While most beefs between musicians end up
quickly squashed once the people involved
realize how childish they're acting, some
feuds spiral completely out of control and
last forever.
Hey — musicians are a sensitive lot, so
headline-making rivalries are to be expected
from time to time.
"Nobody can hear a G------ thing you say …" Sorry
what?"
" ...now She won't repeat it."
Crank your drama-meter up to 11 because we're
stage diving into some of modern music's most
petty squabbles.
Everybody in Van Halen vs. everybody in Van
Halen
Van Halen's got a lot of bad blood for a band
whose most clever song is about ice cream.
David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar regularly beef
about who's the superior frontman.
Roth claims Hagar isn't "credible" enough
and never sold as many albums.
Hagar claims Roth's voice isn't as good.
Meanwhile, Eddie Van Halen's apparently pissed
at everybody.
"I was ready to…"
"It's like, all those years of… right there.
I said: 'if you ever speak to me like that
again, you better be wearing a cup.'"
And it seems like everybody's pissed off at
him too.
"There's so much anger I don't even want to
run into him"
" eh, if I run into him I'd be like "ah Eddie
how you doing?" big hugs and kisses, I don't
think it'd be like that right now."
Hagar blasted Eddie for claiming ex-bassist
Michael Anthony couldn't play bass, by counterclaiming
that Eddie could barely play guitar anymore
and it was impossible to sing along with him.
And then there's Roth, whom Eddie called an
overgrown child he can't be friends with,
and whom he only works with because the fans
want it.
Peace, love, and rock and roll: one out of
three ain't bad, right?
Noel Gallagher vs. Liam Gallagher
Unless you're Cain and Abel, your sibling
squabbles probably don't run as deep as they
do for Oasis' Noel and Liam Gallagher.
The two have apparently barely gotten along
since childhood, making it a small miracle
they formed a band in the first place.
Within a few years, their infighting had overshadowed
their music, with incidents like Liam hitting
Noel with a tambourine during a show, Liam
accusing Noel of fathering a child outside
marriage, Liam regularly leaving during shows
only to be found somewhere drinking instead
— you know, maybe we're starting to see
who's the instigator here.
.....we don't like each other, man."
And by all accounts, Liam also started the
2009 blowup that led to Noel quitting the
band and the brothers finally splitting for
good.
Apparently, Liam had canceled an important
gig but managed to blame it on Noel.
Tempers flared, and Liam did the one thing
you never do to a musician: he broke one of
Noel's guitars.
That did it, Noel quit that night, and the
brothers have not been together since.
Morrissey vs. Robert Smith
Of all the things to fight about, you'd think
"Best Sad '80s Singer Guy" would bottom out
the list.
And yet, Robert Smith of the Cure and Morrissey
of The Smiths have been constantly swiping
at one another since the '80s.
It started when Morrissey was doing what he
did best: insulting people.
When asked during an interview who he'd shoot
with one bullet: Robert Smith or some other
guy, he answered "I'd line them up so that
one bullet penetrated both simultaneously—Robert
Smith is a whingebag."
"Ooooooh."
Smith has also called Morrissey "a precious,
miserable bastard … all the things people
think I am," and even
quipped,
"If Morrissey says not to eat meat, then I'll
eat meat, that's how much I hate Morrissey."
The Smiths singer, meanwhile, has said The
Cure gives "a new dimension to the word 'crap',"
and made it perfectly clear that he has never
liked them.
Now, Morrissey doesn't like anybody or anything
...
"Among the many things that Morrissey has
said on record he actually hates are, Elton
John, George Michael, Madonna, Vic Reeves,
Bob Geldorf, Tony Wilson, Meat Eaters."
… but still!
With both sides publicly saying they'd happily
put the other 6 feet under, don't expect a
conciliatory hug-and-cry session anytime soon.
Nas vs. Jay Z
The hip-hop beef has been embedded in the
genre's marrow from the beginning and has
yielded some of its most thrilling moments.
Nas vs. Jay-Z is still the gold standard even
Jay's mom had to step in when things got too
heated.
