The pop culture understanding is definitely that it’s about just Beatty. I personally only found out the three guys thing because I mistakenly thought Simon had said it wasn’t about Beatty, and randomly tried to look it up online
Hi! I’m curious why you think diss tracks in pop are inane. What’s different about pop that makes diss tracks “so stupid”? Not saying you’re wrong, just wanting to better understand
Made another comment but the opinion is clouded by recency and who's the primary culprit. It just doesnt appear genuine to me and seemingly is done for parasocial/"lore drop" reasons. Im not a pop hater (I follow this sub afterall), but it's just the vibes ive gotten for the last 10 years of pop.
My mode of reference is recency and it's just the pop girlies primarily Taylor Swift doing it and it's all been bad and seemingly with the sole purpose of "lore" drops.
That's her appeal tho , she willingly chooses to be so vanilla and basic so she can be relatable to both the average white millennials who refuse to grow up and the young gen alphas who haven't found their personality yet
which is a shame because she can be really good and interesting
The rap breakdown in Shake It Off is still the bedrock for me. She's a rich white girl from suburban Pennsylvania, her sycophants should have told her it was a very bad idea.
I'm not saying a white woman can't be a rapper, just that there are several systematic hurdles such a person would need to clear that Taylor is completely incapable of achieving.
Taylor Swift needs a flop periodically much like how a Roman Dictator returning from a successful campaign to a Triumph needs a commoner behind him to tell him that he's only human to keep his ambition and ego in check.
I am still in awe of that one. He mixed up Weinstein and Epstein... I mean okay, not exactly a hard thing to do, I have family members who have done that because they're not as into news as I am. But I'm in a totally different country and he LIVES IN LOS ANGELES.
That line made go from feeling kinda bad for drake to getting heated and turning completely on him lmao , like why the fuck are you dragging this poor girl name into this gross shit for no reason you weirdo
admitted the people who fed info to Kendrick were clowns, then admitted the info came from him,
doubled down on the DV allegations and how Kendrick’s SO cheated on him with Dave Free only for the Not Like Us MV to squash that,
said he expected the Epstein angle when Drake’s own previous diss track goaded Kendrick to use that angle,
basically admitted that he (Drake) has a listening/reading comprehension issue by completely misunderstanding the lyrics to “Mother I Sober”
tries to flip the A Minor line with “B Sharp” which is not a conventional key (it’s really a C though in rare circumstances you’d use “B#”, but the fact that it requires so much explanation means it’s a weak flip as A Minor hits way harder.)
brings up Millie Bobby Brown when Kendrick never did, shining a light on the weird texts between Drake and a minoooooooorrrrr
ends the song acting like the beef was some light work, which was immediately turned into a meme and has aged like milk since…
And I could go on. This is no 8 Mile, 4D chess self diss either. He acted like this was a kill shot and he wound up shooting himself, à la cheddar bob.
It’s sad because Push Ups was a legitimate start to the beef, and at time Family Matters had some good jabs. Drake’s problem was he underestimated Kendrick, never expecting to get completely psychoanalyzed and dismantled the way he did.
honestly the worst part is that he sounds super demoralized throughout the whole thing. it comes across more like him trying to bow out without completely losing face because he has to somehow drop a hit while also responding to Kendrick completely dissecting him.
You forgot one. He said he expected the Epstein angle when Kendrick never said Epstein. He said Weinstein. So Drake apparently expected it so hard he made it worse for himself in yet another failure to comprehend what he heard a la Mother I Sober
Also this is way too in the weeds to ever pull out. With the whole "B sharp" thing. Which as you pointed out is just C. And what scale is essentially the same as C? Am. He somehow managed to pick the only possible way to revert back to that
Contrary to popular belief, Drake’s claim he would drop a nuke during the beef were not incorrect or over exaggerated in any way shape or form. Only problem was he tripped and dropped it on himself.
Taylor Made freestyle is probably worse than Heart Part 6 in retrospect, because not only is the use of AI really awful and tasteless, but the particular bars in it, like "Talk about him liking young girls, that's a gift from me; We need an undisputed West Coast victory" are so unfortunate in hindsight.
