The Pop Corporation

Beef. Settling scores. Getting personal. Whatever you want to call it, music is littered with musicians communicating in the only way they know how – through song. We tend to think of hip hop when we think of such things, but there’s loads of diss tracks in other genres too. Musicians, eh? They’re a rum bunch.

While Kendrick may have pulled Drake’s pants down in front of everyone three times to show his whole ass last summer, hip hop being a contact sport is nothing new. However, it’s always been there in rock music and for the most part, our eyes glaze over when we try and summon who said what to who,

So with that, let us get stuck in to some vicious asides and barbed tracks aimed at other musicians in the rock and pop sphere.

STEELY DAN VS JOHN LENNON

There’s been a few jabs at The Beatles – see also Zappa’s ‘Oh No’, but if it’s withering sarcasm you’re looking for, then look no further than Steely Dan.

Taking aim at John Lennon being out of touch with reality, the song kicks off with “a world become one of salads and sun” before eventually launching into:

The man in the street dragging his feet
Don’t wanna hear the bad news
Imagine your face there is his place
Standing inside his brown shoes

You do his nine to five
Drag yourself home half alive
And there on the screen
A man with a dream

I heard it was you
Talking ’bout a world where all is free
It just couldn’t be
And only a fool would say that

Savage.

EVERYONE VS COURTNEY LOVE

Honestly, Courtney Love is the subject of so much bile that you could make a compilation from all the songs. From Foo Fighters singing ‘I’ll Stick Around’, to the Smashing Pumpkins, to ‘Hollaback Girl’, NiN, ‘Professional Widow’, New Radicals ‘You Only Get What You Give’, REM’s ‘Crush With Eyeliner’, the list is long and surprisingly filled with hits.

Perhaps the most vicious takedown came in the shape of ‘Bruise Violet’ by Babes In Toyland which accuses Love of all manner of things and delivered with such white hot fury that it feels like your skin being torn off.

“You got this thing that
Follows me around
You little bitch well
I hope your insides rot“

Yikes.

JOHN VS PAUL

A pretty well-publicised feud, because when you boiled everything down, this was two men who simply loved each other too much. Inseparable for years, then they got married, the band broke up, they’d hurt each other but had feelings that ran so deeply that they lashed out at each other like jealous exes.

You have no doubt heard ‘Too Many People’ and ‘How Do You Sleep?’ before, but this was the ugly end of a relationship we all loved so much. It’s great to know that, before Lennon’s untimely passing, there was something of a rekindling.

LOU REED VS ANDY WARHOL

‘Hangin’ Round’ from Lou’s classic ‘Transformer’ is, unsurprisingly, soaked in vinegar. Like most of Reed’s songs, he’s pointing a finger and offering withering asides. In this particular track, he took umbrage with Warhol and his crowd. Warhol had taken a lot of credit for the Velvet Underground, which annoyed Reed. Lou got control of the group and promptly split them up to go solo.

In this very commercial sounding track, Reed took aim at the Warhol set, singing:

“You keep hangin’ ’round me
And I’m not so glad you found me
You’re still doing things that I gave up years ago“

KITTY WELLS VS MEN IN COUNTRY

One of music’s great ripostes is Kitty Wells’ ‘It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels’. A reply song to Hank Thompson’s ‘The Wild Side of Life’ where Hank sang:

“I didn’t know God made Honky Tonk angels
I might have known you’d never make a wife
You gave up the only one that ever loved you
And went back to the wild side of life”

“The glamor of the gay nightlife has lured you
To the places where the wine and liquor flow
Where you wait to be anybody’s baby
And forget the truest love you’ll ever know know”

Wells replied in her own song on behalf of all women directly, which was very unusual for the time, and instantly, it became an anthem for anyone who felt they could reply to overbearing men, which of course, were prevalent especially in the world of entertainment.

Consider further, the risk taking for Wells to make such a statement in the conservative world of country music in 1952, with women’s lib still a decade away – the NBC radio network banned the song, the Grand Ole Opry refused to let Wells perform, but her song struck a chord all the same.

“As I sit here tonight, the jukebox’s playing
The tune about the wild side of life
As I listen to the words you are saying
It brings mem’ries when I was a trusting wife“

“It was’t God who made honky-tonk angels
As you said in the words of your song
Too many times married men think they’re still single
That has caused many a good girl to go wrong“

TEARS FOR FEARS VS TEARS FOR FEARS

Intra-personal fighting in bands is always ugly, but one of the real humdingers is ‘Fish Out Of Water’ by Tears For Fears.

Roland Orzabal lashed out at Curt Smith after a vicious split within the band after finishing the world harmony psych-pop of ‘The Seeds of Love’. In the song, Smith accuses Orzabal of being changed by fame.

