It's been such a shitty year that making a list of the biggest music beefs -- like I did last year, and the site has been doing for long before that -- feels frivolous in light of all the bad, shitty things that have been going on. But even as the world as we know it is falling apart, celebrities are finding new (and reliably old) ways to pick fights with each other. And, for just a few brief moments, their petty dramas and insignificant spats can provide a brief respite from the all-too-real crushing weight of our every day lives. So while many artists used their vocal platforms to take a stand against all that is wrong with the world, others still used their time in the spotlight to ... well, start beefs. The most entertaining of them are below.
18. Smash Mouth Vs. Oakland Athletics
Smash Mouth pretty much solely exist to get clowned on -- see the great bread pelting incident of 2015 -- but they had a small victory (if you can call it that) when their Twitter trolling forced the Oakland A's to apologize to them after the band got into some heated words with whatever intern runs the baseball team's account. During a World Series game between the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians, Smash Mouth took a local sports reporters' tweet about the game as an opportunity to bash their hometown team. "The A's are a joke, good for CC!" they retorted, CC referring to former Oakland Athletics player/current Indians player Coco Crisp. A few hours later, the Athletics' Twitter account started firing back in some now-deleted late-night tweets before following it up with an apology in the morning. "Sorry we let our competitive juices get the best of us," they wrote. "Tickets and a 1st pitch are on us anytime you're in the East Bay." "Lets do it!," Smash Mouth replied. Yawn! Too polite! I thought sports beefs were supposed to be fun with all that unregulated testosterone...
17. Ex-Mushroomhead Dude Vs. Mushroomhead
Mushroomhead are a bad band full of bad people. The Ohio-based band, whose biggest claim to fame is an ongoing feud with the infinitely more-popular Slipknot, regularly use the Confederate Flag on their merchandise and one of their members proudly signed a petition declaring Black Lives Matter a "terrorist organization." It turns out one of their former band members also hates the band, though not for (exclusively) politically charged reasons. Former vocalist Waylon Reavis, who joined the band in 2004 and left it in 2015, had some choice words for them in an interview: "Mushroomhead is nix. I hope they die slowly. I hope their fan base just goes down, and down, and down. I will never sing a song with them ever again. I wish I had never met ’em." He also adds some fuel to the Mushroomhead vs. Slipknot fire: "Slipknot is better. Flat out. Corey Taylor, you’re a badass fuckin’ singer."
16. Matisyahu Vs. His Fans
Matisyahu opened for 311 and Sublime With Rome on a series of tour dates this year, and apparently he wasn't very good, according to some local news reports and disgruntled personal messages from people on Facebook, which the roots-reggae artist defensively shared on his social media account. "Saw a video a while back and witnesses [sic] how awful you are first hand. Just quit dude, we all fucking hate you," one of them reads.
One status in particular, which criticized his appearance in Woodlands, TX, drew his ire: "Dumb people don't usually get it," Matisyahu wrote in response. "It seems the Cornier your music is the more people like it. That's cause most people are dumb unfortunately." He went on to attack the person, who commented that she was "a huge fan" who was "disappointed" in his set: "I would just like to say that your child is ugly as fuck and your name is stupid. Good evening Katie Loo Fuckington. Take your 'honest' review' and Suck it!" Ouch! Matisyahu followed that up with an apologetic Facebook post that still managed to come across as dickish: "At the end of the day I feel it’s more important to connect with the people who actually have some purpose or need to be listened to."
