Madonna to Oasis: Five musicians Paul McCartney took issue with
There aren’t many musicians who are universally loved, but Paul McCartney comes close. As one-half of the most successful songwriting partnership in history alongside John Lennon in The Beatles, he revolutionised bass playing and stood out as a dedicated family man, even as the personal lives of his former bandmates descended into chaotic, drug-fuelled turmoil. Since those days, McCartney has fronted Wings, enjoyed a stellar solo career, and remained a constant presence in popular culture.
It says all about McCartney’s undying legacy that he headlined Glastonbury in 2022 and was backed by a duo of prominent figures that his work with The Beatles and otherwise inspired. These were Dave Grohl and Bruce Springsteen, two long-time worldbeaters whose supporting presence aptly confirms the Liverpudlian’s hallowed status.
Outside of his musical exploits, McCartney has also endeared himself to the world by supporting just causes and keeping up to date with the latest rock trends. He often throws his support behind the hottest new acts, something that so many originally working-class superstars do not do once they’ve clawed their way to the summit, completely forgetting where they came from.
This portrayal of McCartney is admittedly one-sided. Like many of his peers, he can be quite disparaging about other artists when he wants to. But to his credit, McCartney often supports his criticisms with solid reasoning, but there have been numerous occasions where he has delivered scathing remarks about fellow musicians. What makes these verbal lashings particularly striking is his slightly bumbling demeanour and the fact that he often delivers them with a smile on his face, adding an unexpected sting to his words.
Musicians disliked by Paul McCartney:
Madonna
Although Paul McCartney typically supports his world-famous peers, he certainly had a lot to say about Madonna. In the 2015 book Conversations with McCartney, he made his misgivings about the ‘Like a Virgin’ star known.
He revealed that he was resentful of her eye-watering success, saying she’s treated like “a goddess” and heavily inferred that everyone else is just the sorry people. “It makes me realise how people are affected by media,” he said. “While you’re looking at her, from your little lowly room, on your little telly, you think she’s a goddess,” he added. “You give her all of that. She doesn’t even ask for it.”
“Once she’s on tour, she’s selling out 30,000, she’s a goddess,” he continued. “’Look at the clothes she wears. No wonder. It’s because she’s better than us. We are only mortal, we’ve got tellies, and I bet she never sits and watches telly.’ When you get out on tour, you’re a fellow god.”
While being so snide about Madonna might have seemed inexplicable, given that they inhabit different musical realms, the former Beatles man revealed that it all came from jealousy, something that’s cropped up intermittently in his career. He admitted that in the early 1990s, he saw the biggest stars, such as her and Michael Jackson, as direct rivals.
“The last tour in the ’90s, it was Madonna I was worried about,” he conceded. “If you’re in any way competitive it’s what you do. You look at the charts, see what they’ve sold. Well, let’s try and sell some more. It’s just life.”
Luckily, Madonna doesn’t care about what people think. She wouldn’t have gotten where she is without such boldness. She’s not even a great fan of The Beatles and much preferred Motown at the time.
Oasis
The Beatles spawned many bands closely following the decree of their handbook, and Oasis is one of the most greatly indebted to them. Given the influential Manchester group’s open deference to the Fab Four, you’d think that McCartney might be a fan, but for a long time, he wasn’t. Like many people, he took issue with their arrogance.
It all started in 1996 when Noel Gallagher told MTV that his band’s first two albums, Definitely Maybe and (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? qualified them as being better than The Beatles. While years later, he would claim he was high when he remarked, in 1997, McCartney made his thoughts about Oasis clear.
He said cuttingly: “They’re derivative, and they think too much of themselves. They mean nothing to me.”
McCartney later clarified his stance in 2001 when he spoke to Howard Stern. He maintained that he was originally optimistic about the ‘Live Forever’ group, but his opinion changed after Gallagher’s absurd claim. The former Beatles member also asserted that he didn’t badmouth Oasis “that much”.
He said: “I’ve just said they are slightly derivative”.
It’s all water under the bridge now, though. McCartney told GQ in 2016: “Oasis were young, fresh and writing good tunes. I thought the biggest mistake they made was when they said ‘We’re going to be bigger than The Beatles’. I thought ‘So many people have said that, and it’s the kiss of death.’”
