Posted on 12/29/2022 7:22:34 PM PST by DoodleBob
“I am the innovator,” Little Richard once proclaimed, “I am the originator. I am the emancipator. I am the architect of rock ‘n’ roll.” From that bombastic moment onwards, it would seem that fighting talk was firmly part of the fabric of the genre. Music might be the great unifying force of our age, but several of its most famed proponents have certainly had a swing at orchestrating a one-way division from within.
This is, after all, a world of egos, and egos are at the beck and call of subjectivity at that. Unlike sport, there’s no threat that you can throw muck on an opponent before a match and lose 6-0. If you hate a band, then there is no real recourse that is going to embarrass you. It is, in the wise words of The Dude, “just your opinion, man”. Furthermore, unlike film, as a band or artist in music, you stand alone. You’re not reliant on being cast by anyone except the will of the public. This makes music a firing range of few consequences.
As such, many artists have inexplicably hurled insults at their peers over the years. So, we’ve looked back through the annals of history and compiled the moments when artists come right out of the blue with a big f—k you. From Elvis Presley falling out of favour with counterculture and seeking his revenge to Bob Dylan’s evangelical arbitration, these insults are classic moments of musical curmudgeon.
From patched-up spats to wars that are still being waged, these are the wild quotes from ten musicians who irrationally hated other artists. We’re not advocating cynicism. The world needs simple kindness more than ever, but as Ben Folds once said: “Rock ‘n’ roll is – and should be – a kid’s place.” So, let’s enjoy this playground stuff for a bit of fun.
In the early-1980s, a strange hysteria swept over the US. The trend that is now dubbed The Satanic Panic saw vigilante parents turf up the grounds around a preschool in search of secret tunnels. It was when Judas Priest were accused of inexplicably killing off their fanbase with coded messages urging suicide. And it was when KISS’ Gene Simmons was suspected of having the tongue of a cow. Essentially, the only cause for this devilish meshuga was an increase in working hours. This resulted in parents spending less time with their children, and the guilt this induced manifested in a bizarre way amid the rise of the religious right.
However, KISS didn’t just receive a barrage of abuse from worried guardians since a born-again Bob Dylan was at it too. While performing at the University of Arizona, the audience grew tired of him purely singing songs praising Christ and began to demand a few hits. Dylan fumed and thought that the time had a-changed for the worst. He scathingly yelled: “If you want rock ‘n’ roll, you can go see KISS and rock ‘n’ roll all the way down to the pit.” This was the start of his belief that Simmons and his satanic face-painted cohorts were on their way to hell.
“Hate is a very strong word” is a phrase I remember being told often in my childhood, but when it comes to Madonna, it’s sadly bandied about quite often. Hell, even sweet Paul McCartney said she was no better than a “fairly average porn movie.” Mitchell chose an even stronger denigration; she isn’t ‘Mad-on-her’, to say the least. “Music has become burlesque over the last few years — video’s done that. Every generation has to be more shocking than the last. But at a certain point, you’ve got to reel it in because decadence ultimately isn’t that hip. Our country is going down the tubes from it. It’s rotten to the core. And I think women can be more than decorative,” she explained while setting up her insult.
“Yet someone like Madonna can be seen as a feminist hero because she’s exploiting her own sexuality rather than being exploited by some man. That’s an interesting idea, but what’s the difference between her and a hard hooker, you know? Who’s being exploited there? She’s revelling in herself, too,” she said. Before adding: “She’s got that whore-Madonna thing built-in [laughs]. She’s like a living Barbie doll but a little bit on the blue side. There’s always been that type of female. There’s always been a market for it, but the danger is that she thinks she’s a role model. And it’s a terrible role model. It’s death to all things real.”
Keith Richards is not too much of a fan of kind words. He called Prince “an overrated midget” and even accused Mick Jagger of having a “tiny todger” but an “enormous pair of balls.” However, it seems his gripe with the ‘Rocketman’ was even more dogged. In true ‘you shouldn’t laugh, but you can’t help it’ fashion, The Rolling Stones rocker called dear old Elton “an old bitch… his writing is limited to songs about dead blondes.”