15. Eddie Money Vs. His Band
It sure seems that playing with '80s AOR hitmaker Eddie Money is a miserable experience. This year, drummer Glenn Symmonds brought a wrongful termination suit against Money after being fired from the band because (according to him) of his age and physical disabilities, which are the result of a back injury and a fight with bladder cancer. According to the lawsuit, Money made fun of Symmonds on stage throughout the tour, saying it was sponsored by Depends in reference to Symmonds' incontinence due to his chemotherapy. He also repeatedly referred to Symmonds as "Chemo The Drummer." To add insult to injury, Symmonds' fiancee Tami Landrum also filed a lawsuit against Money that alleged he sexually harassed her on tour, at one point dragging her into a bathroom and refusing to let her leave. In response to the allegations, Money denied the claims, saying (through his lawyer) that "Landrum is a rock and roll groupie and has a history of ‘coming on’ to musicians" and that his mocking of Symmonds was all good-natured fun, and that he was protected under the First Amendment when he performs music, which means that his choice of band members falls under that protection. Hmm, that doesn't sound right!
14. Steve Miller Vs. The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame
It's pretty much universally agreed upon that the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame is outdated and out-of-touch, and Steve Miller took the institution to task when he was inducted into the Class Of 2016 earlier this year. His gripes had to do both with how the artists are treated on a personal level -- "They make this so unpleasant," he said after his acceptance speech, referring to the red tape and hefty price tag attached to the organization's annual ceremony -- and the narrow-minded view the committee has when selecting which acts should be honored: "I encourage you to keep expanding your vision to be more inclusive to women ... and more transparent to the public," he said during his speech. In a follow-up interview with Rolling Stone, he leaned in even harder, calling the whole affair "an amateur production," and adding: "Everybody is kind of a dick and an asshole. And every artist you talk to will tell you that." His whole spiel made the Black Keys regret being the ones to induct him, and if you're pissing those dudes off, you must be doing something right.
13. Adele Vs. Tony Visconti
Even bats recognize Adele's immense talent, but one human who was skeptical is long-time David Bowie producer Tony Visconti, who used the singer as an example of computerized voices dominating the radio: "We know Adele has a great voice but it’s even questionable if that is actually her voice or how much has been manipulated. We don’t know," he said in an interview. Well, we do know that Adele's voice is really that good, and Adele knows it too, and she had some harsh words for Visconti during a show that happened shortly after the interview was published. "Some dickhead tried to say that my voice was not me on record," she told a crowd in Paris. "Dude, suck my dick." Visconti later backtracked and apologized for his comments, saying that "Adele has a great voice and it brings pleasure to millions." Well, all's well that ends well. But respect motherfucking craft when you hear it.
12. Zappa Vs. Zappa
Dweezil Zappa, one of Frank Zappa's sons, has been playing under the name Zappa Plays Zappa for years, paying tribute to his late father by faithfully recreating his songs. But earlier this year he was forced to change the name of his longtime touring act after his brother and former bandmate Ahmet Zappa denied him the use of the name after gaining control of the Zappa estate following the death of Frank's widow Gail Zappa. The battle played out not behind closed doors but through New York Times articles and Facebook open letters in which both brothers argued about matters best left to lawyers. Ahmet called the NYT story "incomplete" and "misleading," while Dweezil still insists he's being shut out of his right to the family name. Most recently, Dweezil announced that he would tour under the umbrella of Dweezil Zappa And The Others Of Intention, both paying tribute to his father's band, Frank Zappa And The Mothers Of Invention, and cleverly avoiding copyright-infringement accusations.
11. Bad Religion Vs. Bring Me The Horizon
Bad Religion and bad metalcore act Bring Me The Horizon both played Spain's Resurrection Festival earlier this year, and Brian Baker -- the founding guitarist of Minor Threat who has been playing with Bad Religion for two decades -- took offense to a flyer he saw backstage meant to alert security guards and personnel to BMTH's special privileges: "These people are not to be stopped ever. They may not have a pass. They can escort who they want where they want with or without a pass," it read. "I'm going to stop these people every time I see them today and tell them how much their band sucks," he wrote on Instagram.