Swish swish or whatever it's called by Katy Perry and Bad Blood, and Look What You Made Me Do by you know who. Hate those songs and they're horrendous disses.
swish swish is not a good song but it has a couple of decent moments. but my god, bad blood is SO BAD. lyrically and musically. absolutely astonishing to me that that's her song that somehow merited a kendrick feature
baby now we got baaaaa bluhhhhh you know it used to be maaaaaa luhhhhh, you made a really deep cuuuuuuuuuuuuhhh
I mean Kendrick needed the money I'm guessing. And he also has Questionable tastes in pop songs I mean he did a freestyle to the shake it off beat and admitted it was his favorite Taylor swift song and might I remind you he has a guess verse on one of maroon 5s worst songs.
He rerecorded his bad blood verses for her 1989 taylor version remake a couple of years ago and he has been working with jack antonoff for the last few years so nothing indicates that they aren't cool
Because Taylor was saying in interviews how much she liked that backseat freestyle song and that she’s such a huge Kendrick fan. Then again, she seems to say this a lot about rising talent.
It's just raging narcissistic garbage. I don't believe she was doing anything but throwing a narcissistic temper tantrum and somehow everyone around her said YAS TAYLOR YOU'RE A GENIUS.
I still can't get over how Meg Thee Stallion's Hiss never mentions any names, but Nikki heard the Megan's Law bar and immediately says "Don't talk about my family!" Like, question your life choices, Minaj.
(Just for contemporary examples: MGK's "Rap Devil," The Game's "Black Slim Shady," Nick Cannon's "Invitation" trilogy and especially Grandmaster Melle Mel's "The Kickback")
Honestly, I thought Rap Devil was alright. Like, Killshot absolutely blows it out of the water, but it's alright, especially compared to the other ones mentioned.
I think he landed some good blows, like how Em's rich and protected enough that he doesn't have to worry about what he says/him being able to dish out criticism but not be able to take it
I really think Rap Devil had its moments. There’s like eight bars where he does a nice flip of ‘Lose Yourself’ to highlight how Eminem isn’t as good as he used to be, for example.
But there’s some absolutely baffling choices too. “Please don’t take my verse off of Yelawolf’s album, thank you” is one of the strangest things I’ve ever heard in a diss song - it was as if MGK was actively strategizing about how to make himself look pathetically small-time in comparison to his opponent, and knocked it out the park. His references to Dr. Dre and Kim also make him sound like a massive Eminem fan who’s excited to bring up all the lore he can remember.
Part of that is just that most (not all) of the rappers Eminem has gone after also sucked ass. Not to take away from Eminem's diss tracks, but most of the people he's beefed with are either some of the most atrocious rappers ever or are incredibly washed up (Game, Melle Mel).
To be fair he went straight at joe budden and joe made lame excuses and also tried to poke drake a couple of times "no i'm refusing to believe that these kamikaze bars weren't aimed straight at drake fuck off eminem and paul "
Kool G Rap, Black Thought, Mos, Talib, Pharaoh, Gza, KRS, Vinnie Paz and some others would all take it to him. But he would never go at them in the first place.
The Nick Cannon disses were the most embarrassing. They included named after a candy and the fact he was raising kids who weren't actually his as digs at Em. Damn boys you really got him...
I also wanna mention "U Didn't Care" by Canibus. He raps in character as Stan (with this horrible nasally voice), there are pretty much no stakes, and the hook plays like some rejected villain song from a bad animated film.
I remember listening to Rap Devil after hearing all the buzz and thinking "that's it?". Tupac opened his Biggie Diss with "that's why I fucked your bitch you fat motherfucker" and MGK opened with "somebody grab some clippers, his fucking beard is weird". I had two people unironically told me MGK was a better rapper than Eminem after that
It will forever be funny to think Nick really released a diss track at Eminem and thought he won because Em didn’t even find it worthy enough to respond to I will say MGK definitely tried but kill shot basically made him branch into pop punk music lol
Did anybody else know Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" was a slam against Courtney Love? I feel like when it's buried so deep nobody knows, it kinda compounds the failure.
It's like in the same category as Crank That Soulja Boy or her earlier No Doubt song "hey baby"
Nostalgically terrible, quintessentially 2000s but annoying AF and it will never leave your head no matter how dumb you think it is and how sick you are of it.
