Musical feuds—hip-hop, indie rock, Celtic folk singers, whatever—are very petty and very fun, a pleasant respite from weightier conflicts in which we get to imagine our favorite artists talking shit about each other in private, a wonderfully flawed and human thing to do. Unfortunately, however, today does not mark the birth of an exciting new beef.
It certainly looked like it would, given that earlier today Mac DeMarco released a single called “Nobody” off of his new album Here Comes The Cowboy—a seeming ripoff of fellow indie darling Mitski’s song “Nobody” off of her 2018 album Be The Cowboy. Asked for comment by Pitchfork, DeMarco’s reps said that DeMarco hadn’t heard Mitski’s album when he made his own, and only found out about the parallels after setting the song titles for the release.
This was not enough to satiate a vocal contingent of Mitski fans on Twitter, however, prompting Mitski herself to step in and clarify that she and Mac are totally cool, and even share a publicity team:
Anyway, if you’re looking for two musicians who genuinely hate each other with enough venom to sustain you through the workday, most of the best rock rivalries are actually between members of the same band. Might we recommend the bitter antipathy between Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan and ex-bassist D’Arcy Corden, or the tumultuous saga of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac?
You can listen to Mac DeMarco and Mitski’s “Nobody” songs below.