Some tame references on a few late '90s cuts
notwithstanding, it was Jay dissecting Nas'
career with surgical precision on 2001's "The
Takeover" that really set this lyrical death
match in motion.
The ball was in Nas' court, and Nas took the
ball, doused it in lighter fluid, and shot
it out of a cannon.
His "Ether" dropped a few months later and
was so devastating that the word "ether" has
become a shorthand term for having lyrically
destroyed your rival on a track.
Some fans thought it was over then and there,
but Jay decided to double down and get reckless.
He premiered "Supa Ugly" on Hot 97 FM and
explicitly referenced having hooked up with
the mother of Nas' daughter.
Jay's mother was so appalled that she urged
her son to apologize, which he later did.
Occasional shots were fired over the next
few years, until they performed on stage together
during Jay's "I Declare War" concert in 2005
and publicly quashed this musician feud.
They've even recorded a couple tracks together
since, tossing their differences overboard
and sailing that friendship all the way to
the bank.
"How did the Jay-Z beef start?"
… "I'm really over that, man, y'know?"
Mariah Carey vs. Jennifer Lopez
The fact that this so-called feud is still
being talked about is either a huge testament
to our tendency to make a whole lot of noise
over a whole heap of nothing where celebrities
are concerned or an even bigger testament
to Mariah Carey's Olympian capacity for throwing
shade.
In 2000, a German TV network asked Carey for
her opinion on a few of her contemporaries.
She spoke very highly of Beyoncé, but when
asked about J-Lo she simply smiled and replied
"I don't know her."
Ouch.
Carey's four little words provided enough
meme fodder to keep gossip-lovers warm and
happy for many winters.
"There was the moment when you said, 'I don't
know her.'"
"That was so long ago, I can't believe people
still make such a big deal out of it."
J-Lo told Andy Cohen she harbored no ill will
toward Carey in 2014 and hoped the feeling
was mutual.
"I don't have a feud against her at all.
I know from back in the day I've read things
that she's said about me that were not the
greatest."
At the 2015 Billboard Music Awards, though,
J-Lo was caught idly looking at her phone
during Carey's performance.
She claims that it was just sneaky editing
and bad timing.
The whole thing wallowed in this sort of passive-aggressive
nothingness until late 2017, when record label
owner Irv Gotti revealed the two had actually
been pitted against each other behind the
scenes back in the early 2000s by one Tommy
Mottola, a label exec and Carey's ex-husband.
"My, my the plot, like my gravy, thickens."
Kanye West vs. Taylor Swift
This feud between super stars all started,
of course, with that infamous "Imma let you
finish" interruption during Taylor's acceptance
speech at the 2009 VMAs.
"Yo, Taylor.
I'm really happy for you.
I'ma let you finish.
But Beyonce had one of the best videos of
all time."
What happened over the next eight-ish years
was a noisy mish-mash of more award show drama,
lyrical pot-shots, and two or three planet-sized
egos.
Following the outburst, Kanye was slammed
by everyone from fellow rapper 50 Cent …
"I wish he would come take one of my awards
so I could black his eye in front of everybody."
... to then-president Barack Obama …
"The young lady seems like a perfectly nice
person.
She's getting her award.
What's he doing up there?
He's a jackass."
A brief apology tour followed, but then a
year or so later he slowly started backpedaling
and trying to justify his actions.
Even so, they seemed to have buried the hatchet
by 2015, when Taylor presented Yeezy with
the Vanguard Award at the VMAs that year.
"I'm really happy for you, and I'ma let you
finish.
But Kanye West has had one of the greatest
careers of all time."
But then Kanye dropped "Famous" in 2016, reigniting
the feud and turning more than a few heads
with the line "I feel like me and Taylor might
still have sex / Why?
I made that b*tch famous."
Taylor said she was shocked, but Kanye claimed
to have gotten her blessing for the line beforehand.
She denied this, and wild speculation and
bickering was rife until Kim Kardashian set
things straight on Snapchat, posting a partial
recording of the phone conversation in which
Taylor's blessing had, in fact, been given.
Taylor shot back with some harsh words on
"Look What You Made Me Do" in late 2017, so
just when this will all end is anyone's guess.
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