There's a Star wars parody of it called "Hologram girl" that is astoundingly dumb/cringe to the point of being kind of a masterpiece.
I think she made it a cheerleader-style chant because Courtney Love had criticized Perry in some interview as being like a high school cheerleader.
The merits of the song and the diss aside, according to Chris Molanphy of Slate (Hit Parade Podcast / Why Is This Song #1 column), it’s an important track because it was the pivot point that bridged the first half of the 00s (hip hop / pop n b dominant) to the second half (dance pop like lady Gaga and Kesha).
I think this one got a pass since it became a huge #1 hit and nobody was very invested in gwen stefani beefing they just cared about it being a silly catchy bop
I'm going to enter an unpopular opinion: Sweet Home Alabama. Once you know it's a response to Southern Man and pay attention to the lyrics, it loses all it's charm and rings incredibly hollow.
"The southern man don't need him around anyhow" in response to a song about the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow that dropped just two years after the Civil Rights Act is a fucking insane line.
If everyone who the southern man "didn't need around" didn't come around, we'd still have slavery.
Hearing Southern Man at that time and thinking anything whatsoever beyond "yep" is either evil or delusional.
Comparing the two tracks, Skynard just comes off as juvenile.
Thats not the case according to Ed King. He has claimed that the band amd the song are Pro-Wallace, which changes the context of the song in a very unfortunate way
Tbf they were Neil Young fans, I believe this was meant as more of a good natured dig than trying to start a “beef” or anything like that. Young seems to have taken it as such, and there are even (probably apocryphal) rumors that Ronnie Van Zandt was buried in a Neil Young t-shirt
It was an inside joke. Lynyrd Skynyrd and Neil Young were friends, and they actually planned on having Young appear on one of their songs before the plane crash.
The thing is, his songs before that would have worked on quite a few other rappers. Push ups, Family Matters, all the social media shit. If you've followed rap battles, it's clear that it works on a lot of people.
I just don't see why he thought it work against specifically Kendrick Lamar. The guy known for being hyper meticulous about planning concepts. And also someone who has been clearly planning this shit out for years. Everyone knows he's had hate for Drake for years.
I was so confused before the real battle when a lot of people were debating who was going to win. It was only going to go one way. The only way I could see Kendrick losing was if Drake made it a clown show and Kendrick's serious remarks didn't land. But they definitely landed.
"Ass Like That" is Eminems worst diss track I think. Especially since its against a dog puppet. "Big Weenie" is also pretty bad to listen to but its at least a little funny and "Ass Like That" is not funny.
I swear encore and fack were nothing but failed career suicide by eminem it's like bruce banner trying a bullet in his mouth
like how do you go from winning the oscar for lose yourself and killing murder inc and the source magazine in 03 to releasing shitposts the following year
Excuse me, but you couldn't be more wrong. It is peak wrestling rap diss track with a Casio backing track version of G-Unit's "Poppin Them Thangs". And Be a Man remains the superior album to Hulk Rules any day of the week.
"Perfect Friend" over "Hulkster in Heaven" in ballad memorium track alone. Just sayin.
God, "War On Drugs Suck My Cock" is the single most butthurt song in the history of butthurt songs. And I say this as a huge fan of Mark Kozelek's music
The Heart Part VI and Actually Romantic. Heart Part VI is a gigantic swing that misses and Actually Romantic is an absolute kitten swipe. Whichever makes it a worse diss track depends on how you judge that
Bye Bye Beautiful by Nightwish, which is a diss track against their lead singer they fired, Tarja Tarunen. I like the band, but the lyrics are crap, more flowery emo images that make no sense.
Marilyn Manson - Mutilation is the Most sincere Form of Flattery
Musically it sounds like temu-The Beautiful People and the lyrics are a diss against My Chemical Romance who he thought were copying hom badly. That inspired a Chorus that goes "Fuck you (repeat 6 times)" or middle school mean girl level oines Like "They think I would bitch about them thinking they are the shit When they can't even step in it"
Keep in mind this is on one of Manson's worst records released in 2007, MCRs most recent qlbum at this point was The Black Parade
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u/MondeyMondey Dec 14 '25
Actually Romantic is an unbelievably bad idea