All month long you’ve been bombarded with year-end lists ranking the best albums of the year, songs of the year and the like. Here at Vs., however, we decided to give you a more unique year-end list; the year’s biggest music beefs. Feuding musicians is nothing new to rock and roll, but the advent of the Internet and sites like Twitter give artists an easy platform to take shots at each other—and we get to watch it all happen in real time. So without further ado, the music world’s biggest beefs of 2011:
4. Bon Iver vs. The Avalanches
This one all started back in February, when The New York Times held an interview with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. There was an unpublished excerpt in the interview regarding the GRAMMYs, where Vernon called them “ridiculous” and “not important,” and also slammed any artist who was hoping to win a GRAMMY. But after Bon Iver was nominated for four GRAMMY awards, the unpublished excerpts leaked online. Electronic group The Avalanches took offense to these comments, especially since Vernon is appearing in ads for Bushmills whiskey. The band said via Twitter, “a musicians ‘art is compromised’ if he/she desires a grammy .but endor$ing a product with proven devastating health risks is ok? a product which kills 100k p/a in the US alone..man kids look up to you. #rememberwhenitwascoolNOTtosellout.” While the Avalanches do bring up some good points about the dangers of alcohol and how Vernon’s appearance in the ads might possibly affect the younger members of his fan base, their comments about selling out seem a bit over dramatic. With record sales dwindling it’s become common practice for indie artists to license their music for advertisements in order to make a living. Artists like The Black Keys, Vampire Weekend and countless others have done so in recent years while maintaining their artistic integrity. Our advice to the Avalanches? Quit trying to pick fights with other bands and finish your second album already! We’ve only been waiting eleven years….