The Rolling Stones
Do not be fooled by McCartney’s affable media personality. Like his late songwriting partner John Lennon, he is incredibly competitive, as the previous Madonna comments clearly confirm. This nature has no boundaries, with him also turning it on his long-term friends and London’s counterpart to his old band, The Rolling Stones.
McCartney caused a furore in 2021 when he compared the Fab Four and the ‘Paint it Black’ outfit, not-so-subtly deriding their work. “I’m not sure I should say it, but [The Rolling Stones] are a blues cover band, that’s sort of what the Stones are,” he said. “I think our net was cast a bit wider than theirs.”
To be fair to McCartney, that wasn’t the first time he’d made such a point; it was just the first time the world listened. “The Stones are a fantastic group,” he told Howard Stern in 2020. “They are rooted in the blues. When they are writing stuff, it has to do with the blues. Whereas we had a little more influences. There’s a lot of differences, and I love the Stones, but The Beatles were better.”
The Rolling Stones frontman, Mick Jagger, was unbothered by McCartney’s comments. He graciously asked his old friend to collaborate on a track for 2023’s Hackney Diamonds and, speaking to Zane Lowe, noted that there’s “obviously no competition” between the two. However, he outlined that his band are a stadium outfit, and The Beatles’ forte was the studio.
Phil Collins
Genesis legend Phil Collins has a long history with The Beatles. From being inspired by them when young to featuring as a teenage extra in A Hard Day’s Night and even working with George Harrison on All Things Must Pass, it’s safe to say some of his greatest life experiences have been affected by the Liverpudlian quartet.
As if being omitted from All Things Must Pass wasn’t enough to make him lose sleep for the rest of his life, his cruel treatment at the hands of Paul McCartney after becoming a world-famous star still irks him to this day.
It occurred in 2002 at Buckingham Palace, one of the least rock ‘n’ roll places on earth. In 2016, Collins painfully recalled to The Sunday Times: “I met him when I was working at the Buckingham Palace party back in 2002. McCartney came up with Heather Mills and I had a first edition of The Beatles, by Hunter Davies, and I said, ‘Hey, Paul, do you mind signing this for me?’ And he said, ‘Oh, Heather, our little Phil’s a bit of a Beatles fan’. And I thought, ‘You fuck, you fuck’. Never forgot it.”
The bitter Collins continued: “He has this thing when he’s talking to you, where he makes you feel [like], ‘I know this must be hard for you because I’m a Beatle. I’m Paul McCartney and it must be very hard for you to actually be holding a conversation with me.’”
Word travels fast, and the comments soon made their way back to McCartney. In a separate interview, Collins said the former Beatle had been in touch with him, and instead of an apology, it was more of a message for them both to forget the incident and get on with their lives.
Collins told Billboard that he was sorry he upset McCartney but asserted that he felt compelled to discuss his attitude because otherwise it wouldn’t improve. Good on him.
Michael Jackson
Even as a child star, Michael Jackson was a contemptible figure. Unluckily for Paul McCartney, he encountered the pop star at his peak.
It all started when MJ’s cover of Wings’ ‘Girlfriend’ was included on 1979’s Off the Wall. This then led to the pair dueting on ‘The Girl is Mine’ in 1982, a classic from Jackson’s most iconic album, Thriller. The following year, the pair converged for ‘Say Say Say’ and ‘The Man’ from McCartney’s solo album, Pipes of Peace.
However, during the recording sessions for ‘Say Say Say’, the happy partnership hit the rocks. Allegedly, this road to oblivion started when, in conversation, McCartney advised Jackson to invest his incredible wealth into music publishing.
On August 14th, 1985, Jackson did the dirty on Macca. He obtained the publishing rights to the majority of The Beatles’ back catalogue from parent company ATV for $47 million. Making things worse, McCartney had not been receiving his share of Beatles royalties since 1969 due to the mismanagement of his and Lennon’s publishing company, Northern Songs.
That year, McCartney even planned a bid to buy back the rights to what was his; however, Jackson, who was the world’s biggest star, pulled the rug from under him. He didn’t stand a chance. Understandably, McCartney was both stunned and outraged by Jackson’s insidious manoeuvring. He said, “I think it’s dodgy to do something like that.”
Macca then concluded: “To be someone’s friend, and then buy the rug they’re standing on.”
Jackson mainly remained silent on the matter, but let slip about it in the 1989 autobiography Moonwalk. He claimed: “Paul and I both learned the hard way about business” and the “importance of publishing and royalties and the dignity of songwriting.”
