Courtney Love has shared her thoughts on Beyoncé, Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift - and the fandom isn't best pleased...
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Ex-Hole frontwoman Courtney Love has no love for the likes of Taylor Swift or Beyoncé, it turns out.
In a new interview with British outlet The Evening Standard, Love was promoting her BBC Radio eight-part series, titled ‘Courtney Love’s Women’ - which launched this month.
The 59-year-old rocker, who has lived in London since 2019, expressed her admiration for artists such as Nina Simone, Patti Smith, PJ Harvey, Debbie Harry, and Joni Mitchell.
However, some contemporary artists are not to Love’s liking...
“It’s great that there are so many successful women in the music industry, but lots of them are becoming a cliché,” Love explained. “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.”
The singer and widow of Kurt Cobain didn’t have glowing words for Beyoncé's new album 'Cowboy Carter'.
"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."
Fair enough, as the acclaimed album from Beyoncé, who recently became the first Black woman to top the country charts in the US, hasn’t been to everyone’s liking – we here at Euronews Culture had contrasting opinions.
Love also had a swing at Lana Del Rey...
"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," Love continued.
The came the big blow.
Love added that Taylor Swift is "is not important" and noted that she "might be a safe space for girls, and she's probably the Madonna of now, but she's not interesting as an artist."
As you can imagine, Swifties are not impressed – especially as they’re gearing up to receive Swift’s 11th album, 'The Tortured Poets Department', which drops this Friday (19 April).
One X user commented: “I guess the biggest artist in the world. The one with the most streams. The most sales. The biggest tour. The highest chart placements. The most impact. Is somehow… 'not important.' Okay Courtney…”
Another wrote: "Said courtney love, who hasn’t been important since the 90s."
“100 years from now, the name Courtney Love will mean nothing. Not a single person will know who she is. But when Taylor Swift is mentioned, people will remember how she was able to connect with millions of people thru her music, cherished her fans, and fought for artists’ rights.”
Not that online rage is going to bother Love.
ADVERTISEMENTIn the same interview, she acknowledged that she had “always wanted to be known as a bitch”.
“Being liked was never my thing,” she said. “Kurt (Cobain) wanted to be liked but not me... 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.”
Not sure about the whole Kurt wanting to be liked, Courtney, but you do you.
In the meantime, Taylor Swift’s 'The Tortured Poets Department' is released on Friday 19 April – stay tuned to Euronews Culture for our first-listen review. You can check out our review of Beyoncé’s 'Cowboy Carter' album here.
