Courtney Love, the grunge rock icon, recently spoke to The Standard, a British news and commentary outlet. During the interview, Love ripped into Taylor Swift and Beyonce, among other singers. Particularly, Love argued that Swift just is not interesting as a musical artist. As background, Love is the former singer for Hole, a platinum-selling rock band. She’s also the widow of Kurt Cobain.
Love’s comments on the matter came when she was discussing with The Standard the role and position of women in the entertainment industry and how now so much is so similar that the artists seem “cliche,” saying, “It’s great that there are so many successful women in the music industry, but lots of them are becoming a cliché.”
Continuing on that point, she said they all seem cloned, telling The Standard, “Now, every successful woman is cloned, so there is just too much music. They’re all the same. If you play something on Spotify, you get bombarded with a lot of stuff that’s exactly the same.”
Continuing, she gave the example of Beyonce’s foray into country music, saying that it’s just not good. She said, “I mean, I like the idea of Beyoncé doing a country record because it’s about Black women going into spaces where previously only white women have been allowed, not that I like it much. As a concept, I love it. I just don’t like her music.”
That’s when Love got to the point in the interview that will infuriate the “Swifties,” as she explained why she doesn’t think Taylor deserves the attention she gets. Saying as much, Love told The Standard, “Taylor is not important. She might be a safe space for girls, and she’s probably the Madonna of now, but she’s not interesting as an artist.”
She even commented negatively about Lana Del Rey, saying, “I haven’t liked Lana since she covered a John Denver song, and I think she should really take seven years off. Up until ‘Take Me Home Country Roads’ I thought she was great. When I was recording my new album, I had to stop listening to her as she was influencing me too much.” Then she had some negative comments about Madonna as well, telling The Standard, “I don’t like her and she doesn’t like me. I loved Desperately Seeking Susan, but for the city of New York as much as her.”
She also spoke about being “difficult,” saying, “People used to say that I was so difficult. They said I was disagreeable. Yes, I am completely disagreeable and I’m never going to apologise for that. I always wanted to be known as a bitch. Being liked was never my thing. Kurt wanted to be liked but not me. He was able to hide behind me, but then I got hated.”
She added, “Then Kurt died, and the hatred towards me reached a completely new level. I did not plan for that. I’m all for taking my wiener out on stage, like Jim Morrison did. If I had a wiener and I was drunk enough, I would have totally taken it out, just like Jim. I had a bitch capacity and I was cool with not being liked. I saw Bob Dylan in Don’t Look Back and he didn’t want to be liked and I thought, yeah, I want to be like that.“
Love’s understanding of Taylor would conflict with that of Harvard professor Stephanie Burt, who is running a class on Taylor Swift and, explaining why, said, “It is [Swift’s] world and we live in it, and I think her art makes the world that we live in better and more interesting.” Watch Burt explain the class and her view of Swift here
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