“You always said you were the compassionate one
But now you’re laughing at the sun
With all your high class friends you think you’ve got it made
The only thing you made was that tanned look on your face
With all your cigarettes and fancy cars
You ain’t a clue who or what you are
You’re dreaming your life away“

Smith later wrote his own diss track about Orzabal in response, called ‘Sun King’.

“A small imbalanced vain recluse
You use the planets to excuse
Your costumed smile
Your childish abuse”

“The gloves are off there are no rules
I’m a regicidal fool
Who’d change your face
But change would just improve“

THE TEMPTATIONS VS EDDIE RUFFIN & EDDIE KENDRICKS

One of the finest diss tracks is ‘Superstar (Remember How You Got Where You Are)’ by The Temptations, aimed at their former bandmates Eddie Kendricks and Eddie Ruffin.

Kendricks quit after tension within the group, and Ruffin’s sacking saw Kendricks stay in touch, with some public spats between the pair and Otis Williams and Melvin Franklin. There were asides about The Temptations not having a hit without Kendricks, and Ruffin toyed with the idea of starting a rival group with Kendricks, with other former members of The Temptations.

Annoyed, The Temptations released ‘Superstar (Remember How You Got Where You Are)’, which opined:

“Don’t change your style, now that you’ve reached the top
Don’t choose your friends by what they’ve got
Remember beneath the glitter and gleam
Like everyday people, you’re just a human being”

“Superstar, good God!
Enjoy your champagne and caviar
And your chauffeur drivin’ fancy car
But remember how you got where you are
Oh, ho, ho, ’cause the same folks that made you, yeah
You better believe they can break you”

The drama clearly helped and the song hit the Top 10 R&B Billboard chart, and a Top 20 pop hit. Interestingly, despite being a subject of the song himself, David Ruffin released a cover of the song in 1975.

FLEETWOOD MAC VS FLEETWOOD MAC

Almost all of ‘Rumours’ is an intra-band BEEF-fest. It’s awkward as hell to imagine being a musician, having to play on songs that actively slag you off – and obviously, this is catnip to music fans who love the petty drama.

We don’t need to share a song from ‘Rumours’ as you’ve heard them all before or don’t want to. Suffice to say, while everyone looks Nicks and Buckingham, people forget that Christine McVie wrote ‘You Make Loving Fun’ about having it off with the group’s lighting director, while her husband John was right there, in the band. Why did he not go berserk? She said it was written about their dog.

JOE TEX VS JAMES BROWN

Have you ever had someone steal your partner? Joe Tex has, and the person who took them was James Brown. When Brown writes you a letter to say “hey, you can have her back if you like, Joe”, The Godfather of Soul may not have expected to receive a reply in the form of a song released to the public.

“James I got your letter it came to me today
You said I could have my baby back
But I don’t want her that way
So you keep her…“

There’s some lines in the song that, shall we say, have aged poorly (it was 1963), but there must have been a couple of sharp intakes of breath when all the parties heard the line:

“But you can tell her I said hello James…”

HEART VS THEIR RECORD LABEL

Ever listened to ‘Barracuda’? Course you have – it’s an all-timer! Well, Ann Wilson of Heart wrote it with fire in her belly, after Mushroom Records started an awful publicity stunt, which suggested that Ann and her sister and bandmate Nancy were in an incestuous affair.

This story got to the radio stations, and post-show, Ann was asked by some bozo how her ‘lover’ was doing, and realising what he was referring to, she went to her hotel room in a rage and bashed out one of the most iconic hard rock hits of all-time.

The track used a lot of pent-up anger no doubt, and could be about almost anyone that Heart ran into during their climb to stardom, from local gig promoters, to record execs.

BOB DYLAN VS THE FOLKIES

Dylan going electric is one of the great lightning bolts in rock history. You could argue that the Manchester crowd who sarcastically shouted “Judas!” saw Dylan respond in sheer volume that would be diss-track enough, given he instructed his band to “play fuckin’ louder!”

However, ‘Positively 4th Street’ is the track that we look at as Dylan took aim at his former folkies in Greenwich Village, ridiculing them as they criticised him for ‘deserting’ them. A number of his former friends took great offence, with notable Village figure Izzy Young stating “at least five hundred came into my place and asked if it was about me” adding “Dylan comes in and takes from us, uses my resources, then he leaves and gets bitter.”

“You’ve got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend
When I was down you just stood there grinnin’
You’ve got a lotta nerve to say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on the side that’s winnin’”

“You say I let you down, you know its not like that
If you’re so hurt, why then don’t you show it?
You say you’ve lost your faith, but that’s not where its at
You have no faith to lose, and you know it”