Elton John was determined not to be outdone, and his response is also comically commendable. “It would be awful to be like Keith Richards. He’s pathetic. It’s like a monkey with arthritis, trying to go on stage and look young. I have great respect for the Stones, but they would have been better if they had thrown Keith out 15 years ago,” the Rocketman rallied. Something tells me that something has happened at a party somewhere along the line.
Pop culture moved quickly, and what started as one-way adoration quickly turned on its head and saw the ‘Fab Four’ view Elvis with indifference while ‘The King’ grew so loathsome he could cry, particularly when it came to John Lennon. The hip-snaking rock progenitor even grassed them up to the FBI, no less. In fact, it is rumoured that he offered to spy on John Lennon to help Richard Nixon drum-up charges that would have the peace and love singer deported from the Land of the Free.
Lodged in the FBI vault is a 663-page report on “Presley, Elvis A”. Within that, we learn that “he thought the Beatles had been a real force for anti-American spirit.” Furthermore, he was also “of the opinion that the Beatles laid the groundwork for many of the problems we are having with young people by their filthy unkempt appearances and suggestive music.” And that is what he told the authorities, according to his publicist, if you mentioned Lennon around him in private, the Kung Fu fighting burger king would “fly into a rage”.
When The Eagles covered Tom Waits’ Closing Time classic ‘Ol’ 55’, he was delighted… at the impact it had on his bank account. As Waits explained to WAMU back in 1975: “I frankly was not that particularly crazy about their rendition of it.” Taken from their On the Border LP, Waits continued: “The song is about five years old, it’s one of the first songs I wrote, so I felt like it was kind of flattering that somebody wanted to do your song, but at the same time I thought their version was a little antiseptic.”
While the flattery and royalties might have sweetened him at this stage of his career, he was even more cutting about their cover the following year. “I don’t like The Eagles,” he told NME. “They’re about as exciting as watching paint dry,” he said in a proto-paraphrase of Jeff Lebowski. He then concluded his cutting lambast by stating: “Their albums are good for keeping the dust off your turntable, and that’s about all.”
The Who guitarist Pete Townshend is another rocker not shy of a punch-up with a band. Speaking to the Toronto Sun when he was asked about The Who’s changing sound, he saw this as the perfect opportunity to squeeze in a jab at Zeppelin: “It doesn’t sound like The Who from those early heavy metal years. We sort of invented heavy metal with (our first live album) Live at Leeds (1970). We were copied by so many bands, principally by Led Zeppelin, you know heavy drums, heavy bass, heavy lead guitar,” said Townshend, aiming at the iconic quartet.
In 1995, Townshend was far more cutting of the record-breaking quartet: “I don’t like a single thing that they have done, I hate the fact that I’m ever even slightly compared to them.” He continued with vein-bulging rage: “I just never ever liked them. It’s a real problem to me cause, as people, I think they are really, really great guys. Just never liked the band. And I don’t know if I have a problem, block too, because they, well, that became so much bigger than The Who in so many ways, in their chosen field, I’ve never liked them.”
In the saddest entry in this list, we bring you a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of cynicism, even if it is veiled as a pithy remark. We begin with a bit of profound praise from Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist, Flea. “Igor Stravinsky sat at his piano every f----g day,” Flea once mused, “The same thing goes for Nick Cave, the greatest living songwriter. He goes to work! Every day. And that’s what we do.”
Thus, it was all the more crushing when he discovered the following quote by Nick Cave regarding his band: “I’m forever near a stereo saying, ‘What the f--- is this garbage?’ And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers.” The happy ending is that they have since buried the hatchet and Cave invited Flea along to play on their recent tour, an experience he deemed spiritual… once the inevitable awkwardness subsided. Sticks and stones may break bones, but a handshake can always patch things up. As Flea maturely concluded: “I don’t care if Nick Cabe hates my band because his music means everything to me.” He’ll be glad they’re now experiencing an unlikely bromance.
