Courtney Love has always been one to speak her mind – and that’s evidently not about to change any time soon.
The outspoken rock legend recently opened up about her views on the state of modern music in a new interview with the Evening Standard, and did not hold back when it came to her thoughts on the biggest pop stars of the moment.
While she praised legends like of Patti Smith, Nina Simone and PJ Harvey, she had less complimentary words for pop fave Taylor Swift.
“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 shared.
The Celebrity Skin singer’s comments came after she described Taylor as an “aspirational huge role model for many young women” in a birthday message back in 2021.
Elaborating on her always-rocky relationship with Madonna, the Hole singer declared: “I don’t like her and she doesn’t like me.”
She also remarked of the Queen of Pop: “I loved Desperately Seeking Susan, but for the city of New York as much as her.”
Courtney, who was married to Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain until his death in 1994, said that she’s even gone off Lana Del Rey since the Video Games singer released her version of Take Me Home Country Roads last December.
Last year, Courtney described Lana – with whom she went on tour in 2015 – as a “true musical genius” comparable with her late husband while speaking on Marc Maron’s podcast WTF.
However, she’s apparently had a bit of a change of heart.
“I haven’t liked Lana since she covered a John Denver song, and I think she should really take seven years off,” Courtney revealed. “Up until then, she had “thought [Lana] was great”.
She explained: “When I was recording my new album, I had to stop listening to her as she was influencing me too much.”
While Courtney admitted it was “great that there are so many successful women in the music industry”, she thinks that “lots of them are becoming a cliché”
Turning her focus to Beyoncé, Courtney explained that while she “loves” the “concept” of her new country album Cowboy Carter, “because it’s about Black women going into spaces where previously only white women have been allowed”, she simply said that “I just don’t like her music.”
Courtney, who first rose to fame in the early 90s with her band Hole, was speaking around the launch of her new BBC Sounds podcast series Courtney Love’s Women.
Elsewhere in the interview, Courtney confessed that she was “completely disagreeable and I’m never going to apologise for that”.
She added: “I always wanted to be known as a bitch.”
Beyoncé’s recent record has soared to the top of the country charts, while Taylor is preparing to release her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, on Friday.
Meanwhile, Lana is gearing up to headline Coachella for a second weekend this Friday, and Madonna will be wrapping up her career-spanning Celebration tour with what’s been billed as the “biggest show of her career” in Brazil next month.