal made Sun Kil Moon frontman Mark Kozelek angry enough to release a seven minute diss track titled “War on Drugs: Suck My Cock,” featuring lines calling the offenders “greasy,” “rednecks,” and “definitely the whitest fucking band I’ve ever heard.”
Kozelek did follow up with WOD to assure them that the song “wasn’t personal” and even invited the group to perform the new song with him on stage at an upcoming show, which they ultimately declined.
Featured Image: Blur’s Song Cover and Oasis Album Cover; Wikipedia
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