Lou Reed’s first acrimonious spat in music apparently began when The Velvet Underground were playing on Zappa’s west coast patch in Los Angeles in 1966 as part of Andy Warhol’s art collective, The Exploding Plastic Inevitable. The story goes that Zappa made a sarcastic comment about the artistic band and their creative coterie of Factory stars that filtered through within the underground music scene. This jibe was only exacerbated further because both acts were signed to MGM, and Zappa, as the main rival alternative act, was receiving way more promotion. Reed, as ever, flew off the handle over this.
“Frank Zappa is the most untalented musician I’ve ever heard,” he scolded. Later adding, “He can’t play rock ‘n’ roll because he’s a loser.” To which VU guitarist Sterling Morrison added: “If you told Frank Zappa to eat s--t in public, he’d do it if it sold records. I would do it if I liked to.” In retrospect, the comical undertone to this whole debacle is that both artists were pretty much the antithesis of the commercially inclined.
The Beatles, however, were a band they could bond over hating. Reed said, “I have no respect for those people at all, I don’t listen to it at all, it’s absolute s--t,” while Zappa proclaimed, “People thought the Beatles were God! That’s not correct.” And seemingly, this iconoclasm helped to patch their differences because Reed even ended up inducting Zappa into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In what is the finest rock insult of all time, Liam Gallagher’s brother Noel described him as “a man with a fork in a world of soup”. This enraging disposition has led the swaggering singer to offer up an interminable barrage of abuse and comical quips. You can take your pick at what he’s “not having”, but a personal favourite is the following inexplicable attack: “The White Stripes? F----ng rubbish. School ties? At the age of 24? F----ng hell.”
The beauty of the insult is how irrefutable it is. Wearing an outfit in rock ‘n’ roll always sets you up for a fall, and Liam Gallagher was more than happy to apply the push. Just as Paul Weller recently said about Robert Smith, “I can’t f----ng stand them. F----ng fat c---, with his lipstick and all that bollocks. He is my age as well, isn’t he?” Liam also decided to double down on his White Stripes swipe by enlisting his brother back when they were (sort of) pals. Noel stuck the boot in, stating: “He looks like Zorro on doughnuts.”
Kurt Cobain had issues with what he deemed hippie culture. He believed that certain beat-inspired psychedelic bands were a symbol of “giving up” rather than actively fighting for what they believed in. Despite his moping, Cobain was in the punk camp of fighting authority rather than opting out. While the blonde groveller was getting his thoughts in order, The Grateful Dead often took the brunt. For one photo shoot, Cobain sported a t-shirt that read “punk’s not dead” and “Kill The Grateful Dead.”
He was also quoted saying, “You know what I hate about rock? I hate tie-dyed tee-shirts. I wouldn’t wear a tie-dyed tee-shirt unless it was dyed with the urine of Phil Collins and the blood of Jerry Garcia.” As a result, the plaid-shirted fad turned on anything that was deemed hippie, and The Grateful Dead began a flowery symbol of this—Nirvana fans were happy to p--s on their garden.
This is posted to provide some relief from Russia vs Ukraine, Trump vs Desantis, them vs us.
I wondered why the other post got removed. Don’t recall the bad language. Lot’s of good comments.
Kurt was off his Rocker....
Loved this. Also great episode of Sponge Bob for your namesake.
I wonder how much of this hatred was like Big Time Wrestling, or Political adversaries.
I was reading a story earlier this week about adidas vs puma which was a brother against brother story.
and I wondered if they made a lot more money as two feuding companies getting free advertising. Then I tried to figure out how much more.
What was the last thing on Kurt’s mind?
His teeth...
Well, Joni Mitchell’s take on Madonna doesn’t sound irrational at all.
She was a free man in Paris.
She felt unfettered and alive.
What about the Neil Young-Lynyrd Skynyrd feud?
Or David Crosby and Neil Young and probably the rest of the band? Crosby seemed to have lost it at times.
I actually read somewhere that they all got along well & were friends. Am I incorrect?
Great thread!
I doubt anyone has ever irrationally hated Weird Al
I read a quotation from Del Shannon stating he wasn’t too impressed with the Four Seasons (except “Rag Doll”, which he covered). My guess is that he didn’t like Frankie Valli doing the falsettoes after his “Runaway”.
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