BMTH drummer Matt Nicholls saw the post and took the bait, responding in the comments: "Hahah I can’t imagine being as old as you are and still acting like a 14 year old girl. Saw you at least 10 times and you didn’t bat an eye lid. You got bigger things to worry about nowadays anyway, like ya pension, or cold weather. Dickhead." Baker responded with a fiery explanation of his position, which deserves to be reprinted in full:
It seems you’ve missed the point entirely. The issue here is entitlement. My post was a comment on your collective delusion that working local crew at a thirty band festival should be required to memorize your faces to spare you the indignity of breaking stride on the way to your backstage oasis or even worse, the humiliation of carrying credentials. Your literal display of arrogance (and the hilariously unrecognized irony within it) was what I was sharing with my followers. I honestly don’t know if your music is bad or good – it’s not for old people! I meant that you suck as humans. Sorry for the confusion.
Burn! Love a good Instagram comment battle.
10. Nash Vs. Crosby
None of the members of Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young seem to like each other very much anymore, and the latest spat to crop up was between David Crosby and Graham Nash. Toward the beginning of the year, Nash said in an interview that he was done dealing with Crosby's shit: "I don’t like David Crosby right now. He’s been awful for me the last two years, just fucking awful. I’ve been there and saved his fucking ass for 45 years, and he treated me like shit," he said in an interview. "Leave me the fuck alone. I need to concentrate on me now." The two of them traded verbal spars throughout the year in various interviews, and the most recently we've heard about it was last month. When Crosby was asked about the current status of his relationship with Nash, he responded: "We don’t have one. We don’t talk, and I don’t think we will."
09. Jeremih Vs. PARTYNEXTDOOR
Jeremih was kicked off the Summer's Over tour with PARTYNEXTDOOR after walking off stage, sending out an imposter, and shit-talking the headlining PND, all apparently because of resentment that he was opening instead of having headliner or co-headliner status. After Live Nation removed Jeremih from the remainder of the tour, PARTYNEXTDOOR addressed the beef on stage: "I appreciate everybody filling up this room, and standing in this room, and not refunding your ticket, because you want to see a real person. … I might not have the most hits in the game that’s under my name — I might not sing the best falsetto … Everyone knows I’m a real person and I don’t have time for any other fake shit." I guess no tour is better than some tour!
08. Ghostface Vs. Martin Shkreli
At the beginning of the year, who would've thunk that douchebag extraordinaire Martin Shkreli would turn out to barely be a blip on the radar of reprehensible shit that happened in 2016? But back in January, the impotent little worm-weasel was still making headlines over his successful bid for one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, and the pharma bro's press antics got the attention of Ghostface, who called Shkreli a "shithead" that he wouldn't have sold the album to if he had known about his business practices at the time. In subsequent interviews, Ghostface goaded the thin-skinned snake with jokes about his "Michael Jackson nose" and vague threats like, "I’ll break your heart in four days." Doofus emeritus Shkreli responded with a lame comeback video featuring some goons surrounding him, and Ghostface came back again with a 12-minute video mocking the pathetic lizard boy. Neither of them came out of that spat looking all that good, but at least one of them isn't a pile of fetid shit. Right before the election, Shkreli promised to release some of the Wu-Tang Clan album is Trump was elected. We all know what happened there, and the tiny skidmark took to Periscope to play some of Shaolin. No one is happy.
07. Morrissey Vs. Supreme
Morrissey is a repeat offender on this list, and this year, the cantankerous former Smiths frontman was no stranger to his characteristic attention-grabbing antics, like his back-and-forth with Riot Fest organizers, his accusations against LAX immigration officials for stealing money from his wallet, his dismissal of the new official Smiths Twitter account, and his usual bout of cancellations and postponements. But none of those were as memorable or juicy as Moz's beef with Supreme.
Joining the likes of Neil Young and Lou Reed as older musicians modeling for the clothing brand, Morrissey did a shoot with vile photographer Terry Richardson, but apparently wasn't happy with the results and refused to sign off on any of the photos. Supreme went ahead with the campaign anyway, putting up posters and selling a T-shirt with one of the pictures on it, and Moz was not happy. In one of his many notes on unofficial fanzine True To You, he wrote:
I apologize enormously for the enfeebled photograph of me issued this week by Supreme. The shot was taken in October 2015. I considered the photograph to be fit only for a medical encyclopedia and I pleaded with Supreme not to use it. This was before I learned that Supreme were sponsored in part by the beef sandwich pharaoh known as White Castle. Supreme were issued with a legal caution not to use the photograph and their fee would be returned. Evidently Supreme have ignored my lawyer. No safety within the corridors of law. Ugh.
Ugh! Supreme fired back with a statement trying to clarify the situation and their efforts to get money back from Morrissey that he apparently kept after he wasn't happy with any of the photos. Moz alleged that he was hadn't been paid for his participation in the campaign: "As a matter of fact, I do not have, do not want, nor do I need, any money from the company called Supreme," he wrote in a follow-up note. "The photograph is dreadful and will help neither myself nor Supreme. Who needs it? Nobody." The posters and T-shirts went on sale as planned, and it turned out that the Supreme hypebeasts barely even knew who Morrissey was. Karmic justice!
06. Azealia Banks Vs. Russell Crowe
Azealia Banks almost had a way out. With the release of her pretty-good Slay-Z mixtape this past spring, there could maybe have been a world in which everyone chose to brush away her many, many controversies and started treating her like a legitimate artist again. But, nope, she fucked that one up real good. After getting her Twitter account suspended for a racist tirade about Zayn Malik (which she later apologized for) and gleefully endorsing Donald Trump, she's forever relegated herself to the Hall Of Music Villains.
The wildest story to come out of the Banks camp this year involves Russell Crowe and a vicious game of he-said-she-said. In October, Banks was brought along to Crowe's hotel room in Los Angeles as a guest of RZA's (whose label she was apparently going to sign to). After allegedly insulting Crowe's guests ("boring white men," she said), she picked up a glass and threatened the entire room: "You would love it if I broke my glass, stabbed you guys in the throat, and blood would squirt everywhere like some real Tarantino shit." When Banks went to throw the glass, Crowe picked her up and carried her out of the room, and she was removed from the hotel by security. Banks alleged that Crowe assaulted her, but the LA District Attorney's office came to the conclusion that his use of force was "justified to prevent the imminent violence threatened by Banks."
Banks went on more than a couple talk shows to tell her side of the story, but the most damning judgement came from RZA, who posted a statement on Facebook about the bizarre incident that ended with: "I have a wife, daughters, sisters and females on my staff so I protect women everyday. I pray none of them ever behave the way I witnessed Azealia Banks behaved that night."
05. Liam Gallagher Vs. Potato
Noel Gallagher is a potato. Haven't you heard? It's what Liam Gallagher has been saying all year! 2016 could have been beneficial to the Britpop group's legacy between the Supersonic documentary and the Be Here Now reissue, but with both brothers firmly entrenched in solo projects, they had plenty of time to snipe at each other.
Mostly, that meant Liam's admirable dedication to his potato tweet series throughout the year. And what great tweets they are! Every so often, he'd find an unflattering picture of Noel and caption it "POTATO," with little explanation. When pressed in a rare interview earlier this year, he admitted that it was mostly in good fun -- "We’re having a stand off, but it’s a funny one, we’re not putting in each other’s windows or messing with each other’s tires, trying to kill each other." -- but Noel doesn't seem particularly amused:
I guess it was about him staying relevant. If you’re him, what else is there to tweet about? How his spring/summer collections are doing for his clothing firm? I’m not sure that warrants a tweet. Should he ever climb out of the “where are they now” basket and grant you an interview, ask him. I’m sure you’ll get a typically fucking surreal answer.
Let us pray that the potato tweets never stop, or at least that they make up and get back together. Here's my favorite tater tweet. What's yours?
https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/754894689900359680
The jury's still out on what actually happened. In the days after the release of the Snapchat videos, there was some talk of legal action from Swift and some confusing smokescreens about communication laws, but the world largely moved onto much more terrifying things.
